{"id":3051,"date":"2019-09-18T10:17:50","date_gmt":"2019-09-18T09:17:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/empathygap.uk\/?p=3051"},"modified":"2019-10-12T16:15:22","modified_gmt":"2019-10-12T15:15:22","slug":"anna-karenina-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/?p=3051","title":{"rendered":"Anna Karenina Revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Tolstoy, eh? He could write a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A great deal of the book, Anna Karenina, consists of Tolstoy working through the two issues which clearly plagued him, speaking through whatever character was convenient at the time. These two issues were: the apparent death of God with its resulting struggle for meaning in life, and the problem of the peasants. Gross social inequality still persisted despite the peasants’ recent nominal emancipation. These particular themes are hardly surprising as the good Count was then developing what was shortly to be called Tolstoyism. Here its origin is evident. From Tolstoy\u2019s own perspective, of course, the idea of any such thing as Tolstoyism was a gross error. He espoused an ascetic Christianity including vegetarianism, pacificism, abstinence from intoxicants, and sexual continence. But he had no wish to impose the conclusions of his own conscience on others. Tolstoy was also vehemently anti-State, and hence Tolstoyism carries intimations of anarchy. That is all very well, one reflects, so long as someone less fastidious is maintaining order. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book is replete with political musings. Despite being couched in terms relevant to mid-19th century Russia, it is striking how relevant much of it is. One thinks of the hysteria about \u201cthe rise of the far right\u201d and the antics of Antifa when reading a passage in which the rapidly rising Serpukhovskoy says, \u201cScheming people always have invented and always will invent some harmful and dangerous party. That\u2019s an old trick<\/em>\u201d. He continues, claiming that such people \u201ccan be bought by money or by affability, and must invent a theory to keep their positions. And they bring forward some new idea, some theory (in which they themselves do not believe and which does harm) merely as a means of procuring government quarters and a salary<\/em>\u201d. One feels he has a point, given our present vulnerability to a take-over by the ideological. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ostensibly, though, the main theme of Anna Karenina is a morality tale. It contrasts two couples. On the one hand Vronsky and Anna, and on the other Levin and Kitty. The first are a matching pair: both are wealthy socialites, sensualists riding high on their effortless social successes. His dashing virility is matched by her conquering beauty. Levin and Kitty, in contrast, are less imposing personages. Modesty, perhaps, is their hallmark. Levin is virtually socially inept, more at home with the peasants than in high society. Vronsky, having toyed callously with Kitty\u2019s feelings, is subsequently captured by Anna\u2019s charms. The latter \u2013 already pregnant by Vronsky – eventually leaves her husband, Karenin. Whilst the main characters are painted in full colour, Karenin is in black & white. No one ever sympathises much with a cuckold, though one wonders why not. Perhaps you see that this post is not as off-topic as it at first appears. More of Karenin later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Levin, being the reverse of Vronsky in matters of love\nas in most else, is painfully slow to secure Kitty as wife, though he\neventually does so. Whilst Levin orbits around Kitty before landing, so to\nspeak, Tolstoy takes the opportunity to regale us with his social and\nphilosophical musings using Levin as mouthpiece. Not as dull as that sounds,\nprovided one is exercised by such matters \u2013 and the curious thing is that the\nsame issues are just as pertinent today, 142 years later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As 19th<\/sup> century novels were largely obliged\nto do, the immoral couple meet with their just desserts whilst the moral are\nduly rewarded. Yet there is no preaching here. Tolstoy\u2019s illumination of the\nhuman soul is too honest to permit anything so crass. If the book is edifying \u2013\nand it is \u2013 then it is because the trajectories of the protagonists are seen to\nbe determined by their own actions. Just desserts are meted out as a result of\npsychosocial causality, not because a retributive hand descends upon them in\nvengeance for transgressions against an arbitrary law. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us dive in then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna and Vronsky<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vronsky meets Anna at a Ball and Kitty is immediately, and thoughtlessly, displaced in his affections. Kitty sees it. \u201cVronsky and Anna sat almost opposite her. And she saw them with her far-sighted eyes\u2026.and the more she saw of them the surer she was that the blow had fallen\u2026..”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“On Vronsky\u2019s face, usually so firm and self-possessed\u2026an expression like that of an intelligent dog when it feels guilty<\/em>.\u201d Referring to Kitty\u2019s view of Anna we read, \u201c\u2026every graceful movement of her small feet and hands, her handsome, animated face \u2013 everything about her was enchanting, but there was something terrible and cruel in her charm<\/em>.