8-Part Film Adaptation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina Is Free Online

https://www.openculture.com/2022/07/watch-an-8-part-film-adaptation-of-tolstoys-anna-karenina-free-online.html

by georgecmu • 4 years ago

195 120 4 years ago

tombert2• 4 years ago

Honest question; how do you force yourself to get through a book like Anna Karenina? I have sincerely tried multiple times to get into it, and haven't been able to make it more than 30 or so pages.

I'm generally a fairly well-read guy, so I would like to knock this classic out, but I am not sure how.

jperoutek• 4 years ago

I listened to it as an audiobook over the course of a week or two, and it was pretty bearable. I know there is some debate about whether that counts as "reading" the book, but on something like this I consider it close enough.

bombcar• 4 years ago

An audiobook and a character name cross-reference can be instrumental in getting through some of these massive Russian tomes. I was definitely confused by War and Peace (I think it was) until I realized that there was one character with fifteen various names and not fifteen different characters.

throwaway67342• 4 years ago

It's a great read that sucks you in. I couldn't put it down and finished it over a vacation.

adamors• 4 years ago

Couldn’t agree more, I read it last year and it’s as good as everyone says it is. That said, I did read a lot of Russian literature during that period so the constant names/nicknames didn’t bother me.

_aavaa_7• 4 years ago

I think it's worth reconsidering why you wish to read this book if you do not enjoy it.

The classics are not a homework assignment to be suffered through.

cal85• 4 years ago

A desire for intellectual growth is a very good reason. If other minds that I find interesting tend to mention a particular book a lot, I want in. I want to get it, to understand it, to have what they're having. This drive has led me to learn and enjoy many things that I would have missed out on if I hadn't persevered past the "I don't get this" phase (in literature, programming, science, anything). The notion that people should only read things they already 'enjoy' is modern anti-intellectual bullshit. Some things take effort before the reward. It's perfectly sensible for someone with a thirst for growth to ask for tips on how to get into something that smart people, in their estimation, seem to enjoy. And when they do ask for help, they should be encouraged.

hdjjhhvvhga3• 4 years ago

Maybe in your country. In mine we had to suffer through all this stuff before we got old enough for it to be a meaningful reading.

Etheryte• 4 years ago

As someone who had this book as mandatory reading in high school, along with many other books I would call dense, I would say the secret ingredient is to go fast. With regular books, I take breaks to ponder the ideas multiple times per chapter. If I know I have to go through 800+ pages, I decide to read 100 pages a day, and just brute force it through. After you've gone through the whole thing, there's plenty of time to go back and revisit the themes you found more interesting, I know other students also made heavy use of notes and sticky notes to grok the thing.

AlexeyBrin2• 4 years ago

If you didn't enjoy it, first try with a different translation or read something else, life is short and there are plenty of good books. Personally I really liked Anna Karenina and read it twice. War and Peace on the other hand, I had to force myself to finish it.

tombert2• 4 years ago

Well, I mean, "reading something else" has been what I've opted to do thus far, hence why I've only gotten about 30 pages in, but I've found that sometimes when I force myself to actually one of these "certified classics" I end up feeling glad I did. That's how I felt about Crime and Punishment, for example.

throwawayarnty2• 4 years ago

Highly recommend the 2016 tv series of war and peace starting Paul Dano.

Sometimes the movie can be better than the book, especially if the book is a dense classic.

hcrisp• 4 years ago

You might try "Notes from Underground" by Dostoevsky first, which is much shorter, just to get a taste of his characters and writing style. If you like that, go on to "Crime and Punishment", and then read "The Brothers Karamazov" last.

I saw a dust jacket quote that said something like, "Dostoevsky writes about the unconscious as though it were conscious". When I started reading his books, I felt like he naturally reveals his character's psychology through dialogue (both inner and intrapersonal). They are surprisingly relatable. They have quirks and insecurities, can be hot-headed one minute and fearful the next. "Do you know what it means to demand when you are only in a position to implore?" asks one protagonist. They struggle with big questions, their motivations are laid bare, and they endear empathy as would a self-destructive family member. Dostoevsky may not write inspired literature, but he has something important to say, and he says it from his uniquely Russian soul.

defphysics• 4 years ago

Maybe try audio. I really like the version narrated by David Horovich.

stephen_g2• 4 years ago

I found it quite readable, easier to get through than War and Peace. Has to be a good translation though.

wholinator2• 4 years ago

What translation do you recommend?

throw12346512343• 4 years ago

I think the "go fast" guy is right. The problem with really old classics is that they have been imitated a lot. I had the same issue with "War & Peace" - I felt like I have read the book a 1000 times before. I find Chekov and Bulgakov to be far more interesting. Their work is shorter and hits harder.

elevaet2• 4 years ago

What do you recommend by Chekov?

billfruit4• 4 years ago

Sholokov and Solzhenitsyn do continue the style and approach of Tolstoy, I think.

