Dear classics reader,
In this week’s old beehive you will find:
Our final discussion of Anna Karenina – with a few parting words;
Some background on J. D. Salinger, before we start reading The Catcher in the Rye next month;
Birthday wishes to John Steinbeck;
The week’s new classics – including a new translation of Tolstoy;
A preview of coming attractions;
And our final discussion of The Age of Innocence – with a note on the 1993 film adaptation.
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Anna Karenina (14 of 14)
This month, after more than a year of reading the original monthly instalments of Anna Karenina, we finished this vast, moving, life-enhancing novel. Here are my parting reflections:
I would love to hear your thoughts on Part Eight – and of the novel as a whole.
And to finish, here are a few different writers’ reactions to Anna Karenina:
Anton Chekhov:
‘In Anna Karenina and Eugene Onegin not a single problem is solved, but they satisfy you completely because all the problems are correctly stated in them.’
Jilly Cooper:
‘Very few men write very well about women, but Tolstoy understood women just as well as men – that’s what makes the book so interesting. Anna is a wonderful character. She comes across as so gorgeous and adorable, and her sex appeal radiates down the centuries.’
Fyodor Dostoyevsky:
‘a flawless work of art’
William Faulkner, when asked to list the three greatest novels:
‘Anna Karenina, Anna Karenina and Anna Karenina.’
Vladimir Nabokov:
‘the supreme masterpiece of nineteenth-century literature’
In her 2017 book, The Anna Karenina Fix, the British comedian and broadcaster Viv Groskop discusses eleven works of Russian literature and draws life lessons from them.
Her chapter on Anna Karenina is called ‘How to Know Who You Really Are, or, Don’t throw yourself under a train’ and concludes like this:
Anna Karenina regrets her suicide while she is in the very act. Just as she is pulled under the wheels, she says, horrified: ‘Where am I? What am I doing? Why?’ We get it. There’s not much point in her asking these questions now. She had her chance. She blew it. Tolstoy’s message? We need to make sure we ask these questions. But not quite so late.
In the end, Tolstoy appears to be asking something about literature itself. Is it really the job of novels to tell us how to live? Sadly, in his own life, he came to the conclusion that Anna Karenina had showed him how not to live: he did not want to be the person who wrote entertaining, complex novels. In coming to this realisation, he failed to follow his own advice and, instead of being like other happy people, he became uniquely unhappy in his own fashion. The final message of Anna Karenina? It’s all very well looking for answers, but life is, essentially, unknowable. We must search desperately for meaning. Sometimes we will come close to it, but most of the time we will be disappointed and then we will die. Sorry about that. Did I mention that not all the lessons would be cheery? Come on, this is Russian literature we’re talking about, after all.
For the last time, here are links to our previous Anna Karenina posts:
The Schedule (18 December 2024)
Leo Tolstoy (3 January 2025)
0. Introductions (10 January)
1. Part One, Chapters 1-23 – and Nabokov on Time (31 January)
2. Part One, Chapters 24-34, Part Two, Chapters 1-11 – and John Sutherland on Anna’s English novel (28 February)
3. Part Two, Chapters 12-29 – and Sergei Eisenstein at the races (28 March)
4. Part Two, Chapters 30-35, Part Three, Chapters 1-12 – and the Mowing Scene (25 April)
5. Part Three, Chapters 13-32 – and the Mirror of the Revolution (30 May)
6. Part Four, Chapters 1-17 – and Nabokov’s double nightmare (27 June)
7. Part Four, Chapters 18-23, Part Five, Chapters 1-6 – and the Mystery of Crowning (25 July)
8. Part Five, Chapters 7-20 – and Aleksandr Voronsky on Art (29 August)
9. Part Five, Chapters 21-33 – and Patti (26 September)
10. Part Six, Chapters 1-15 – and Shklovsky on the Snipe Hunt (31 October)
11. Part Six, Chapters 16-32 – and provincial geography (28 November)
12. Part Seven, Chapters 1-16 – and the Angliyskiy Klub (2 January)
13. Part Seven, Chapter 17-31 – and Jules Landau (30 January)
It has been such a pleasure reading Anna Karenina with you over the last year. This year, of course, we are reading another great Russian novel – The Brothers Karamazov – and I am already getting excited about early ideas for next year’s long-term reads . . .
J. D. Salinger (1919-2010)
And next month I am excited to reread J. D. Salinger’s cult classic The Catcher in the Rye, to mark 75 years since it was first published. We’re going to read it over three weeks, starting next Friday 6th March. All the details are here.
Beforehand, here is a little about Salinger’s life.
Jerome David Salinger was born in New York, the son of a kosher cheesemonger.
He dropped out of New York University to study the meat industry in Austria, leaving just before the country was annexed by Germany in 1938. He served in the US army during the Second World War, fighting on the beaches on D-Day, in the Battle of Hürtgen Forest and in the Battle of the Bulge. He met Ernest Hemingway in wartime Paris, who said: ‘Jesus, he has a helluva talent.’
Following the phenomenal success of The Catcher in the Rye in 1952, Salinger published a sequence of stories and novellas, all of which relate to the fictional Glass siblings: Seymour, Buddy, Boo Boo, Walt, Waker, Zooey and Franny.
He became increasingly reclusive, however, moving from New York to a remote compound in New Hampshire and becoming fascinated variously with Zen Buddhism, Vedanta Hinduism, Kriya yoga, Dianetics, Christian Science, homeopathy, acupuncture and macrobiotics. The last story he published was in 1965.
