Revisit "Anna Karenina"

I watched the BBC adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” when I was a kid. I don’t remember much except that my grandmother and mother both found Anna unbearable and Karenin likable. Their comments were, “What’s wrong with Anna? Karenin is such a nice guy. And that Count Vronsky is a rascal for sure.”

Somehow, I thought of watching it again when I found it on Netflix. No wonder I did not remember a thing from before –I could not have possibly possessed the intellect or experience to truly understand it. Tolstoy’s ability to understand human emotions is truly astounding. It is almost as if he lived through Anna’s experience. Maybe it has to do with the fact that he was gay after all, which made it possible for him to get a pulse on a woman’s feelings.

Yes, indeed I can see why my grandmother and my mother could not stand Anna. She was after all impetuous, impossible and unstable in the end. Yet at the same time, as a grown woman, I can also understand Anna and truly feel sorry for her, as her fate was inevitable. Nicola Pagett’s portrayal of Anna was terrific. Interestingly, I remember my mother telling me that she flipped through all the sections on Levin when she was reading the book. And here I was, fast-forwarding all the sections on Levin when I was watching the TV series. I really found him tedious. I suppose that he represented an individual with political ideals, whereas Anna was just an individual struggling with her personal happiness. However, ultimately what touches me is not abstract lofty ideals – it is always intensely personal and individualized feelings.

That is why we live – to experience a whole gamut of emotions through our experiences on earth. Perhaps I used to fool myself into thinking that our human existence is meant to make a big difference to the world, to the planet and to the whole universe. But now I realize that fundamentally the only thing that ever touches me viscerally is palpable and understandable human emotion. And Tolstoy was a master in capturing it with his masterpiece “Anna Karenina”.