MaxBorsch228• 4 years ago

This is a national meme in Russia. War and Peace is mandatory reading in schools, but it's always only 3-4 students in class who really read it. Most students just skim through ("read diagonally", as we say), use summary or watch the movie.

billfruit4• 4 years ago

War and Peace is fairly interesting, in the sense the battle scenes really detailed and action packed, even more than can be shown in movies.

iamwpj• 4 years ago

I focused on the individual characters I liked. Levin is a personal favorite and as you get further along you get a little more of him. Read each character story as a vignette and don't worry about connecting the dots of the whole book until later -- or until it comes up again. Interestingly, it's the same method I use for Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

hdjjhhvvhga3• 4 years ago

There is a contrasting beauty of prose in Marquez, though, in spite of war being a common theme. Maybe because of environment: 19-century Russia seems raw and cold, whereas Marquez's Latin America is warm and colorful, and of course magic realism adds another level of aesthetics.

voidmain0001• 4 years ago

This is how I got through it - I read it in 1990 while riding the bus to and from a summer job. I had nothing else to do to kill the time. I don't remember it being a terribly boring story. So, to get through it - get off the Internet, and all devices since they're just time wasters much like Anna Karenina.

smitty1110• 4 years ago

Anna Karenia is still on my list, but here's what I did for Jane Austen and the Tale of Genji: Just read one chapter a night. My old AP Lit teacher gave me that advice, said you need to treat these books like a soap opera, because they're written with the same idea in mind.

Forgeties79• 4 years ago

Some classics just aren’t worth the work if they’re that much of a slog. There’s a reason I never finished watching Gone the Wind but had no issue reading Crime and Punishment.

InitialLastName• 4 years ago

I got to the intermission in Gone with the Wind, said "great, that movie can be over now" and never looked back.

jyriand• 4 years ago

It all starts with the attitude. If you just want to "knock this classic out" then you set yourself up for a failure from the beginning. I can read classics only for enjoyment of the language and images.

kaiwen1• 4 years ago

In principle, I understand how this book can fail to connect with some people. I’ve encountered many “great” books that I just couldn’t read. But Anna Karenina is so damn good that it’s hard to fathom others see it differently. The writing and character development are exquisite. I can reread it endlessly, or start randomly at any page. It’s always a pleasure.

josephorjoe• 4 years ago

first, i'd just read The Death of Ivan Ilyich which is much much shorter.

after reading that if you feel like reading tolstoy is something you want to do a whole lot more of, then pick up Anna Karenina or War and Peace. I've read both, because i enjoy reading Tolstoy, but i would not recommend reading them if you do not enjoy the process. there are plenty of other great literary works out there (and most of them are shorter).

ctdonath• 4 years ago

Massive tomes work well as audiobooks: expert reader paces the content well, forcing you to carry through the bogged-down parts.

Anecdote: War And Peace was so massive it broke my audiobook reader app. 400 pages in it just quit progressing.

georgeecollins2• 4 years ago

I read Anna Karenina and also War and Peace at a time in my youth between work and school where I had the time to just relax with friends and just read a lot of novels. Only in retrospect do you realize how precious those times are.

War and Peace was hard to start because of all the characters, but I got lost in it and it was really worth it. You don't have to pay a lot of attention to the chapters on the meaning of history unless it interests you. Anna Karenina I felt like I dived right into because it was a "smaller" story focused on really well defined characters. But I don't feel like it gripped me all the way through as much as War and Peace.

With books like that-- if you have the time to really sink into them-- you feel like you know the characters as people in the way you know your friends. They are like people you have known. The closest modern book to that I think is A Suitable Boy.

But if it isn't for you in terms of your time or your interest you shouldn't feel bad about it.

huevosabio2• 4 years ago

Exactly this, there were periods in high school and college were for whatever reason I had full days of nothing to do. I also didn't have a smartphone so wasting time online was less tempting.

There were the perfect openings for laying down and just read until you forget to eat. In the end, there was some sort of sorrow of having to leave the characters behind.

