The little girl, his child, was so sweet and Anna had become so attached to her, once this little girl was all she had left, that she rarely remembered her son.
This sentence made me sad---as a mother, as well as on behalf of her son.
And much later in Part 5:
It was impossible not to smile, not to kiss the little girl, not to give her a finger ...And Anna did all this, took her in her arms, got her to jump, and kissed her fresh cheek and bare little elbows; but the sight of this child made it still clearer that her feeling for her, compared to what she felt for Seryozha, was not even love. Everything about this little girl was sweet, but for some reason none of it touched her heart.
More of me feeling sad.
In everything he (Vronsky) said, thought and did, she saw something especially noble and lofty. Her admiration for him often frightened her: she sought and failed to find anything not beautiful in him. she did not dare show him her awareness of her own nullity before him. It seemed to her that if he knew it, he would stop loving her sooner; and she feared nothing so much now, though she had no reason for it...He, manly as he was, not only never contradicted her, but had no will of his own and seemed to be concerned only with anticipating her wishes. And she could not help appreciating it, though the very strain of his attentiveness towards her, the atmosphere of solicitude he surrounded her with, was sometimes burdensome to her.
Vronsky meanwhile, despite the full realization of what he had desired for so long, was not fully happy...It showed him the eternal error people make in imagining that happiness is the realization of desires.
Whoa. So true.
Vronsky's enthusiasm for painting and the Middle Ages did not last long...With his peculiar resoluteness of character, without explaining anything or justifying himself, he ceased to occupy himself with painting.
Methinks there might be another, deeper parallel here.
Levin and Kitty:
These confrontations also often took place because they did not yet know what was important for the other and because during this initial time they were both often in bad spirits.
I thought this was a really elegant way to view one of the things that's so important in a marriage.
He continued his occupations, but he now felt that the center of gravity of his attention had shifted elsewhere, and owing to that he looked at his work quite differently and more clearly. Formerly his work had been a salvation from life for him. Formerly he had felt that without it his life would have been too bleak. But now this work was necessary to him so that life would not be so uniformly bright.
Happy :)
The sight of his brother and the proximity of death renewed in Levin's soul that feeling of horror at the inscrutability and, ith that, the nearness and invitability of death, which had seized him on that autumn evening when his brother had come for a visit. The feeling was now stronger than before; he felt even less capable than before of understanding the meaning of death, and its inevitability appeared still more horrible to him; but now, thanks to his wife's nearness, the feeling did not drive him to despair: in spite of death, he felt the necessity to live and to love.
Back to Anna and Vronsky:
He felt that his respect for her was decreasing at the same time as his consciousness of her beauty increased.
He felt sorry for her, and still he was vexed. He assured her of his love, because he saw that that alone could calm her now, and he did not reproach her in words, but in his soul he did reproach her.
So much happened in Part 5! I'm sure there are many other quotes that struck you. Feel free to comment on any of the quotes I included above, but also do share what struck you for one reason or another.
Ohhh, Miss Anna. Hot. Cold. In love. Not in love. Scornful. Needy. Apathetic. Desperate. Tender. Offended. Loving. This princess is ALL OVER the map. But in typical Tolstoy fashion, he's managed to evoke sympathy from me for her. She is so unstable and seemingly co-dependant on Vronsky that I just want some way for things to work out for her. While very young, she married a man whom she never felt connected to or loved/known/understood. She ends up losing her son---the one person who genuinely loves her. She's currently in a relationship that caused her to sacrifice nearly everything in her life and now that man is growing more and more dissatisfied with her with every page. Sure she's brought much of this unhappiness and misfortune on herself, but can't a sister catch a break?? You know, other than being born into priviledge, being uncommonly beautiful, having two healthy children, and a husband who stands aside quietly while she humiliates him because he wants what is best for her...
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
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