Review - Anna Karenina

Yet another one of my Amazon reviews...

Anna Karenina (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (Barnes & Noble Classics)
by Leo Tolstoy

"I will punish him and escape from everyone and from myself..", June 28, 2007

The classic of all classics. I really like this translation - it was easy to understand, and the 40 pages of endnotes gave helpful and relevant historical information. I was most interested in Anna and Vronsky's relationship, although I didn't mind Levin's intense philosophical ideas too much. I felt sorry for Dolly and Karenin. I tried to hate Stiva but he's a likeable character in spite of his faults.

I used to regard Anna as more of a heroic individualist, a feminist. Daring to break society's strict rules so she could go after what she wanted. But she becomes more pathetic towards the end, and the reader probably feels sorry for her (as I did). Her insecurity irritated me sometimes, and she played immature games with Vronsky that he knew nothing about. For example, when she told a servant to tell him that she was in bed with a headache, she thought to herself, "If he comes in spite of what the maid says, it means that he loves me still. If not, it means that all is over..." I used to think in that way when I was younger, but it was such a waste.

Still, I regard Anna as one of my favorite literary characters. She is a miserably unhappy woman. She does not have her son, she doesn't love her daughter, she can't go out (while Vronsky can, of course), she has an overactive imagination about what Vronsky's doing. Vronsky says he cannot live without her, yet he is busy wandering about Moscow or Petersburg much of the time. She feels humiliated that she can't live without him. She "lowered herself" to be with him. I know women do this today, and it only ends up hurting, even killing, them. I wish some of Anna's so-called friends in society would have accepted her, comforted her. Instead, she retreats inside her mind far too much, becoming very irrational and unstable. To depend on one person for your happiness is unwise and unfortunate. Her inevitable breakdown has been forever immortalized by the last scenes and her last thoughts:

"Where am I? What am I doing? What for?"

P.S. This massive story of unhappy families is adapted very well by Masterpiece Theater - Anna Karenina (2000).

Jessica Savitch, RIP

I recently became intrigued by a freak drowning accident that happened on Oct 23, 1983 in New Hope, PA (about a half hour from where I live). I investigated the details online and discovered a lot about the victim, Jessica Savitch, the first major female news anchor on American television. I visited the site of her death in September and took all the photos shown here (photo of Savitch is from FindAGrave.com).

On the last night of Savitch's life, she ate at Odette's Restaurant in New Hope. (Odette's is now closed due to excessive flooding, but I think they have plans to reopen in a few years.) It was a rainy night when she left with her date, who was also in the news business. He drove out the wrong exit, even though there were signs posted - I guess it was too dark and stormy to notice them though. As they drove down the old tow path, the car fell into the Delaware Canal, which runs parallel to the path, flipping over in the process. Mud and water sealed the doors shut, so neither could escape. Savitch's husky dog was also with them.

Later, the coroners confirmed that no drugs/alcohol were present. Savitch was cremated.






On Wikipedia, I found that Up Close and Personal is loosely based on Savitch's life. After watching the movie, the only things that seemed true to Savitch's real life were the difficulties of being a female anchor in a patriarchal industry. She had to work extra hard to be taken seriously, had to deal with discrimination, etc. And the ending of the movie was quite different from the ending of Savitch's life. However, the violent scenes in Philadelphia were very authentic.
At "We the Media", it explains why Disney made such drastic changes to the movie. I love Disney (I especially admire their early animated movies such as Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid), but their reasoning doesn't seem so surprising:

"Disney, with its family reputation was also uncomfortable with Savitch’s addiction to cocaine. The transformation had begun… Savitch had once had an affair with CBS newscaster Ed Bradley, and we surmised that the interracial nature of that relationship might be another source of discomfort for Disney’s core audience. Her abortions could also pose a problem, as could her two marriages, especially the second to a gay gynecologist who, less than a year after they married, hanged himself from a cross-beam in the basement of her Philadelphia home.” (Dunne, 1997, p. 19-20)

I still admire her, though I feel sorry for her - she had a tough life. I wonder where she would be now, if not for this accident...