\u201d Kitty felt herself \u201ccrushed, and her face expressed it<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, there is something strange, satanic, and\nenchanting about her<\/em>\u201d, thought Kitty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For some time, Karenin refuses to acknowledge that his\nwife is carrying on an affair, though it has already become a talking point. Ultimately\nAnna confesses. She is now pregnant by Vronsky. Karenin can no longer avoid\nscandal and carry on as normal, and Anna refuses to even be discrete. After\nKarenin encounters Vronsky on his own porch, Karenin confronts Anna. \u201cIt\nwill end sooner than you and your lover imagine. You want to satisfy animal\npassions\u2026.you think only of yourself<\/em>\u201d. He is right, of course, but she\nmerely accuses him of being ungentlemanly. He retorts, \u201cthe sufferings of\nthe man who was your husband do not interest you. What do you care that his\nwhole life is wrecked and how much he has suffered<\/em>.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his emotional state Karenin mispronounces \u201csuffered\u201d and Anna, for the first and last time, briefly felt for him. She was not discommoded for long. Quickly her empathy passes. \u201c’No, it was an illusion’, she thinks. ‘As if a man with those dull eyes and that self-satisfied immobility could feel<\/em>!’\u201d Ah, the denial of a man\u2019s emotional capacity was ever used as an excuse for female callousness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a truly remarkable passage, immediately after the first consummation of their passion, we have a foretaste of trouble between Anna and Vronsky to come. In a virtual sermon against yielding to sensual pleasure we read of the shame which follows,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat which for nearly a year had been Vronsky\u2019s\nsole and exclusive desire, supplanting all his former desires: that which for\nAnna had been an impossible, dreadful, but all the more bewitching dream of\nhappiness, had come to pass<\/em>.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2026she drooped her once proud, bright, but now\ndishonoured head\u2026.\u2019My God, Forgive me!\u2019\u2026She felt so guilty, so much to blame\u2026.but\nshe had no one in the world now except him, so that even her prayer for\nforgiveness was addressed to him<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe felt what a murderer must feel when looking at\nthe body he has deprived of life. The body he had deprived of life was their\nlove<\/em>\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tolstoy then likens the kisses with which Vronsky\ncovers Anna to a murderer hacking his victim\u2019s corpse to pieces for disposal. Is\nthis the harshest of moral judgments, or is it a foretaste of where their\ntrajectory will inevitably take them? In either case it is an analogy which\ndraws its power from its startling dissonance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After running off with Vronsky, Anna becomes a social\noutcast. It is not a condition which someone of her nature will tolerate with\nequanimity. She attempts to attend the opera, despite Vronsky\u2019s desperate\nappeal to her not to do so. The opera, you will understand, is not so much a\nperformance by those on stage as a performance by those in the audience. It is\na society event in which who is seen with whom, and who says what to whom, is\nof central importance. It is not a place for a social pariah. Punishment for\nthe audacity of such a pariah in attending is inevitable. Anna at this point is\nin denial as to what she has wrought upon herself. She fondly imagines that her\nhabitual social ease and accomplishment will enable her to weather the storm\nand emerge triumphant. But society is not forgiving of such transgressors. She\nis duly shamed to a degree she has never previously experienced, or perhaps\neven imagined possible. (Think of a previously ardent feminist making a public\nstatement contrary to the sisterhood\u2019s diktats and you will get the picture).\nOn her return to their hotel she immediately blames Vronsky, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2019It\u2019s all your fault! Your fault!\u2019 she exclaimed with tears of despair and spite in her voice.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018But I asked, I entreated you not to go! I knew it\nwould be unpleasant for you!\u2019 replied Vronsky<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the beginning of the end, but there are many\nagonies to be endured yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is much here to please the feminist. For example, here is an extract in which Dolly (Anna\u2019s sister in law) recounts a chance meeting,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe recalled a talk she had had with a young woman at the halting place. In answer to the question whether she had any children, the good-looking young peasant wife had cheerfully replied, \u2018I had one girl but God released me. I buried her in Lent.\u2019 \u2018And are you very sorry?