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Date:         Mon, 27 Jul 1992 11:53:43 PDT
From:         LITERARY <LITERARY@CLOVIS.FELTON.CA.US>
Subject:      The Ostracism of Anna K

Reply-to: Tim.Bowden@p0.f509.n216.z1.fidonet.org (Tim Bowden)
Fido-To: all

A couple of remarkable notations I have seen in here recently.

> She ruined Karenin, not because she truly loved Vronsky, but only
> because she wanted the thrill of an illicit affair.

Now, I like the idea of all of us working on memory, on
impressions, rather than everybody retreating to the source, but I
honestly cannot think of a single justification for the quoted
statement.  My best memory is that Anna was cast into the lot and
life normal for a woman of means and position in her era, and that
she fought mightily to sustain herself when the rigors of a more
human sentiment washed up against her more conventional moorings.
I did not see coyness in Anna's early rebuffs of Vronsky's
enticements; I saw her natural instinct in saving herself from the
predictable results of succumbing to them.  Had she been a wanton
thrill-seeker, she would have had more suitors and more excitement
than this one affair, which would necessarily have been of a much
shorter duration than was the case.

Karenin was a stuffed shirt, and was meant to be.  He was an
indictment of the artificial, arranged sequence of human events in
Moscow and St Petersburg, and not a poster boy for the wronged and
righteous.

> She was just as unhappy with Vronsky when their relationship
> became more settled -

She was unhappy not with Vronsky but with her fate as a social
outcast.  The fault is perhaps less with either Anna or Karenin
than the lack of such options as divorce in that era.

If it is held that she dealt the hand she played, then Tolstoy's
position seems to be that the boys were not playing the same game.
Is there to be assigned a stigma to Anna for infidelity because it
is lasting and not to her brother for his perpetual string of
philanderings?

Tolstoy made the point before.  I seem to recall how Natasha
Rostova in _War and Peace_ was physically prevented from eloping to
break her engagement and was held against her will like a sick
child until she thought better of it.  Later, her brother,
betrothed to his cousin Sonya, was convinced matters would improve
with the sinking fortunes of the Rostovs if he were to extricate
himself from his promise to Sonya and marry the wealthy Princess
Bolkonskaya.  The weight of society, especially his dear mother,
supported that move, and it was so ordered.

One of the silent horrors of the story was the fate of Sonya, who
was doomed to serve in the household of her beloved and his wife.


[One of the clues to the achievement of Tolstoy I think is that
 we discuss these events of long ago fancy as if they were
current and concerning folks we knew.  For what is great
literature except the bad cheese of gossip pretentiously
wrapped? (with apologies to Hemingway for ruining his
aphorism...)]
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