Working Life List #1 - Read Anna Karenina

I can't quite remember exactly - though I'm guessing it was at some point during my late high-school, early college years - when I decided I wanted to read Anna Karenina. I'd never had the book assigned in class, I knew little about Russian literature, and it wasn't until I caught a passing reference in some magazine about the ending of the book that I even knew what most people, even those who have not read the book, know about one of the final scenes of the novel. (I'm going to go ahead and leave it vague in case there's anyone else left on the planet that would rather not know the ending before they dive into this tome.) While I can't remember when it was, there did indeed become a point in my life when reading Anna Karenina became a challenge I set for myself, one of those things I really wanted to "just do" in life.

I bought the book, used, from the basement of Harvard's Book Store in April 2002. (I know this because I tucked the receipt into the book after purchasing.) I picked it up that following winter, January of 2003, read six pages and then promptly got distracted.

In 2009, I made a Working Life List of random "to-dos" I hoped to accomplish in my life. The very first thing I wrote down, without a second of hesitation was: read Anna Karenina.

In February of 2011, on a random, snowy, winter night I pulled that used and long ago abandoned copy of Anna Karenina down from my living room shelf and began to read. "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

And I read.
And read.
And read some more.

On Saturday, June 4th, I finished it.

I read Anna Karenina.

I have checked that box, I can cross it off my list. For the rest of my life, I can wander the classics section of my neighborhood bookstore, point to Tolstoy's work, and say "I read that." And I enjoyed it - for the most part. I found it far easier to read than I'd anticipated. There's plenty of soap opera-esque drama from affairs, to weddings, to babies, to sicknesses and death, to keep a girl intrigued. On the flip side, the names confused the heck out of me. Russian's have approximately 800 Christian names per person and nicknames on top of that. I'd be reading along and Tolstoy would introduce someone by an entirely NEW name instead of what they'd been called during the first 400 pages of the novel. This was a tad frustrating.

Also, it was l-o-n-g. I think it could have been just as good of a novel if some editor somewhere along the way had shaved off 300 pages at some point. Tolstoy's story peaks at the end of part 7, which is where it ended when it was first published in serial installments back in 1873. That was a wise move on that magazine editor's part because, really, Tolstoy, you could have just quit while you were ahead and left part 8 on the cutting room floor.

And then there's Anna. Oh, Anna. Yes, I realize times are much, much different than they used to be, but even when I'm wearing my most sympathetic hat, I do not have much patience for drama queens. At times I found myself rolling my eyes while I watched her walk off toward crazy town. As my friend (who also read AK this winter) said, "Really, Anna; you brought this all on yourself."

The greatest thing though? I read that sucker and can sit here and form my own opinions about Anna and Levin and Kitty and Vronsky instead of just taking a critic's word for it. I know who those characters are, what they did and why. I get it because I finally read it.

My copy of the book was 853 pages long. This winter I climbed onto the T, puffy coat and heavy boots on, wedged my way into a seat and cracked open the book at whatever dog-eared page I'd marked, daunted by just how many pages lay ahead of me. There were moments -a lot of them- when I feared I'd never finish. Once or twice, I was tempted to just press "pause"on ol' Anna and stick her back up on the bookshelf. But I never lingered on that temptation for too long. I'd set this goal for myself and I was determined not to fail. Eventually I found myself getting on the T wearing a lighter jacket and wellies instead of snow boots and realized I'd made it to the half-way mark. In April, my father gave me a bookmark in my Easter basket that quoted Winston Churchill: "Never, never, never, never give up." "I should use this for Anna Karenina," I told my Dad. He laughed and agreed. In May, I flew across the country and read some more of AK at 40,000 feet. The end was getting close, the last hundred or so pages in sight.

On Saturday morning I was on the Cape for a friend's bridal shower/bachelorette weekend. While the gaggle of girls staying in the house got primped and ready for the bridal shower I stole away to a quiet corner and finished the last ten pages. When I returned from the Cape last night it was with a solid sense of satisfaction that I wrote my name and the year in the front cover of the book (a habit I have started as part of my own quiet rebellion during this Kindle/Nook crazy era) and placed her beat-up, cracked spine back in her usual spot on my bookshelf.

"Done." I whispered to myself.
"Done."