- "He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun without looking." (Levin at Kitty) - "He looked at her as a man looks at a faded flower he has plucked, in which he can barely recognise the beauty that made him pluck and destroy it." (Vronsky at Anna) I understand where Emma is coming from but Tolstoy's writing is not dry.
The discussion about Tolstoy’s writing and description is so interesting. I think I sit in the middle but more towards Carolyn’s opinion about how he writes to show you how things feel. I completely felt that. So many times reading it I wrote down that I couldn’t believe that this reflected my own feelings in modern life. It is definitely a thing that I enjoy but I didn’t even realise that there was no description of where they were when the characters were in the city. It didn’t even come to mind but now I want it more!
I like the way Tolstoy writes which touched my heart and I could really feel what the characters felt. He uses simple and not fanciful language and long sentences like Dickens, yet his words are powerful and influential enough.
Thank you both, I enjoyed that. I think a person's personality type (MBTI) / cognitive stacking has a big impact on which authors they prefer - it effects taste; though someone can still appreciate the genius of another author, sometimes they are not their cup of tea :)
@@mawley3266 As you probably know, the whole Jungian personality typology theory is a bit of a rabbit warren one can get lost in. But specifically, about literature and authors in general, including Dickens and Tolstoy, there is a thread in a forum at personality café "INFP literature vs. INFJ literature". Generally though, I just think if a reader has the same cognitive functions as the writer the book resonates more, and is more enjoyable, but if they don't then it can get a bit boring, empty, or even annoying... maybe?
It might also be relevant to indicate your personality types here as well. It seems to me--and this is only a cursory observation, so I'm certainly open to correction or further details--that Emma is something of a rationalist and Carolyn is a romantic here. That will color their personal choices immensely. Both viewpoints are absolutely just. Just an observation, eh?
Levin was my favorite character and his journey of faith. I agree it is one of my favorite Russian Lit books. I have to say Dickens is my very favorite author. Tolstoy is second and Dostoevsky is third for favorite male classic authors. I’m definitely a Dickensian fan. To me nobody writes characters like Dickens but I’m a very character driven reader. I also love Dickens humor..and his characters to me are unforgettable. I don’t feel that way about Tolstoy. But Tolstoy so admired Dickens and I heard he had a Portrait of Dickens overhead wherever he wrote. Interesting to me.
The translation makes a huge difference. Anna Karenina with Bartlett translation & notes make you think it was an English language novel first. Beautifully done.
I love Tolstoy (Anna) so far, haven’t read Dickens yet. But have to agree with Emma, he tells us not show us. I love learning about the characters through conversations and hearing their thoughts. But I miss the setting description, I have been to Moscow and St Petersburg and I would have loved to read how it was back then. But I rather have deep character development than setting descriptions. I am a psychologist so I love analysing the characters and their evolution
I'm excited about this debate because I feel like we get two different points of view, which makes me think about both authors more deeply (only read Dickens not Tolstoy YET!).
I read Ana Karenina like 7 years ago but watching this live show (and seeing AK everywhere on booktube) makes me want to reread it. hopefully I will soon 😊. thanks for your dedication, you're both wonderful and with such calming presence and voices
Anna paid the ultimate price for her sin, though as a voluntary act of despair. Her brother, Stiva, gets away with it because he's a high-status man, but also because he's such a charming, happy-go-lucky rascal, and he can't help it, chicks really dig him!
I read A. Karenina last year. I was really disapointed. I mean, it's a good book but I was expecting to see more of Anna. And then, she's gone just like that. I guess it was my fault I was expecting to read about a strong and independent woman. Great arguments from both of you.🤗🤗
One thing I had a hard time with was the negative downward spiral montage before Anna kills herself. You could see it coming a mile away. I think it would have worked better if Tolstoy would have developed the downward spiral slowly, and instead of a montage type thing, have it be more like a light switch. All of a sudden the light clicks on, and Anna jumps.
I’m late to the party but just finished Anna K and loved watching your discussion. It adds so much to the reading experience! I read that a lot of the contrast in the book is also made to symbolise the move from traditionalism / conservatism to liberalism in Russia at that time. This is also reflected in a lot of the characters finding themselves in a period of transition or dilemma. Anna literally has a schism inside her mind. Also re positive parenting figures in Dickens, I would like to put forward Joe from Great Expectations! One of my favourite characters of all time 🥰 not a biological father to Pip but definitely a loving and caring parental figure!
