What makes it a classic: It’s difficult to choose one Tolstoy work, let alone a work that represents Russian literature. Still, though “War and Peace” and Dostoyevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov” are close contenders, “Anna Karenina” simply cannot be equaled.
As most know, the story centers around a tempestuous and ultimately tragic love affair. But really it’s so much more than that. The novel uses the titular character, her lover Count Vronsky and the characters that surround them to delve into Russian feudalism, questions of morality, the deep desires of the human soul, the destroying and unifying qualities of society and the meaning of life.
It is, more than anything, Tolstoy’s philosophical and tortured investigation of the human condition.