It is very hard to get such openings today.

DavidSharff• 4 years ago

It may seem so boring at first because it is so real. The depth of insight into the characters and culture is what makes it so moving as the plot picks up.

Another perspective shift that makes it more enjoyable: it's a time machine. I wouldn't care for that level of detail in a modern American context or even a fantasy, but a distinct culture nearly 200 years ago? Sign me up.

Then again, if you don't dig it no shame in moving on. There are more books than there is time to read them.

auxym• 4 years ago

Don't know, I actually didn't have too much trouble getting through Anna Karenina, and it remains one of my favorite novels. Saying this as someone who has tried and failed many times to finish other classics such as One Hundred Years Of Solitude.

stevenwoo• 4 years ago

This happens to me, too, on occasion. You might want to try an audio book version. This helps in a couple of ways. The narration might change narrator for different characters or change their voice and the name pronunciation is probably much better for languages one does not speak. This also gives you a basis for the character in your mind and frees up your imagination for the text not related to character voice and emotion. I still find some books with a larger number of characters or particularly different cultures/settings requiring multiple re listens at the start for me to be able to see what is described in my mind's eye, versus my brain being immediately receptive to other books from the beginning. It does require a certain amount of concentration to comprehend and not just hear like background music that is available when I am walking or riding a bicycle or cooking, sometimes when I am driving.

goto11• 4 years ago

how do you force yourself to get through a book like Anna Karenina?

Don't force yourself to read a book you don't enjoy. Life is too short. There are so many books out there.

As many 19th century novels, the plot takes some time to get underway, but I was gripped by the characters and the language from the start. Perhaps you should think of it like a TV show which take a few episodes to establish the characters and universe, before the story gets underway.

UIUC_062• 4 years ago

I've read it three times and it didn't take any forcing. Whereas other long Russian classic novels: not so much.

I don't know if this is a "tip" or not, but what I found easy about AK was the descriptions of people's inner lives, and how much insight Tolstoy has on the human condition. He was a very religious man, but the characters don't so much think about Christianity as live it (or try to).

Anna's feelings about Karenin's stuffiness, and their inability to connect, are SO modern. You see how they treat their son, and contrast it with the way "modern" parents try to raise their kids. Vronsky's behavior with his fellow soldiers is a beautiful picture of male bonding before there was such a term.

Writers are exhorted to "show, don't tell" and Tolstoy doesn't tell you Anna felt guilty, he shows you.

sleightofmind3• 4 years ago

Force myself? That's the last thing I have to do. I can't start reading it again, because I know I won't be able to put it down. But I do look forward to a third pass through the book at some point. And another reading or two of War and Peace.

Start with some easy Tolstoy, like Kholstomer, The Story of a Horse, or Master and Man. If you don't like those, maybe you're just not a Tolstoy reader. No problem there.

http://www.lrgaf.org/training/kholstomer.htm

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/986/986-h/986-h.htm (Master and Man)

I love 19th-century English literature, especially Hardy, and the same goes for the Russians Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, and the Ukrainian/Russian Gogol, so maybe it's a patience for carefully described settings/characters, carefully developed plots, and a willingness to be dragged, slowly, methodically, and for me, magically into another world and time. Not sure. It's possible certain books only suit certain temperaments. Tolstoy, I'm almost certain, appeals to those who've wrestled with religious belief or doubt for decades, whether they've moved towards or away from belief. He himself scared the Russian elite greatly because of his strong desire to live a truly Christian life, and his apparent willingness to do so. A truly Christian life terrifies most folks, religious or not. Don't assume I'm in sympathy with Tolstoy on this topic. But his sincerity clearly bled through into his writing, and gives it a power few other authors exhibit.

There may be authors on a par with Tolstoy, but I'm hard pressed to come up with one I consider better. War and Peace? Best book I've ever read.

adammarples• 4 years ago

Within a few pages I knew it was great and honestly was sad that it couldn't have lasted longer. If you're not enjoying it, just stop, it's meant to be enjoyed like a nice whisky or something. No point forcing yourself.

AprilArcus• 4 years ago

I found Anna Karenina effortless, and I don't usually enjoy fiction. Perhaps it's just not the right book for you.

fredley• 4 years ago

No Such Thing As A Fish has ruined Anna Karenina for me.

syntaxfree• 4 years ago

Android Karenina did it for me.

nextaccountic2• 4 years ago

Why?

throwawayarnty2• 4 years ago

I hear a lot how people find it difficult to slog through anna karenina because of its length and numerous characters.