Listening to this, i just looked at a plant i bought 6 years ago when I moved to London, it has grown x5 times the size since, now my husband and I have decided to move to Barcelona, within half a year. I am looking at this plant now and its dying, i dont know why, i have treated it the same way i always have, its super tough and has survived non watering for 2 months when i was away. Maybe an example of Foreshadowing in real life? My London chapter is ending, im moving on, my London baby plant is dying slowly. Crazy thought i had whilst listening for to this
I think the difference at the end is Levin met God through acceptance and trust, instead of self enslaving into (to) a system. Levin's Church now is based on love, and less on rules.
Kitty is very sweet and caring, but simply not that deep. Levin had some growing up to do. Tolstoy reveals much more of the psychology and inner emotional journey of his characters, extending even to Laska, Levin's hunting retriever. Leo must have really loved his dogs!
Family life is too intimate to be preserved by the spirit of justice. It can be sustained by a spirit of love which goes beyond justice. Reinhold Niebuhr
Love so many of the classics but I did not like AK. Thought it was dull and so overly detailed in areas. Was so disappointed in the book and experience.
With the name Shcherbatsky, of course you're not supposed to be a real devoted fan of Tolstoy...just kidding about the characters of his greatest novel...you know...
Leo Tolstoy is way better than Charles Dickens. He has two books in the top ten books of all time. Dickens doesn't come into the list until the 60s of the top 100. My problem with Anna Karenina is that if a girl with Bi-Polar issues wants to avoid stability and morals she is likely to find that men can't be there to straighten her brain out before she kills herself with crazy thought due to her worry. Only a rich stable man can be there all the time for her. Mind you in today's world that girl could just sleep around and not even bother leaving the stability. What I wanted was Kitty to actually be tempted with infidelity and yet before the deed finds she is pregnant and then goes to Moscow. Then I want Levin to get angry that he is spending money in excess in Moscow yet suddenly realize Anna is interested in sex with him due to worry of her man being out of love with her due to her Bi-Polar brain and so she tries to win him. This would be more in keeping with the Anna Karenina I know anyway. So Levin suddenly wants to keep spending money and stay in Moscow, but then relents realizing he loves his wife and doesn't want to wreck the other guy's situation. The story ends with Anna as it does in the real story after that and Levin is riding to his country home realizing what he admires in all those with morals is their Christianity and as he runs into his home he is looking for his parents' old Bible. As it stands "ANNA KARENINA" comes in at #47, but had the book ended the way I'm thinking it should have then maybe it would have been in the top 20. Since it is written as it is, I still think Ivan Turgenev is the greatest author of all time. MY TOP FIFTY (50) BOOKS "The Holy Bible: King James Version" copyright 1967 1) "Verbal Behavior" by Dr. B. F. Skinner 2) "Resurrection" by Leo Tolstoy 3) "The Idiot" by Fyodor Dostoevsky 4) "Fathers and Sons" by Ivan Turgenev 5) Myth Adventures - series by Robert Asprin 6) The Chronicles of Narnia - series by C. S. Lewis 7) "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy 8) "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 9) "Smoke" by Ivan Turgenev 10) "Roots" by Alex Haley 11) The Silmarillion - The Hobbit, or there and back again - The Lord of the Rings - Middle Earth stories by J. R. R. Tolkien 12) Foundation Series - Isaac Asimov 13) "Eugene Onegin" by Alexander Pushkin 14) "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky 15) "Paris 1919: six months that changed the world" by Margaret MacMillian 16) "Virgin Soil" by Ivan Turgenev 17) "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen 18) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn - by Mark Twain 19) Old Mother West Wind series - wildlife series by Thornton Burgess 20) "Microbe Hunters" by Paul de Kruif 21) "Cancer Ward" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 22) "Kon Tiki" by Thor Heyerdahl 23) "From Beirut to Jerusalem" by Thomas Friedman 24) "The Berdine Un-Theory of Evolution: and Other Scientific Studies Including Hunting, Fishing, and Sex" by William C. Berdine 25) "The Painted Bird" by Jerzy Kosiński 26) "Interview with the Vampire" by Anne Rice 27) "Torrents of Spring" by Ivan Turgenev 28) "Mere Christianity" by C. S. Lewis 29) "Emma" by Jane Austen 30) "In the First Circle" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 31) The Beatrix Potter books - animal story series by Beatrix Potter 32) "27" or "Siebenundzwanzig" by William Diehl 33) "A River Runs Through It" by Norman Maclean 34) "Les Misérables" by Victor Hugo 35) "Winnie the Pooh" by A. A. Milne 36) "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott 37) "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank 38) "Papillon" by Henri Charrière 39) "The Onion Field" by Joseph Wambaugh 40) "Silas Marner" by George Eliot 41) "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven Levitt 42) "The Black Tulip" by Alexandre Dumas 43) "A Child called 'It"" by Dave Pelzer 44) "Life on the Mississippi" by Mark Twain 45) "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos 46) "Cloud Atlas" by David Mitchell 47) "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy 48) “Red Dragon” by Thomas Harris 49) "First Love" by Ivan Turgenev 50) “Sense and Sensibility” by Jane Austen
CarolynMarieReads, thank you for pointing out reality about the viewpoints. This is indeed why "Anna Karenina" is better than "Jude the Obscure" in regards to infidelity. The ending is so much better by Thomas Hardy, but the depth of vision of others through characters in the book made "Anna Karenina" so amazing to me. The real person I know, never left her husband, but cheats continually on him and he repairs their marriages and slogs through the wickedness of his Christian wife while as an atheist being a saint towards her.
