Leo Tolstoy's masterful novel ‘Anna Karenina' comes to screen for 13th time

Anna (Keira Knightley) abandons her unhappy marriage to Karenin (Jude Law), and begins a destructive love affair with Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) that eventually ends in her suicide In the latest film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina." (Working Title Films)

Published: Sunday, November 11, 2012 at 6:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, November 9, 2012 at 7:52 p.m.

William Faulkner called it the best novel ever written. Ernest Hemingway believed that anyone who wanted to be a writer had to read it.


'Anna Karenina' at a glance

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” — Opening sentence to “Anna Karenina”


Style: “Anna Karenina” is considered by many critics to be transitional, forming a bridge between the realist and modernist novel.

Perspective: The novel is narrated from a third-person-omniscient perspective.

Tolstoy considered Anna Karenina his first true novel.
Time magazine declared “Anna Karenina” the “greatest novel ever written” in 2007.
Source: Wikipedia

More than a century since Leo Tolstoy penned the lives of an adulterous Russian princess and her fellow aristocrats, “Anna Karenina” still begs to be told.

The novel, published as a series from 1873 to 1877, has been adapted for the screen 12 times since its publication. The most recent adaptation, directed by British director Joe Wright, hits American theaters on Friday.

In the 130-minute film, Keira Knightley plays the beautiful Russian socialite Anna as she abandons her unhappy marriage to Karenin (Jude Law), and begins a destructive love affair that eventually ends in her suicide.

Throughout the novel, Anna's life and the lives of those around her unravel as each character battles with the question of love and its forms — unrequited love, familial love and corrupted love. Often the relationship dynamics, such as that of Kitty and her families' constant search for a suitable husband for her, expose the truth behind Tolstoy's opening sentence, “Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

The intersecting stories of the characters in “Anna Karenina” can be taxing on young readers today, said Ron Cooper, associate professor of philosophy and humanities at the College of Central Florida, but Tolstoy's masterful language makes reading the cumbersome book worthwhile.

“If you want to be a literary novelist, there's a hell of a lot to learn from Tolstoy. This is an author who wrote perfect sentences, even in translation,” Cooper said. “This is going to stick with you, and is the reason (“Anna Karenina”) keeps being read in college classes.”

The novel tells a story that is still relevant today, said Stephanie Smith, who teaches English and American Studies at the University of Florida. If a group of men and women were polled, “Anna Karenina” would still resonate with women even though the story may be dated, Smith said.

“Even though we say we're equal today, there's still a double standard that exists,” said Smith. “More often than not, women pay a steep price for sexual independence.”

The novel raises a question that many prominent writers of Tolstoy's time felt needed to be addressed: What is the role of women in society and should it change?

During the late 1800s, women in Russia held very little power over their own lives. Husbands and fathers dictated what a woman could do. Women had no right to higher education, professions or even their own children.

Tolstoy's novel is “largely about jealousy and women who are being in some way stifled by society,” Cooper said. Women in the novel “try to push their boundaries, even though they weren't in a position of power to do so.”

Society, as depicted in “Anna Karenina,” pigeonholed women into certain roles. Karenin, Anna's deceived husband, expects Anna to be a loving, obedient wife and dutiful mother.

“The burden has changed, but there's still a large social expectation that women do it all – competent in the workplace, competent as a mother,” Smith said. “In a society where the family is paramount, it's largely the women (who) are keeping it together.”

The various marriages in “Anna Karenina” reflect this idea of a double standard. When Anna deceives her husband, the relationship falls apart, leads to Anna's ruin and her eventual suicide. However, when her brother Stiva commits adultery, his wife forgives him and the relationship lasts through the novel.

“You can't really separate class from gender issues,” said Cooper.

In the early 20th century, when the novel was first being praised, he said many of the readers were still very privileged. Now, Americans don't have to have a lot of money to go to college, and seem to be more attuned to class issues.

Smith disagrees, stating instead that at the time the novel was published the issue of women's rights was a hot topic. By the time American women gained the right to vote in 1920, there had been a growing effort by women in the United States, Russia, England and France to reach the same level as men.

“Many middle class Americans will look at (the novel) and see a world of Russian gentry that they really can't enter,” Cooper said. “But if they look past that, they will see that it is also a lesson.”

“Anna Karenina” is a lesson on war, ethnicity, society and class, and economics, he added. ever-changing climate of class and economics is constantly shaping the characters within the novel.

“We're really no different,” he said.


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