Anna Karenina: Week One

My Thoughts on the first 70 pages:

1. I'm loving my edition of the book.  Translations occur at the bottom of the page, and the notes on social references are very interesting (they are in the back, but easy to flip to and well worth the effort!)
2. The references to Pushkin's works are making me want to read more of his works.  The Tales of Belkin was one of my favorite novellas in August, so seeing him quoted by Tolstoy thrills me somewhat.
3. The first (and only other) time I read Anna Karenina, I was around 16.  Which, unfortunately, means that it has been more than 16 years since.   This also means that I'm finding it much easier to comprehend and enjoy, as I suppose is only natural.  The reading is pretty quick, and I'm loving how philosophy is intertwined with humor.  Just what I've come to love about Tolstoy.  Because of my experience with him so far, this book isn't intimidating at all.  It doesn't even seem long (which earns me very strange looks from friends and family.)
4. I wasn't planning on posting every week about this read-a-long, but I'm beginning to rethink that...it's nice to have a place to record my thoughts and quotes--especially for a lengthy classic.

Quotes from the first 70 pages:

• p. 3  He could not now be repentant that he, a thirty-four-year-old, handsome, amorous man, did not feel amorous with his wife, the mother of five living and two dead children, who was only a year younger than he. [...] He had never thought the question over clearly, but vaguely imagined that his wife had long suspected him of being unfaithful to her and was looking the other way.  It even seemed to him that she, a worn-out, aged, no longer beautiful woman, not remarkable for anything, simple, merely a kind mother of a family, ought in all fairness to be indulgent.


• p. 9  It turned out that he had forgotten nothing, except what he had wanted to forget--his wife. [...] And his inner voice told him he should not go, that there could be nothing here but falseness,that to rectify, to repair, their relations was impossible, because it was impossible to make her attractive and arousing of love again or to make him an old man incapable of love.  Nothing could come of it now but falseness and deceit, and flaseness and deceit were contrary to his nature.


• p. 10  She still kept saying she would leave him, yet she felt it was impossible, because she could not get out of the habit of considering him her husband and of loving him.


• p. 41  Christ would never have said those words, if he'd known how they would be misused.  Those are the only words people remember from all the gospels.  [Referring to "lovely fallen creatures" (a phrase from Pushkin) and Luke 7:47--"Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much"]