![Eminem - Fuel (feat. JID) [Official Lyric Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/t5H_CewqpKA/mqdefault.jpg)
- "He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun without looking." (Levin at Kitty)
- "He looked at her as a man looks at a faded flower he has plucked, in which he can barely recognise the beauty that made him pluck and destroy it." (Vronsky at Anna)
I understand where Emma is coming from but Tolstoy's writing is not dry.
Can't justify it not to be dry by mentioning a few lines from a book that's actually above 300k words!
Carolyn is looking like the beautiful Anna in my imagination.
The discussion about Tolstoy’s writing and description is so interesting. I think I sit in the middle but more towards Carolyn’s opinion about how he writes to show you how things feel. I completely felt that. So many times reading it I wrote down that I couldn’t believe that this reflected my own feelings in modern life. It is definitely a thing that I enjoy but I didn’t even realise that there was no description of where they were when the characters were in the city. It didn’t even come to mind but now I want it more!
I like the way Tolstoy writes which touched my heart and I could really feel what the characters felt. He uses simple and not fanciful language and long sentences like Dickens, yet his words are powerful and influential enough.
Thank you both, I enjoyed that. I think a person's personality type (MBTI) / cognitive stacking has a big impact on which authors they prefer - it effects taste; though someone can still appreciate the genius of another author, sometimes they are not their cup of tea :)
Would you like to elaborate 👀
@@mawley3266 As you probably know, the whole Jungian personality typology theory is a bit of a rabbit warren one can get lost in. But specifically, about literature and authors in general, including Dickens and Tolstoy, there is a thread in a forum at personality café "INFP literature vs. INFJ literature". Generally though, I just think if a reader has the same cognitive functions as the writer the book resonates more, and is more enjoyable, but if they don't then it can get a bit boring, empty, or even annoying... maybe?
almond-butter smile: "Его тихие успокоительные речи и улыбки действовали смягчающе успокоительно, как миндальное масло." (part 4, chapter 21)
It might also be relevant to indicate your personality types here as well. It seems to me--and this is only a cursory observation, so I'm certainly open to correction or further details--that Emma is something of a rationalist and Carolyn is a romantic here. That will color their personal choices immensely. Both viewpoints are absolutely just. Just an observation, eh?
Levin was my favorite character and his journey of faith. I agree it is one of my favorite Russian Lit books. I have to say Dickens is my very favorite author. Tolstoy is second and Dostoevsky is third for favorite male classic authors. I’m definitely a Dickensian fan. To me nobody writes characters like Dickens but I’m a very character driven reader. I also love Dickens humor..and his characters to me are unforgettable. I don’t feel that way about Tolstoy. But Tolstoy so admired Dickens and I heard he had a Portrait of Dickens overhead wherever he wrote. Interesting to me.
The translation makes a huge difference. Anna Karenina with Bartlett translation & notes make you think it was an English language novel first.
Beautifully done.
I love Tolstoy (Anna) so far, haven’t read Dickens yet. But have to agree with Emma, he tells us not show us. I love learning about the characters through conversations and hearing their thoughts. But I miss the setting description, I have been to Moscow and St Petersburg and I would have loved to read how it was back then. But I rather have deep character development than setting descriptions. I am a psychologist so I love analysing the characters and their evolution
I'm excited about this debate because I feel like we get two different points of view, which makes me think about both authors more deeply (only read Dickens not Tolstoy YET!).