They cannot see how such a book could be one of the greatest of all time.

I think the analogy to music may be like: Beethoven’s 9th Symphony is one of the greatest of all time. But it’s a really long and complex piece lasting over an hour. It can be hard to pay attention to the entire piece.

That said, the recommendation for reading Anna Karenina would be to read it fast or watch a good tv series on it. War and piece 2016 tv series was excellent for example.

carabiner• 4 years ago

I find AK pretty easy going, and I've read it 3x, each time a different translation. War & Peace OTOH is impenetrable. I tried to build a habit of 10 pages each day. I lasted 8 days. Brothers Karamazov was similar. The most I got was 100 pages in during a 10-hour flight with no wifi, then put it down, probably forever.

briandarvell2• 4 years ago

Very interesting! I as well really enjoyed AK, but I also extremely enjoyed The Brothers Karamazov, even more than Anna Karenina. It's probably my favorite Russian classic! I too gave up on War and Peace however about 200-300 pages into the story.

I find timing plays a big part of my enjoyment of tougher classic novels. If I'm extremely busy or don't have time to dedicate to reading in decent chunks (an hour or more per day) then I find it hard to maintain motivation to read dense novels.

I somehow got through Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow but don't recommend anyone do that, I was just too stubborn to let it get the better of me :)

cardanome• 4 years ago

That is interesting because I found War and Peace the easiest to go through.

Though it might be because I actually found his materialistic approach to history very interesting and his views an leadership extremely valuable. So I am one of the few that actually enjoyed all the rambling about how much Napoleon sucked.

It is one of the few books that made a lasting impression on my worldview. I wish more management type people would read it. It just so exhausting to work with people that see leadership as some ego trip. A good leader's job is to simply enable the people to do their job.

Funny enough I don't remember much about the actual characters. Really need to read it again some other time. AK was a bit more difficult for me as it is more story-driven and a bit more subtle with it themes.

OriginalPenguin• 4 years ago

You should keep going with Brothers Karamazov. The first 150 pages are mind-numbingly boring. But starting at around page 151, it does indeed become one of the best, if not the absolute best book ever written.

UIUC_062• 4 years ago

AK is not difficult to read, IMHO. I say that as someone not particularly persistent about "difficult" books: I couldn't get through either War and Peace or The Brothers Karamazov, or many other "classics".

Whereas I've read AK three times.

bell-cot• 4 years ago

Difficult to slog through Anna Karenina because of its length and number of characters???

Have any of those critics tried reading a George R.R. Martin novel from the past 25 years or so?

mmmpop• 4 years ago

Beethoven's 9th is overwrought trash, so not following the comparison to one of the greatest novels ever written?

ratg13• 4 years ago

Are there any long books that don't have lots of characters?

georgeecollins2• 4 years ago

If you enjoy classic Russian films, many of the Soviet era are available on YouTube including Stalker, Come and See and other unusual classics.

billfruit4• 4 years ago

Yes, many Mosfilm classics seems to be on YouTube. I recommend Assa https://youtu.be/VOeDP6eUgD0

Such crisp, captivating film making from beginning to end. I do think the Soviet era is sort of mis-characterized in Western portrayals. Compare the Assa and the recent Chernobyl, both depicting about the same era.

Also "Assa" seems like a Soviet mirror image of how Blood Simple depcits the USA.

transistor-man• 4 years ago

Another great Mosfilm, Kin-Dza-Dza!. Spaceships run on matchsticks while rusty bolts are required for intergalactic travel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUtZOl_QxvY

tinalumfoil• 4 years ago

Tangential, but the "Most Replayed" feature on you tube makes me really not want to watch movies on there. Every-time I mouse over the scrubber a graph shows up that shows me exactly what the most rewatched section is, so for instance I immediately know there's an important scene 20 minutes into Assa.

billfruit4• 4 years ago

Another good one:

Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears: https://youtu.be/NTWA_7-ld_U

UncleOxidant• 4 years ago

Yes, many Mosfilm classics seems to be on YouTube

This seems to vary a lot. I just checked and there were several Moscfilm films available (including Stalker) but I'm pretty sure I checked this about 6 months ago and there weren't many available - some were available for rent, but not free view.

aasasd3• 4 years ago

‘Assa’ is about the end of the Soviet era and the coming of Perestroika youth. I haven't seen ‘Chernobyl’ yet, but I doubt I'm gonna see many Perestroika youth among the people at the plant.