\u2019 asked Dolly. \u2018What\u2019s there to be sorry about? The old man has plenty of grandchildren as it is. They\u2019re nothing but worry. You can\u2019t work or anything. They\u2019re nothing but a tie\u2026\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer had seemed horrible to Dolly, despite the\ngood natured sweetness of the young woman\u2019s looks, but now she could not help\nrecalling it. In those cynical words there was some truth. \u2018Altogether\u2019, she\nthought, looking back at the whole of her life during those fifteen years of\nwedlock, \u2018pregnancy, sickness, dullness of mind, indifference to everything,\nand above all disfigurement<\/em>.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dolly is on a trip to visit Anna (despite her pariah\nstatus). There is a back-story here. The opening scene of the book has\nOblonsky, Dolly\u2019s husband and Anna\u2019s brother, in the dog house. He is a serial\nphilanderer and has been caught by Dolly in his latest escapade. The irony is\nthat it was Anna who was instrumental in re-uniting the couple, persuading\nDolly to forgive him. En route Dolly muses on how things have turned out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey are all down on Anna! What for? Am I better\nthan she? I at least have a husband whom I love. Not as I wished to love, but\nstill I do love him; but Anna did not love hers. In what is she to blame? She\nwishes to live. God has implanted that need in our souls. It is quite possible\nI might have done the same. I don\u2019t even know whether I did well to listen to\nher at that terrible time when she came to me in Moscow. I ought then to have\nleft my husband and begun life anew. I might have loved and been loved, the\nreal way. And is it better now? I don\u2019t respect him. I need him\u2026and I put up\nwith him. Is that any better? I was still attractive then, still had my good\nlooks, she went on, feeling she wanted to see herself in a glass<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even Dolly, though, is surprised by Anna\u2019s lack of\ninterest in her own baby daughter \u2013 a telling point being Anna\u2019s unawareness of\nthe baby\u2019s latest couple of teeth. This is not the first time it has been clear\nthat Anna has scant love for her daughter by Vronsky (\u201ctry as she might she\ncould not love that child<\/em>\u201d) though she pines for her son by Karenin\nconstantly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor, it seems, is Anna concerning herself with any\ndomestic business. Dolly is obliged to concede that Vronsky, for all his\nsocialite nature, is the practical one about the domestic arrangements in his shared\ndwelling with Anna. At table, \u201cDolly observed all this luxury\u2026and, as a\nhousewife herself controlling a household she could not help noting the details\u2026and\nasking herself how it was all done and by whom. Veslovsky (a guest), her\nhusband, and even Sviyazhsky  and many\nothers she knew, never thought about these things, and readily believed, what\nevery decent host wishes his guests to feel, that all that is so well arranged\nat his house has cost him no trouble but has come about of itself. Dolly,\nhowever, knew that not even a milk pudding for the children\u2019s lunch comes of\nitself, and that therefore so complicated and splendid an organisation must\nhave needed someone\u2019s careful attention; and from the way Vronsky surveyed the table,\ngave a sign with his head to the butler, and asked her whether she would like fish-broth\nor soup, she concluded that it had all been done by, and depended upon, the master\u2019s\ncare. It was evident that it depended no more on Anna than on Veslovsky. Anna, Sviyazhsky,\nthe Princess and Veslovsky were all equally guests, gaily making use of what\nwas provided for them. Anna was hostess only in what concerned the conversation<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That night Anna confides to Dolly that she will be having no more children. Dolly is amazed. How can she possibly know? The Victorian reader\u2019s blushes are spared by the blank which follows Anna\u2019s reply, \u201cthe doctor told me<\/em>\u2026\u201d. We are to understand that Dolly had no notion that contraception was a possibility, those previously incomprehensible families with only one or two children being suddenly explained. One has some sympathy with the feminist position at this point, though one notes that the wishes of the lover Anna dreamed of marrying were of no consequence to her, and we learn later that Vronsky did<\/em> want more children. Anna, it seems, could no more put herself in Vronsky\u2019s shoes than in her husband\u2019s. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their country living, Vronsky busies himself with being a rich landowner with ideas, including building a tremendously expensive hospital. Anna becomes increasingly clingy and desperate to maintain Vronsky\u2019s infatuation at white heat. This possessiveness is counterproductive. \u201cHer chief preoccupation was still herself \u2013 herself in so far as Vronsky held her dear and in so far as she could compensate him for all he had given up. Vronsky appreciated this, which had become the sole aim of her life, a desire not only to please him but also to serve him; but at the same time he was troubled by these love-meshes in which she tried to entangle him. As time went on, the oftener he felt himself caught in these meshes, the more he desired, not exactly to escape from them but to try whether they really interfered with his freedom. Had it not been for this ever-increasing desire for freedom \u2013 not to have a scene each time he had to go to town for a meeting or to the races \u2013 Vronsky would have been quite content with his life<\/em>.