I read Ana Karenina like 7 years ago but watching this live show (and seeing AK everywhere on booktube) makes me want to reread it. hopefully I will soon 😊. thanks for your dedication, you're both wonderful and with such calming presence and voices
Anna paid the ultimate price for her sin, though as a voluntary act of despair. Her brother, Stiva, gets away with it because he's a high-status man, but also because he's such a charming, happy-go-lucky rascal, and he can't help it, chicks really dig him!
I read A. Karenina last year. I was really disapointed. I mean, it's a good book but I was expecting to see more of Anna. And then, she's gone just like that. I guess it was my fault I was expecting to read about a strong and independent woman. Great arguments from both of you.🤗🤗
Maybe you should read the book again after a few years (when you have accumulated more life-experience)
It was a bit of a bait and switch, but I wouldn't mind hanging out with country boy Levin in his hemp field. 😏
Totally agree - I absolutely can relate that when you read Anna Karenina you feel like you are home
One thing I had a hard time with was the negative downward spiral montage before Anna kills herself. You could see it coming a mile away. I think it would have worked better if Tolstoy would have developed the downward spiral slowly, and instead of a montage type thing, have it be more like a light switch. All of a sudden the light clicks on, and Anna jumps.
I’m late to the party but just finished Anna K and loved watching your discussion. It adds so much to the reading experience! I read that a lot of the contrast in the book is also made to symbolise the move from traditionalism / conservatism to liberalism in Russia at that time. This is also reflected in a lot of the characters finding themselves in a period of transition or dilemma. Anna literally has a schism inside her mind.
Also re positive parenting figures in Dickens, I would like to put forward Joe from Great Expectations! One of my favourite characters of all time 🥰 not a biological father to Pip but definitely a loving and caring parental figure!
Carolyn you are my absolute favorite! You also look so beautiful today.
Thank you for a really insightful discussion. Totally agree with how Dickens would certainly be way better with his later books!
I love this debate
Great job, ladies!
24:54 Didn't Tolstoy die at a railway station? He foreshadowed his own death kinda haha
you look beautiful, carolyn!!
Speaking of trains, are you planning on reading Dickens’s short story, The Signalman? It’s one of my favorite short stories.
Listening to this, i just looked at a plant i bought 6 years ago when I moved to London, it has grown x5 times the size since, now my husband and I have decided to move to Barcelona, within half a year. I am looking at this plant now and its dying, i dont know why, i have treated it the same way i always have, its super tough and has survived non watering for 2 months when i was away. Maybe an example of Foreshadowing in real life? My London chapter is ending, im moving on, my London baby plant is dying slowly. Crazy thought i had whilst listening for to this
What kind of plant is it?
I love Levin.
I think the difference at the end is Levin met God through acceptance and trust, instead of self enslaving into (to) a system. Levin's Church now is based on love, and less on rules.
Kitty is very sweet and caring, but simply not that deep. Levin had some growing up to do. Tolstoy reveals much more of the psychology and inner emotional journey of his characters, extending even to Laska, Levin's hunting retriever. Leo must have really loved his dogs!
Very very nice Sharing my dear respected friend full support & Big Likes from Ahmed Ali Nizamani..
Family life is too intimate to be preserved by the spirit of justice. It can be sustained by a spirit of love which goes beyond justice. Reinhold Niebuhr
I am rereading in English but I am learning in Russian and want to read it several times in Cyrillic
I love foreshadowing xxxxxxx
Emma's body language gives me a mean girl vibe.
Who says this book is a critique of "the system" or institutions?
A very slight dullness to the sunbeam, (shadow not shown in the first three shows) now, that's a bad word b
when is the next livestream?
33:00 I hated Levin and idc if i am alone in this.
Love so many of the classics but I did not like AK. Thought it was dull and so overly detailed in areas. Was so disappointed in the book and experience.
i do get foreshadowing...in real life.
but most of them are bad experiences, so.....
I haven’t heard anything very specific
With the name Shcherbatsky, of course you're not supposed to be a real devoted fan of Tolstoy...just kidding about the characters of his greatest novel...you know...
So many “likes”.
