Anna Karenina, Additional Thoughts...
Jan. 12th, 2006 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khiemtranWith the benefits of a day's thinking...
I think there's something really important in the way things change in the novel. As you read, you can see the characters change from state to state, and this builds an increasingly strong sense of empathy. You understand their current state, not just because the author is able to describe it, but also because you been with them in each of their previous states. You also share with them their changing hopes and fears for the future, and an array of possible future states they can enter. There's something quite powerful here, in being able to paint a character in terms of their past and their potential, and to be able to leave the reader to spot the connections and contrasts themselves, without having to point them out.
It's also interesting the way Tolstoy is able to slice up the changes, to show you the characters mindset at each step, so you can see how the change happens. Instead of having a simple stimulus and response, we see what really happens, all the different stages the character goes though, the resistances, the rationalistions, so that even when you character is doing something deeply counterproductive and potentially unsympathetic, you can see why. This is powerful too, especially when you get swept along with the character, and suddenly you are making the same rationalistions or acceptances.
Finally, there's something breathtaking about the architecture of the novel. the nerve and patience it must take to be able to plot out the changes and perpectives (assuming he did plot it out at one stage) and then to not let the future states of the characters leak into the present and to not rush through to the next stage faster than the character experiences it.
I think there's something really important in the way things change in the novel. As you read, you can see the characters change from state to state, and this builds an increasingly strong sense of empathy. You understand their current state, not just because the author is able to describe it, but also because you been with them in each of their previous states. You also share with them their changing hopes and fears for the future, and an array of possible future states they can enter. There's something quite powerful here, in being able to paint a character in terms of their past and their potential, and to be able to leave the reader to spot the connections and contrasts themselves, without having to point them out.
It's also interesting the way Tolstoy is able to slice up the changes, to show you the characters mindset at each step, so you can see how the change happens. Instead of having a simple stimulus and response, we see what really happens, all the different stages the character goes though, the resistances, the rationalistions, so that even when you character is doing something deeply counterproductive and potentially unsympathetic, you can see why. This is powerful too, especially when you get swept along with the character, and suddenly you are making the same rationalistions or acceptances.
Finally, there's something breathtaking about the architecture of the novel. the nerve and patience it must take to be able to plot out the changes and perpectives (assuming he did plot it out at one stage) and then to not let the future states of the characters leak into the present and to not rush through to the next stage faster than the character experiences it.
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Date: 2006-01-12 12:07 pm (UTC)I can't recall what biography or memoir it was, where someone visited D. H. Lawrence and Frieda and said she was reading ANNA KARENININA, "presumably as a guide to the behavior of a woman who has left her husband." Tho come to think of it, I'm not sure Freida had been married before; perhaps the writer thought she had.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 08:56 am (UTC)It's also interesting to consider whether Anna Karenina succeeds despite its grand architecture or because of it. Whether it's something that only a truly skilled writer can pull off because of the need to keep the writing interesting and the story engrossing over so many pages while the grand plan is laid out.