\u201d Later, when Anna calls Vronsky back early from the Nobles\u2019 Elections, for trumped up reasons, Vronsky reflects dolefully on the contrast between \u201cthe innocent mirth of the elections and this dismal burdensome love to which he must return<\/em>\u201d. Oh dear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And now she is taking morphia increasingly often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in Moscow, Levin \u2013 now married to Kitty – visits\nAnna rather unwisely after drinking. The innocent Levin is largely immune from\nthe charms of women. But he has not encountered the likes of Anna Karenina before\n\u2013 at least, not such a one as she in a mood to seduce him. He is captivated: \u201cher\nbeauty, her cleverness, her good education, together with her simplicity and\nsincerity<\/em>\u201d (he thinks) \u201cwhat a wonderful, sweet, pathetic women<\/em>!\u201d.\nOblonsky sees that Levin is entirely vanquished, despite having formerly judged\nher severely. This is not lost on Kitty when Levin returns to their house: \u201cyou\nhave fallen in love with that horrid woman! She has bewitched you!<\/em>\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And wicked she surely is. We read, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen her visitors had taken their leave Anna did\nnot sit down but began pacing up and down the room. Though she had\ninvoluntarily done all in her power to awaken love in Levin (as at that time\nshe always did to all the young men she met) and though she knew she had\nsucceeded in as far as was possible with an honourable married man in one\nevening\u2026.yet as soon as he had left the room she ceased to think about him<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What callousness. And to Levin of all people \u2013 the husband\nof Kitty whose heart Anna had broken once already by stealing Vronsky from her.\nBut such considerations do not even register with Anna Karenina. And from this\npoint on it becomes increasingly obvious that what we have here is a narcissist.\nI have been determined to avoid that over-used word, but it is now unavoidable.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After one episode when Vronsky has the temerity to be elsewhere than with her, she upbraids him mercilessly. His look of irritation she interprets as \u201cobstinacy\u201d \u2013 which is to say, obstinacy at insisting on his independence. \u201cWell then<\/em>\u201d, he says, touched by her apparent despair. \u201cTell me what I should do to make you easy? I am ready to do anything to make you happy. What would I not do to spare you such grief as this, about what I know not what! Anna!<\/em>\u201d She tries to \u201chide her triumph at her victory<\/em>, for the victory was hers after all<\/em>\u201d. But he resents being manipulated by moral bullying, and she herself realises that the words she used to bring about her victory were a dangerous weapon and must not be used again: \u201cI am near catastrophe and afraid of myself<\/em>\u201d. Prophetic, of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their domestic discord continues to amplify. \u201cThe irritation which divided them had no tangible cause, and all attempts at an explanation not only failed to clear it away but increased it\u2026..Neither of them spoke of the cause of their irritation, but each thought the other in the wrong, and at every opportunity tried to prove that this was so<\/em>.\u201d Anna was unable to see that the very intensity of her neediness, her irrational jealousy, was driving Vronsky away. \u201cFor her he, with all his habits, thoughts, wishes, mental and physical faculties \u2013 the whole of his nature \u2013 consisted of one thing only: love for women, and this love she felt ought to be wholly concentrated on her alone. This love was diminishing; therefore, in her judgment, part of his love must have been transferred to other women or one other woman<\/em>\u201d. Satisfying Anna had become an impossibility, as it always does with those of her personality. \u201cI have tried everything<\/em>\u201d, Vronsky ultimately decides, \u201cthe only thing left is to pay no attention<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A self-destructive climax is inevitable. When Vronsky returns late one night and does not come into her room (following her own instructions) we are told what is going on in her head. \u201cDeath, as the sole means of reviving love for herself in his heart, of punishing him, and of gaining the victory in that contest which an evil spirit in her heart was waging against him, presented itself clearly and vividly to her<\/em>.\u201d The next few chapters are remarkable for their depiction of a person in the extremes of despair and depression. Anna imputes the most ignoble motives to everyone. She despises even casual passers-by. The world has been drained of all goodness; all is bleak and pointless. The end comes in the same railway station in which she first met Vronsky. At that time a man had thrown himself in front of a train \u2013 and, with poetic resonance \u2013 she does the same. \u201cThe candle, by the light of which she had been reading that book filled with anxieties, deceptions, grief, and evil, flared up with a brighter light, lit up for her all that had before been dark, crackled, began to flicker, and went out forever<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without doubt the feminist position would be that Anna was a victim of the patriarchy; that it was