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...
Yes, Part V was loaded. I like that you mentioned Anna's feeling towards her children because I would like to camp out on topic of Seryozha.
ReplyDeleteIn Part V we become privy to some of his thoughts concerning his mother's absence. It was a relief to see that in his naivety and innocence he is, at this point, protected, sort of, from the potential wounds of her leaving.
pg. 523, "Among his favorite occupations was looking for his mother during his walk....even after he was told that she was dead, he looked for her during his walks. Any full-bodied, graceful woman with dark hair was his mother. At the sight of such a woman, a feeling of tenderness welled up in his soul, so strong that he choked and tears came to his eyes...Her whole face would be visible, she would smile, embrace him, he would smell her smell, feel the tenderness of her hand, and weep happily, as he had one evening when he lay at her feet and she tickled him, and he laughed..."
Obviously the memory of his mother is still very strong, which was a relief to read, I'm not sure why, perhaps because as a mom I would not want to be forgotten so easily? And, when Anna went abroad with Vronsky, leaving Seryozha behind, I was horrified, I just couldn't imagine it.
I think Anna realizes the strength of her feelings here, as Brooke pointed out, and I can very much relate, having an almost nine year old son, too:
pg.538 "...in this little girl everything was still to come, while Seryozha was almost a person, a loved person; thoughts and feelings already struggled in him; he understood her, he loved her, he judged her..."
Such a great articulation of how our love for our children grow as they grow and we get to know them more.
I gotta pick up my own big boys (my second oldest baby just turned 7 last week!) from school so I will continue in a new comment, some more of my thoughts.
Something else that struck me to the heart was Tolstoy's description of how Seryozha relates to his father:
ReplyDeletepg. 525 "...his father always talked to him - so he felt - as if he were addressing some imaginary boy, one of those that exist in books, but quite unlike him. And he always tried, when with his father, to pretend he was that book boy."
whoa. dagger to the heart. this sort of goes back to an earlier discussion we had about "being seen". I raise, correct, teach and love my children but do I really see them. I would say that there are times I don't, that I miss them because I am more preoccupied with their performance, how correctly and independently they behaved that day. yuck.
which leads to this next profound, and, of course, well-articulated insight:
pg. 526 "He was nine years old, he was a child; but he knew his own soul....and did not let anyone into his soul without the key of love. His educators complained that he did not want to learn, yet his soul was overflowing with a thirst for knowledge....The water that his father and the teacher had expected to turn their mill-wheels had long since seeped away and was working elsewhere."
again....ouch.
I am not sure why throughout this book I seem to reflect on many of these character's experiences in a "self-help book" sort of way! :) Maybe good literature is supposed to do that....when the writer has been so thoughtful, plain and in-tune with the human experience we can't help but hold the mirror up to ourselves. That is what it is like for me when a writer, like Tolstoy, can put into words something I have fleetingly noticed but never really reflected on or articulated - it's like a mirror.
Curious what you guys think.
On a different note, I was very intrigued by the artist Mikhailov painting Anna's portrait (pages 477 and 478).
ReplyDeleteNot much is said about it but I wondered if an artist has ever done a painting of Anna's fictional character, as inspired by the novel? Anyone know? For a while I wondered if Mikhailov was a real painter during this time who perhaps did a portrait of a beautiful, unknown woman, and perhaps this inspired Tolstoy. Guess I have read too many books by Tracy Chevalier (The Virgin Blue, Girl with the Pearl Earring, The Lady and the Unicorn, etc.)
I also think it is kind of funny that Mikhailov's presence/artistic influence sort of stopped Vronsky in his tracks when it came to his own artistic endeavors.