Farewell, Anna: Why I quit reading "Anna Karenina"

I just couldn't do it. I couldn't finish Anna Karenina, the "great" Russian romance novel by Leo Tolstoy. I wanted to love it. It fit the criteria. It was a long epic tale, set in a distant land and an even more distant time. It was certainly considered a must-read by many other people. Just like the high society ladies a the balls in Moscow, this book appeared on all of "the lists".

100 Books to Read Before You Die

50 Books You Should Have Read in College, but Didn't

Oprah's Book Club

Top Ten Affairs in Russian Fiction

Ok, I made up the last one, but you get the picture. People love this book. I love books that are like this book. Jane Eyre was an epic, sweeping romance in a faraway time and place. Atlas Shrugged was a massive political and economic commentary.

I was excited to dive into an epic that seemed to hold the attention of so many people for so long. 

But the book just didn't do it for me. First of all, it took a few hours of reading before I even met Anna. That alone is not a deathknell for a book, but I got the feeling that there was a lot more information being shared by the author than we really needed.

The initial kerfuffle of the book occurs because a man cheated on his wife. As the book wore one, I realized that the "big story" was a catastrophic love affair between a married woman and a very eligible bachelor.

Now, I'm not a prude, but that story line just doesn't float my boat. I'm not really into adultery. I loved Atlas Shrugged. Two main characters have an extra-marital affair, but their affair wasn't central to the story. The book could be re-written without the infidelity -- with just a business relationship and friendship, and the inevitable gossip because one of them was married -- and the story would still carry the same message, weight, strength and timelessness.

It also didn't help that I was reading what I believe was poor translation. I occasionally had to re-read sentences because they didn't quite make sense. There was nothing "soaring" or poetic in the descriptions or dialogue to keep me there.

But at the end of the day, the story is about a matter that I find distasteful. Maybe the characters suffer in the end for hurting the people they promised to love.  But I just didn't want to spend a season with these silly, hurtful, inconsiderate people.

There are 99 other books on the list.