There were a lot of movies in the late 80s and the early-mid 90s about the life of lower-class people in the crumbling USSR/Russia of that time: from simple depressing realistic depictions to surrealistic transgressions, simply because all these kinds of expression became permissible. ‘Assa’ is essentially a fantasy about the zeitgeist. USSR functionaries weren't forgotten of course, but their portrayals flipped upside down—there isn't a single point of view on the Soviet time, and ‘Chernobyl’ likely just has a different perspective.

I'm gonna bet, though, that execs in ‘Chernobyl’ are close-ish to Krymov of ‘Assa’, at least as I will see them.

By the way, funny thing: in a podcast by Russian cinema critics on Western films about Russia, someone remarked that no matter how much effort the crew puts into researching details, something always gives away the fictional and foreign nature of the work. In ‘Chernobyl’, one such moment is when a woman goes against a committee of bureaucrats and tells them how wrong they are. (Again, IDK what actually happens in the scene.)

somenameforme2• 4 years ago

Another great resource is rutracker.org, which has active torrents of media dating all the way back to shortly after the turn of the century.

If somebody is looking for a wonderful series, 17 Moments of Spring (Семнадцать мгновений весны) is an amazing series about the end of WW2 and the international tug-of-war largely between the USSR and USA to determine the fate of Germany, from the perspective of an individual who inside of Germany at the time. One of the few series I've watched multiple times.

TurkishPoptart• 4 years ago

How historically accurate do you think it is?

cbHXBY1D• 4 years ago

I thought a lot of the Soviet classics got taken down when Youtube deleted a bunch of Russian accounts earlier this year. Am I imagining things?

MarcelOlsz2• 4 years ago

$1000 reward to anyone who can get my eyes on the uncut Andrei Rublev.

coolandsmartrr• 4 years ago

I haven't heard of Andrei Rublev being cut. Which part was cut?

vo2maxer2• 4 years ago

Criterion has both the The Passion According to Andrei clocking at 3:25:55 and Andrei Rublev at 3:03:12, this last being the closest to Tarkovsky’s preferred version.

j7ake2• 4 years ago

Browsing open culture I realised there is enough free content to last several life times … why do you think people still pay for content like books, music, movies if the classics are good and free? Is it a marketing problem ?

sudobash1• 4 years ago

I think that it is partially a matter of relevance. For instance, there are vast newspaper and magazine archives which are free to read, but they don't have the same relevance as (eg) the latest New York Times articles. (Not that they are without value by any means, but reading them serves a different purpose).

Perhaps a better example would be someone in the 60's choosing to listen to an old Andrew Sisters record, or purchase a new Bob Dylan LP. The Andrew Sisters (as fun and lovely as their music is) would not speak to that present moment in the same way that Bob Dylan would.

Many aspects of art and culture are timeless, but many are not. There will always be a demand for new works to respond to the current day.

j7ake2• 4 years ago

I’m totally binging now on this TV series, it’s great so far!

gmadsen• 4 years ago

not sure who you interact with regularly, but the vast majority of people are not interested in watching classic film

IshKebab• 4 years ago

The classics generally aren't as good. There are exceptions (e.g. Star Wars) but old films generally have terrible pacing. Film making skills have not stood still.

The only thing that hasn't got better is speech clarity which is often terrible in modern films.

magarnicle• 4 years ago

I watched Battleship Potemkin the other day. Sure, some of it is a bit pokey compared to modern films, but the editing doesn't drag and there aren't many films in history with better shot composition.

aasasd3• 4 years ago

The uploader has not made this video available in your country

In Russia, that is. Har har har.

Not sure what's going on here and who blocked whom, but when people propose boycotting this vid due to its provenance, I have trouble even counting the layers of irony. There are at least two, but then it gets confusing.

anthonybsd• 4 years ago

I refuse to watch propaganda garbage made by the Russian fascist who is enthusiastically cheerleading the genocide of Ukrainians (1). If you are interested in Anna Karenina - do yourself a favor and just read Tolstoy. It's a fantastic book by one of my favorite writers (although War and Peace appeals more to me).

1. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10785295/Russian-TV...

denkmoon• 4 years ago

It behooves one to know their opponent. The mere act of viewing the media does not "support" the film-maker or the regime, assuming you're not paying for it.

kragen• 4 years ago

What's the license? That doesn't seem to be mentioned in the article.

8-Part Film Adaptation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina Is Free Online

Related Stories