patriarchal social constraints which rendered her a fallen women and a social outcast, whilst, in contrast, Vronsky could carry on much as before. There is truth in that, of course, but by no means the whole truth. For Anna did have considerable agency \u2013 especially before deciding on the course she took. As for the difference in treatment, Anna was unfaithful to her husband and freely decided to leave him. This did not apply to Vronsky. Had Vronsky been a married man who deserted a faithful wife and child to live with another woman, how would society have treated him then? Perhaps his wealth might have carried him through it in better shape than Anna, but he would likely never have had any career again and been shunned by many previous acquaintances. After all, look what happened to Karenin (below), and he was the injured party. In fact, even as it was, we are told that Vronsky had given up a great deal to be with Anna. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The feminists will refuse to acknowledge that Anna was the architect of her own downfall. That her freedoms were undoubtedly curtailed in that culture hardly marks her out for special attention. Everyone\u2019s freedoms are curtailed in every culture: it is the price we pay for cooperative communal living, without which we would all perish. And it seems that Karenin gave Anna far more freedom than many women of her class and position, and she certainly enjoyed far more freedom that any of the serving or peasant classes. Moreover, Anna’s subsequent pariah status is instantiated primarily by other women rather than by men; it is other women who now refuse to be contaminated by contact with her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna\u2019s suicide is not the true denouement. There are\nnearly 50 pages more of the book, and it is not mere padding. I must give sufficient\nattention to Levin and his constant agonising over the peasants, social\ninequality, agricultural inefficiencies and, most importantly, his sustained\nspiritual crisis. In the closing chapters, and against expectation for those\nraised with modern novels, he (and we) find resolution. But first, I have left\nunfinished the matter of Karenin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Karenin<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Karenin does not attract the reader\u2019s sympathy, though\nhe should. He is depicted as a dry-as-dust government functionary, and\nemotionally repressed. I am tempted to add that, in a land apparently populated\nby the emotionally gushing, Karenin\u2019s company might have been rather a relief.\nBut we are told more than once that the suffering of others affected Karenin\ndeeply. Unfortunately Karenin\u2019s response to his own empathy was generally to\ndisguise it with irritation and brusqueness, thus was his unsympathetic persona\nconsolidated. But consider a passage after Anna\u2019s near death delivering her\nillegitimate daughter. Of Karenin we read, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy his wife\u2019s bedside he had for the first time in\nhis life given rein to that feeling of tender sympathy which the suffering of\nothers evoked in him and which he had until then been ashamed of, as of a\nweakness; and his pity for her, remorse at having wished for her death, and\nabove all the joy of forgiving, in itself gave him not only relief from suffering\nbut inward peace such as he had never before experienced. Suddenly he felt that\nthe very thing that had been a source of suffering to him had become a\nspiritual joy, and that what had seemed insoluble as long as he indulged in\ncensure, recriminations, and hatred, had become simple and clear when he\nforgave and loved.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He forgave his wife and pitied her for her sufferings\nand remorse. He forgave Vronsky and pitied him, especially when reports of\nVronsky\u2019s desperate action reached him (he had attempted suicide). He pitied\nhis son too, more than he had done before, and reproached himself for not\nhaving paid more attention to him. But for the newborn little girl he had a\npeculiar sentiment, not of pity alone but even of tenderness<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are told that, despite this baby girl not being\nhis, that she would certainly have died had it not been for Karenin\u2019s\nsolicitude whilst her mother neglected her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Karenin had lived for his work. We are told bluntly\nthat Anna\u2019s disgrace, falling also upon him, was the end of his career. His\nwhole world had fallen apart, through no fault of his.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Karenin\u2019s position after the birth of this child and\nbefore Anna has left him is pitiable. So it is curious that (I suspect) the general\nreader would have scant sympathy for him. Tolstoy summarises his condition\nthus, \u201cthe transition from the past to the consciousness of his wife\u2019s\ninfidelity he had already painfully passed through; that had been trying, but\nit was comprehensible. Had his wife then, after confessing her infidelity, left\nhim, he would have been grieved and unhappy, but he would not have felt himself\nto be in such an unintelligible impasse as now. He could not at all reconcile\nhis recent forgiveness, his emotion and love for his sick wife and for another\nman\u2019s baby, with the present position: with the fact that, as if in reward for\nall that, he