Leo Tolstoy is way better than Charles Dickens. He has two books in the top ten books of all time. Dickens doesn't come into the list until the 60s of the top 100. My problem with Anna Karenina is that if a girl with Bi-Polar issues wants to avoid stability and morals she is likely to find that men can't be there to straighten her brain out before she kills herself with crazy thought due to her worry. Only a rich stable man can be there all the time for her. Mind you in today's world that girl could just sleep around and not even bother leaving the stability.
What I wanted was Kitty to actually be tempted with infidelity and yet before the deed finds she is pregnant and then goes to Moscow. Then I want Levin to get angry that he is spending money in excess in Moscow yet suddenly realize Anna is interested in sex with him due to worry of her man being out of love with her due to her Bi-Polar brain and so she tries to win him. This would be more in keeping with the Anna Karenina I know anyway. So Levin suddenly wants to keep spending money and stay in Moscow, but then relents realizing he loves his wife and doesn't want to wreck the other guy's situation. The story ends with Anna as it does in the real story after that and Levin is riding to his country home realizing what he admires in all those with morals is their Christianity and as he runs into his home he is looking for his parents' old Bible.
As it stands "ANNA KARENINA" comes in at #47, but had the book ended the way I'm thinking it should have then maybe it would have been in the top 20. Since it is written as it is, I still think Ivan Turgenev is the greatest author of all time.
MY TOP FIFTY (50) BOOKS
"The Holy Bible: King James Version" copyright 1967
1) "Verbal Behavior" by Dr. B. F. Skinner
2) "Resurrection" by Leo Tolstoy
3) "The Idiot" by Fyodor Dostoevsky
4) "Fathers and Sons" by Ivan Turgenev
5) Myth Adventures - series by Robert Asprin
6) The Chronicles of Narnia - series by C. S. Lewis
7) "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy
8) "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
9) "Smoke" by Ivan Turgenev
10) "Roots" by Alex Haley
11) The Silmarillion - The Hobbit, or there and back again - The Lord of the Rings - Middle Earth stories by J. R. R. Tolkien
12) Foundation Series - Isaac Asimov
13) "Eugene Onegin" by Alexander Pushkin
14) "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky
15) "Paris 1919: six months that changed the world" by Margaret MacMillian
16) "Virgin Soil" by Ivan Turgenev
17) "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen
18) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn - by Mark Twain
19) Old Mother West Wind series - wildlife series by Thornton Burgess
20) "Microbe Hunters" by Paul de Kruif
21) "Cancer Ward" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
22) "Kon Tiki" by Thor Heyerdahl
23) "From Beirut to Jerusalem" by Thomas Friedman
24) "The Berdine Un-Theory of Evolution: and Other Scientific Studies Including Hunting, Fishing, and Sex" by William C. Berdine
25) "The Painted Bird" by Jerzy Kosiński
26) "Interview with the Vampire" by Anne Rice
27) "Torrents of Spring" by Ivan Turgenev
28) "Mere Christianity" by C. S. Lewis
29) "Emma" by Jane Austen
30) "In the First Circle" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
31) The Beatrix Potter books - animal story series by Beatrix Potter
32) "27" or "Siebenundzwanzig" by William Diehl
33) "A River Runs Through It" by Norman Maclean
34) "Les Misérables" by Victor Hugo
35) "Winnie the Pooh" by A. A. Milne
36) "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott
37) "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank
38) "Papillon" by Henri Charrière
39) "The Onion Field" by Joseph Wambaugh
40) "Silas Marner" by George Eliot
41) "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven Levitt
42) "The Black Tulip" by Alexandre Dumas
43) "A Child called 'It"" by Dave Pelzer
44) "Life on the Mississippi" by Mark Twain
45) "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
46) "Cloud Atlas" by David Mitchell
47) "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy
48) “Red Dragon” by Thomas Harris
49) "First Love" by Ivan Turgenev
50) “Sense and Sensibility” by Jane Austen
CarolynMarieReads, thank you for pointing out reality about the viewpoints. This is indeed why "Anna Karenina" is better than "Jude the Obscure" in regards to infidelity. The ending is so much better by Thomas Hardy, but the depth of vision of others through characters in the book made "Anna Karenina" so amazing to me. The real person I know, never left her husband, but cheats continually on him and he repairs their marriages and slogs through the wickedness of his Christian wife while as an atheist being a saint towards her.
Dickens
Yo its 12 heree
Saying that Tolstoy is dry helps me realize you have no idea what you are talking about.
Your guest says “like” so often, it was distracting. She is interesting but I found that distracting