I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I still have not finished reading Anna Karenina.
I started this book two or three years ago, maybe. And I still haven’t finished it. I get into it for a little bit and then put it down after another hundred pages or so. Right now, I’m not entirely confident I’m going to finish it by the end of the school year, or even by the end of the calendar year. It’s a goal—maybe an aspirational goal. Knocking out 100 or 150 pages isn’t too daunting, but finishing roughly the second half of a brick like this is going to take some actual grit.
That said, I figure once I’m back in the classroom—particularly with the new cell phone ban in Michigan schools—I’ll probably be looking for something to do to pass downtime. Maybe this is finally the year I get it done. I just have to give it some sustained, dedicated reading time.
What originally drew me to the book in the first place was the fact that it’s fundamentally about a woman navigating the different relationships in her life, surrounded by a whole orbit of people caught up in their own love melodramas. As a big fan of How I Met Your Mother, I was actually surprised to learn that Robin’s last name, Scherbatsky, is a direct nod to Kitty Shcherbatskaya from Anna Karenina. Knowing the writers’ penchant for clever literary easter eggs, there’s definitely a thematic parallel there with romance, heartbreak, and timing.
Of course, I’ve never read anything else by Tolstoy before. Most people talk about War and Peace being the ultimate marathon read, but Anna Karenina has its own endurance tests. I did read that Tolstoy originally published Anna as a serial in a monthly periodical. Honestly, that explains so much—like why there are entire chapters that feel like pure filler where characters just drone on about 19th-century Russian agricultural reform and contemporary politics.
And I get it, the book is from another era. It’s like trying to read Mark Twain or Herman Melville. Twain will ramble on sometimes for a few pages about stuff that really has no bearing on the main plot in books like Huckleberry Finn. And take Moby-Dick—Melville will spend entire chapters breaking down the literal anatomy of a fish that have absolutely zero bearing on Ahab actually hunting the white whale.
Kind of like I’m doing right now. Rambling on about a whole lot of nothing.
Rebuilding a life takes grit, consistency, and a lot of ‘Option C’ thinking. Having crossed the 1,000-day milestone, I’m now charting the territory beyond. The mission remains the same: No glitz. Just the work. New to the blog? Start your journey here to see the blueprint and the ‘Tricorder’ perspective behind the rebuild.
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The article “The Multi-Year Bookclub: Why I Still Haven’t Finished Anna Karenina” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob
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