was now left alone, disgraced, ridiculed, not wanted by anyone and\ndespised by all<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What follows is just a few paragraphs about Karenin\nwhich, I suspect, have made little impact on most reviewers. But they are so\nimportant. The first is one of the most perfect descriptions of how male\nemotional crypsis arises, not internally from negative aspects of masculinity,\nbut as a result of societal intolerance of a wounded man, a man who is failing\nto perform. For a couple of days after Anna left, Karenin managed to maintain a\npretence of calm competence, discharging myriad minor duties as if nothing was\nuntoward: \u201cno one could have observed in him any signs of despair<\/em>\u201d. But\nfollowing the visit of a tradesman, Karenin breaks down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe felt he could not bear the general pressure of\ncontempt and harshness which he had clearly seen in the faces of that\nshop-assistant and of Korney (his servant), and of everyone without exception\nwhom he had met during those two days. He felt that he could not divert from\nhimself people\u2019s hatred, because that hatred was caused not by his badness (had\nit been so he might have tried to be better) but by his disgraceful and\nrepulsive misery. He knew that for that reason \u2013 because his heart was rent in\npieces \u2013 they would be pitiless towards him. He felt that people would destroy\nhim, as dogs kill a tortured dog that is whining with pain. He knew that the\nonly way of escape from men was to hide his wounds from them. He had\nunconsciously tried to do so for two days, and now felt himself unable to\ncontinue the unequal struggle<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The entirety of male utility, male disposability and the empathy gap is contained in \u201cbecause his heart was rent in pieces \u2013 they would be pitiless towards him<\/em>\u201d. Imagine saying such a thing of a woman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And still I suspect that not one reader in twenty\nfinishes the book with any feelings of sympathy towards Karenin. He is the grey\ngovernment functionary who is to be despised because he failed to keep his wife\n\u2013 a cuck, in fact. (I hate that expression, and I trust I am telegraphing why).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this enormous book we are permitted only three short paragraphs about Karenin\u2019s back-story. I will quote them in full. Though he had assistance, he also had to make his way in the world through his own efforts. He did well at the task, rising to be a provincial Governor. He became desirable husband material. His betrothal to Anna, it turns out, was the result of coercion \u2013 even trickery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKarenin had been left an orphan. There were two of\nthem: he had a brother. They could not remember their father, and their mother\ndied when Karenin was ten years old. They had small means. Their uncle, a high\nofficial and at one time a favourite with the late Emperor, brought them up.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having taken a medal on finishing, both at school and\nat the university, Karenin, by his uncle\u2019s help, started at once on a conspicuous\npath in the Civil Service, and from that time devoted himself entirely to\nofficial ambition. Neither at school nor at the university, nor afterwards, did\nhe enter into friendly relations with anyone. His brother was nearest to his\nheart, but he served under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and always lived abroad,\nwhere he died soon after Karenin\u2019s marriage.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time when he was Governor of a Province, Anna\u2019s\naunt, a rich provincial lady, introduced him, who though not a young man was a\nyoung Governor, to her niece, and contrived to put him in such a position that\nhe was obliged either to propose or to leave town. Karenin hesitated long. At\nthat time there were as many reasons for the step as against it, but there was\nno such decisive reason as to make him neglect his rule of refraining when in\ndoubt. But Anna\u2019s aunt intimated to him, through an acquaintance, that he had\nalready compromised the girl, and that he was honour bound to propose to her.\nHe proposed, and devoted to his betrothed and to his wife all the feeling of\nwhich he was capable<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tolstoy writes a simple sentence which summarises\nperfectly the vulnerability of so many men which can result in their devastation\nafter separation,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHis attachment to Anna excluded from his soul any\nneed he had felt for affectionate relations with other persons; and now, among\nall his acquaintances, he had no intimate friend<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, when he finally identifies someone who is willing to listen without condemnation (the Countess Lydia Ivanovna) he does not hold back, \u201cI am broken, I am stricken. I am no longer a man<\/em>!