If you like fiery romance but do not care for pornographic scenes, there couldn't be a more perfect classic than Anna Karenina.
This Tolstoy's masterpiece, unlike most romance novels, does more than try to get a rise out of you or make you yearn for chiseled muscles/soft, rounded arms; it teaches you an important aspect about the meaning of love, and I'll tell you exactly what.
Anna is the young vivacious jewel of St Petersburg's, Russia, high-class society. She married Alexei Karenin, a politician who is in love with her but has a personality that is often described as mechanical; in a way, Karenin is presented as a perfect product of systems, he doesn't really understand the humanity of the world much less of his own self. He struggles with understanding his emotions or even feeling them.
Although Karenin is 20years older than Anna, they have a nice and stable marriage that's crowned with their son Sekoyva. Early in the book, Anna describes him as a good man whom she loves. But in the end, nothing could be farther from the truth.
When Anna travels to convince her sister-in-law, Dolly, not to abandon her cheating brother, she meets Vronsky. This solider is, by all estimations, courting Dolly's younger sister Kitty, and things are so serious that Kitty invites Anna to the ball where she is convinced Vronsky will propose to her.
It is at the ball that Vronksy lays his eyes on Anna and as Tolstoy describes--he was conquered. The film depiction of this scene is almost the only thing I think they really got right.
The proposal never happened. Instead, Vronksy followed Anna back to St Peterburg. What was happening was visible to the blind and audible to the deaf of St Petersburg, but Karenin never 'insulted' his wife by being jealous. He, as he said, trusted her tact and good sense.
Anna, elated with the passion she had stirred in this young man, fell and took in with a girl soon after.
Eventually, she left everything for Vronsky. Her name, her status, her son, her home. Vronsky left his career for Anna. They moved away. And then it happened...
There's no way to easily summarize what Tolstoy crafted with his words. Just know this: the harder they tried to love each other, the more furiously each grew to hate the other.
Why? Because their love was possessive.
And guess what? Possessiveness is only a deformed love because real love is self-giving that seeks the good of the other.
This is why there is a difference between a person who is so intrigued by magnificent birds that he hunts down an exquisite one for years only to slam it in their cage; and the one who finds such a bird and watches it with awe, daring just to take a picture, because they know that nothing could be better for that bird than the wild in which it thrived.
It would intrigue you to read and learn how Karenin truly did his best, even in the glare of Anna's infidelity to do right by her. But Anna only despised him for his love; and he, in turn, grew to scorn her for reducing him to the laughing stock of society.
She opted for fiery possession. But it burned.
Where did it lead her? To the train tracks, head first.
She killed herself because she wanted Vronksy to suffer. She succeeded. Vronsky became a madman upon her death, pining to throw himself into the frontlines of war so he could 'feel' the ruin that was bursting inside of him.
Anna ruined Karenin, her son, the daughter with Vronsky, Vronsky and nearly ruined Kitty; because the only one she truly knew how to love was herself.
Think back to how it all began: her brother's infidelity. Use the power of your mind to reconstruct a family atmosphere where children are brought up in the charming selfishness of the opportunistic middle class in longing for power and position.
Yes, Anna and Oblonksy (her brother) knew only how to love themselves. Despite Oblonky's fervent pleads to his wife, he lavished jewelry on mistresses while Dolly barely had a decent dress.
A love that is deformed (especially self-love rather than a healthy love of self) leaves only pain and destruction behind.
We know what true love is. It's why we admire parents who give their all, or superheroes who give their lives for the world.
We know. But sometimes we pretend we don't, just for the thrill of it; like Anna Karenina.
Esohe Ewaenosa Iyare
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