The Anna Karenina Fix

'Wonderfully entertaining, hilarious. Contains the distilled wisdom of some of the greatest writers who ever lived' Allison Pearson, Sunday Telegraph What should I do with my life? What if my love is not returned? Why do bad things happen? The answers to some of life's biggest questions are found not in trite self-help manuals but in the tough-love lessons explored in Russian literature. Here, Viv Groskop delves into the novels of history's deepest thinkers to discover enduring truths about how we should live. Whether you're new to the Russian classics or returning to old favourites, The Anna Karenina Fix will help salve your heartache by exploring the torments of a host of famous and infamous literary heroes and heroines. Think of it like this: they have suffered so that you don't have to . . . 'Enchanting. Groskop falls in love with the literature, her impressive knowledge of which she conveys with a charmingly breezy tone' Observer 'A beguiling tasting menu of some of the finest reading experiences of my life. Witty, likeable, and lighthearted, Viv Groskop invites us to embrace the work of these august Russian dead souls as belonging to us all' Lionel Shriver

“Groskop skillfully juggles memoir, biography, philosophy, and literary criticism to create a delightful tour through some of French literature’s greats.” —Madeline Miller, New York Times–bestselling author Like many people the world over, Viv Groskop wishes she was a little more French. A writer, comedian, and journalist, Groskop studied the language obsessively starting at age 11, and spent every vacation in France, desperate to escape her Englishness and to have some French chic rub off on her. In Au Revoir, Tristesse, Groskop mixes literary history and memoir to explore how the classics of French literature can infuse our lives with joie de vivre and teach us how to say goodbye to sadness. From the frothy hedonism of Colette and the wit of Cyrano de Bergerac to the intoxicating universe of Marguerite Duras and the heady passions of Les Liaisons dangereuses, this is a love letter to great French writers. With chapters on Marcel Proust, Victor Hugo, Gustave Flaubert, Stendhal, Honoré de Balzac, Albert Camus, and of course Françoise Sagan, this is a delectable read for book lovers everywhere. “Ms. Groskop is a skilled raconteuse who brings people—and the page—to life. She writes with a self-deprecating appreciation of the Frenchman or -woman manqué(e) that lurks in us all. You don’t have to be a savant to enjoy this book . . . Au Revoir, Tristesse will make a witty, seductive companion.” —The Wall Street Journal “Groskop’s combination of her own memories, what the novels meant to her at different stages in her life, her description of the authors, along with her description of the novels, will have readers eagerly turning the book’s pages.” —Forbes

Leo Tolstoy’s classic story of doomed love is one of the most admired novels in world literature. Generations of readers have been enthralled by his magnificent heroine, the unhappily married Anna Karenina, and her tragic affair with dashing Count Vronsky.

Anna Karenina is the story of a married aristocrat/socialite and her affair with the affluent Count Vronsky. The story opens when she arrives in the midst of a family broken up by her brother's unbridled womanizing—something that prefigures her own later situation, though she would experience less tolerance by others. A bachelor, Vronsky is eager to marry her if she will agree to leave her husband Karenin, a senior government official, but she is vulnerable to the pressures of Russian social norms, the moral laws of the Russian Orthodox Church, her own insecurities, and Karenin's indecision. Although Vronsky and Anna go to Italy, where they can be together, they have trouble making friends. Back in Russia, she is shunned, becoming further isolated and anxious, while Vronsky pursues his social life... Widely considered a pinnacle in realist fiction, Tolstoy considered Anna Karenina his first real novel and Dostoevsky declared it to be "flawless as a work of art".His opinion was shared by Vladimir Nabokov, who especially admired "the flawless magic of Tolstoy's style", and by William Faulkner, who described the novel as "the best ever written". About the Maude translation: the translation by Aylmer Maude and Louise Shanks Maude is highly considered by scholars. This unabridged translation from the original Russian was originally published in 1918.The Maudes were classical translators of Leo Tolstoy who worked directly with the author and gained his personal endorsement. About the Garnett translation: Constance Garnett's translation of Anna Karenina is still among the best. Some scholars feel that her language is closer to the 19th-century sense of the original. Garnett translated seventy volumes of Russian prose for publication, including all of Dostoyevsky's novels.

Translation by Louise and Aylmer Maude originally published in 1918.

Excerpt from Anna Karenina: A Novel Most unpleasant of all was the first minute when, on coming, happy and good-humored, from the theatre, with a huge pear in his hand for his wife; he had not found his wife in the drawing-room, to his surprise had not found her in the study either, and saw her at last in her bedroom with the unlucky letter that revealed everything in her hand. She, his Dolly, forever fussing and worrying over household details, and limited in her ideas, as he considered, was sitting perfectly still with the letter in her hand, looking at him with an expression of horror, despair, and indignation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

At its simplest, Anna Karenina is a love story. It is a portrait of a beautiful and intelligent woman whose passionate love for a handsome officer sweeps aside all other ties - to her marriage and to the network of relationships and moral values that bind the society around her. The love affair of Anna and Vronsky is played out alongside the developing romance of Kitty and Levin, and in the character of Levin, closely based on Tolstoy himself, the search for happiness takes on a deeper philosophical significance. One of the greatest novels ever written, Anna Karenina combines penetrating psychological insight with an encyclopedic depiction of Russian life in the 1870s. The novel takes us from high society St Petersburg to the threshing fields on Levin's estate, with unforgettable scenes at a Moscow ballroom, the skating rink, a race course, a railway station. It creates an intricate labyrinth of connections that is profoundly satisfying, and deeply moving. Rosamund Bartlett's new translation conveys Tolstoy's precision of meaning and emotional accuracy in an English version that is highly readable and stylistically faithful. Like her acclaimed biography of Tolstoy, it is vivid, nuanced, and compelling.