\u201d Yes, men do talk \u2013 if they can find a sympathetic audience, which is not easy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Anna eventually leaves Karenin, she takes the new\ndaughter and Karenin keeps their son. Thus both children are retained by their\nrespective fathers, surely the most sensible arrangement. On being petitioned\nby third parties to divorce his wife, Karenin does eventually agree. This is no\nsmall issue because the only way that the divorce can be achieved without Anna\u2019s\ncomplete ruination is for Karenin to take the blame upon himself. The situation\nwould seem to parallel that in the UK in (say) the 1950s when men would have to\nfabricate infidelity in order to give their wives a divorce (often involving hiring\na woman with whom to be \u201cfound\u201d in a hotel bed). But Anna insists on regaining\nher son, Serezha. Karenin refuses, and who can blame him. Anna has made her bed\nbut refuses to accept she must lie upon it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Levin and the Spiritual Quest<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nietzsche famously declared that we had killed God,\nand that the consequences would be nihilism, in 1882. But Tolstoy was there\nfirst. In one passage, Karenin, the conservative, is praising a classical\neducation against a \u201cmodern\u201d (in 1877) scientific one: \u201cthe influence of the\nclassics is in the highest degree a moral one, whereas unfortunately with\ninstruction in natural science are connected those dangerous and false\nteachings which are the bane of the present times<\/em>\u201d. Karenin is disputing\nwith the liberal intellectual Pestsov who replies, \u201cwhich kind of education\nshould be preferred  would not have been\nso easily decided had there not been on the side of classical education that\nadvantage which you have just mentioned: the moral advantage \u2013 the\nanti-nihilistic influence<\/em>.\u201d Oddly, Pestsov merely concedes the argument,\nand for good measure Koznyshev, Levin\u2019s half-brother, chips in, \u201cWere it not\nfor the advantage of this anti-nihilistic influence on the side of classical education\nwe should have considered the question longer\u2026.But now we know that those\nclassical education-pills contain the salutary virtue of anti-nihilism<\/em>\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frequently it seems that Tolstoy is playing out his\nown agonising over the meaning of life, the claimed death of God and its\nassociated nihilism. It may come as a surprise \u2013 it did to me \u2013 that the\nclosing sections of the book provide a clear answer (through the mouth of\nLevin). With hindsight, the passage above clearly telegraphs Tolstoy\u2019s\nconclusion. He had come through the other side of doubt at a time when\nprofessing doubt was still generally taboo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the matter of atheism, here\u2019s an extract which\nseems peculiarly modern. The speaker is visiting Vronsky and Anna during their\nstay in Italy and he is speaking of a local artist. \u201cHe is one of those\nheathenish new folk one so often meets nowadays, you know. One of those\nfreethinkers who have been brought up from the beginning in disbelief,\nnegation, and materialism. Formerly a freethinker was a man brought up with\nideas of religion, law, morality, who himself, through struggle and pain, had\nattained freedom of thought; but now a new type of born freethinker has appeared.\nThese grow up without so much as hearing that there used to be laws of morality\nand religion, and that there was once authority in these things; they grow up\nsimply with the idea of negation \u2013 that is, as heathens<\/em>.\u201d Perhaps our\ncurrent malaise, our endemic lack of meaning, is not so new; perhaps this has\nalways been the case and our fond belief that previous ages enjoyed na\u00efve faith\nis yet another historical myth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tolstoy, through Levin, expresses the spiritual\ndilemma thus: \u201cLevin, for the first time looked at the questions of life and\ndeath in the light of the new convictions, as he called them, which between the\nages of twenty and thirty-four had imperceptibly replaced the beliefs of his\nchildhood and youth, he had been less horrified by death than by life without\nthe least knowledge of whence it came, what it is for, why, and what it is. Organisms,\ntheir destruction, the indestructibility of matter, the law of the conservation\nof energy, development \u2013 the terms that had superseded these beliefs \u2013 were very\nuseful for mental purposes; but they gave no guidance for life, and Levin\nsuddenly felt like a person who has exchanged a thick fur coat for a muslin\ngarment and who, being out in the frost for the first time, becomes clearly\nconvinced, not by arguments, but with the whole of his being, that he is as\ngood as naked and that he must inevitably perish miserably<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the great appeals of reading is to discover that others have had the very same thoughts as yourself, though you have never before heard them expressed explicitly, or so well. Thus,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat astounded and upset him most in this\nconnection was that the majority of those in his set and of his age, having\nlike himself replaced their former beliefs by new convictions like his own, did\nnot see anything to be distressed about, and were quite contented and tranquil.\nSo that, besides the principle question, Levin was tormented by other\nquestions: Were these people sincere? Were they not pretending?..\u2026having read a\ngreat many books he became convinced that those who shared his outlook\nunderstood only what he had understood, explaining nothing and merely ignoring\nthose problems, without a solution to which he could not live<\/em>..\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBesides, during the time of his wife\u2019s confinement\nan extraordinary thing had happened to him. He, an unbeliever, began to pray,\nand while praying believed. But that moment had passed, and he could not allot\nany place in his life to the state of mind he had then experienced. He could\nnot admit that he had then known the truth and was now making a mistake;\nbecause as soon as he reflected calmly about it, it all fell to pieces; nor\ncould he acknowledge that he had then been mistaken, for he prized the state\nhis soul had been in, and by acknowledging it to be a result of weakness he\nwould have defiled those moments<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tormented by these thoughts Levin turns to the\nnon-materialist philosophers, but finds no consolation in philosophy. Houses of\ncards constructed of words, they all tumble down in the absence of due regard\nfor \u201csomething in life more important than reason<\/em>\u201d. We cannot doubt that\nTolstoy is working out his own spiritual crisis in print at this point. He even\nhas Levin fearing to carry a gun lest he should shoot himself, a thing which\nwas actually true of Tolstoy at the time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThinking about it led him into doubts and\nprevented him from seeing what he should do and should not do. But when he did\nnot think, but just lived, he unceasingly felt in his soul the presence of an\ninfallible judge deciding which of two possible actions was the better and\nwhich the worse; and as soon as he did what he should not have done, he\nimmediately felt this<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Levin ultimately realises that it is useless to\ndispute with atheists. In a thought which may chime with many he concludes, \u201cno,\nI must not dispute with them, they are clad in impenetrable armour and I am\nnaked<\/em>\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Levin\u2019s tormenting thoughts during his spiritual\ncrisis bear comparison with those of Anna during her last hours. But whilst she\ndespised all she saw, the culmination of a life lived for herself, Levin\u2019s\nagony resulted from his search for meaning which would apply to all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2019Why is all this being done?\u2019 Levin wondered. \u2018Why am I standing here, obliging them to work? Why do they all make such efforts and try to show me their zeal? Why is my old friend Matrena toiling so (I doctored her after the fire, when she was struck by a girder)?\u2019 he thought, looking at a thin peasant woman who pushed the grain along with a rake, her dark  sun-burnt bare feet stepping with effort on the hard uneven barn floor. \u2018She recovered then – today or tomorrow, or in ten years\u2019 time, they will bury her and nothing will be left of her, nor of that smart girl with the red skirt, who with such dexterous and delicate movements is beating the chaff from the ears. She too will be buried, and that piebald gelding too \u2013 and that one very soon\u2019 he reflected, looking at a horse breathing quickly with falling and rising belly and inflated nostrils, as it trod on the slanting wheel that moved under it. \u2018They will bury her, and so they will Theodore, who is feeding the machine, his curly beard full of chaff and his shirt torn on his white shoulder. Yet he loosens the sheaves and gives directions, shouts at the women, and quickly puts right the strap on the flywheel. And, moreover, not they only but I too shall be buried and nothing will be left. What is it all for<\/em>?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ultimate question of which all pretend to be unconcerned.\nAnd so Levin has his epiphany. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTheodore says that it is wrong to live for one\u2019s\nbelly, and that we must live for truth, for God, and at the first hint I\nunderstand him! I and millions of men who lived centuries ago and those who are\nliving now; peasants, the poor in spirit, and sages, who have thought and\nwritten about it, saying the same thing in their obscure words \u2013 we all agree\non that one thing: what we should live for, and what is good. I, and all other\nmen know only one thing firmly, clearly, and certainly, and this knowledge\ncannot be explained by reason: it is outside reason, has no cause, and can have\nno consequences.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If goodness has a cause, it is no longer goodness; if\nit has a consequence \u2013 a reward, it is also not goodness. Therefore goodness is\nbeyond the chain of cause and effect<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Levin had discovered that he had been living well but thinking badly. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tolstoy, eh? He could write a bit. A great deal of the book, Anna Karenina, consists of Tolstoy working through the two issues which clearly plagued him, speaking through whatever character was convenient at the time. These two issues were: the apparent death of God with its resulting struggle for meaning in life, and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bookfilm-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3051"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3071,"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3051\/revisions\/3071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}