‘Not even a fire that consumed at least half his home on Tuesday could smoke out the reclusive J. D. Salinger,’ reported the New York Times in 1992. ‘[He is] famous for having elevated privacy to an art form.’
Salinger continued writing until he died, colour-coding his manuscripts red for posthumous publication ‘as is’ and blue for ‘edit first’. He died in 2010 and his executors are still preparing the material for publication.
I look forward to reading The Catcher in the Rye with you, starting next Friday.
Happy Birthday John Steinbeck
In other news, today was John Steinbeck’s birthday.
Steinbeck was born in California, in the fertile Salinas Valley about 25 miles from the Pacific coast, known as ‘the Salad Bowl of the Nation’; as a teenager, he would spend summers jobbing alongside migrant workers on sugar-beet farms.
He left Stanford University without a degree in 1925 and spent the next few years as a labourer, a tour guide and a manufacturer of plaster mannequins. Eventually he moved near Monterey on the coast and his family lent him enough money to try his hand at writing. His first commercial success was Tortilla Flat (1935), and he became known for his stories about working-class subjects, mostly set in and around the Salinas Valley.
In 1948, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 1962 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, a somewhat controversial decision described by a Swedish newspaper as ‘one of the Academy’s biggest mistakes’. (When Steinbeck was asked if he deserved the prize, he replied, ‘Frankly, no.’)
Today, however, he is considered one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century, combining meticulous observation with deep romanticism, seeking common values in the face of a dehumanizing society. His greatest novels include Of Mice and Man (1937), The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and East of Eden (1952).
East of Eden by John Steinbeck (1952)
‘There is only one book to a man’ Steinbeck wrote of East of Eden. Set in the rich farmland of the Salinas Valley, California, this powerful, often brutal novel, follows the interwined destinies of two families – the Trasks and the Hamiltons – whose generations hopelessly re-enact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. Here Steinbeck created some of his most memorable characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity; the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love’s absence.
[UK] Penguin Modern Classics | 640 pages | introduced by David Wyatt
[US] Penguin Classics | 640 pages | introduced by David Wyatt
What’s new this week?
There were only a few new classics published this week. Appropriately for the week that we finish reading Anna Karenina, yesterday saw the publication of Nicolas Pasternak Slater’s new translation of Sevastapol Tales by Leo Tolstoy. Nicolas Pasternak Slater is Boris Pasternak’s nephew and his new translation of Anna Karenina — which he made with his wife Maya Slater — was published by the Folio Society this year.
Sade’s Wife: The Woman Behind the Marquis by Margaret Crosland (1995)
The Marquis de Sade, infamous for his obscene writing and sexual cruelty, was incongruously married to a pious wife. A wife who, despite his peccadilloes, loved him devotedly for thirty years, through betrayal, imprisonment, and national turmoil. Bearing his children, editing his manuscripts, visiting him in prison, Renée-Pélagie de Montreuil endured her chaotic marriage with grace, achieving independence in an era when women were entitled to none. Their complex relationship, set against the French Revolution and its aftermath, is brought to life with humour and compassion by Margaret Crosland, the translator of Sade’s Gothic Tales.
[UK / US] Pushkin Press Classics | 176 pages
A Domestic Animal by Francis King (1970)
Antonio Valli, a gifted Italian philosopher in his thirties, has left his wife and children behind in Florence for a one-year research fellowship at a provincial English university. Handsome and charming, Antonio is irresistible to men and women both — and he knows it. One who falls under his spell is Dick Thompson, a successful middle-aged novelist from whom Antonio rents a room. For the first time in years, Dick finds himself desperately, passionately in love, but the games the manipulative Italian plays with him throw the older man’s life into chaos.
[UK / US] McNally Editions | 256 pages | foreword by Rumaan Alam
Sevastapol Tales by Leo Tolstoy (1855-56)
Crimea, 1854: Sevastopol’s inhabitants taunt the besieging forces that keep them trapped behind defensive walls. So begins Leo Tolstoy’s depiction of nine months of battle and bravery, based on his own experiences in the Crimean War. This new translation by acclaimed translator Nicolas Pasternak Slater introduces us to long-suffering citizens, vain hussars and the courageous Kozeltsov brothers — one jaded and pragmatic soldier, one naïve and hungry for glory. Enduringly vivid, profoundly ironic, Tolstoy’s portrayal of the stumble from triumph to disaster captures the absurdity at the heart of conflict.
[UK / US] Pushkin Press Classics | 208 pages | translated by Nicholas Pasternak Slater
The book descriptions above are taken from the publishers’ online blurbs.
Coming Attractions
Future monthly read-alongs
For a sneak preview of our upcoming monthly read-alongs, you can take a peak here.
The Brothers Karamazov
We are reading The Brothers Karamazov over the whole of 2026: twelve volumes over twelve months, January to December.
Join us! There’s still time to catch up. Here is the full reading schedule – and all our Brothers Karamazov posts will be gathered here.
We have already discussed Book One and Book Two – and our discussion of Book Three will be on Friday 27 March.
All the Brothers Karamazov posts are accessible to all subscribers for free, but if you would like to view or contribute to the conversation in the comment sections, you will need a paid subscription.
As ever, if you – or anyone you know – can’t afford a paid subscription, just let me know and I’ll send a gift subscription.
“Wuthering Heights”
In case you missed it, do listen to the “Wuthering Heights” episode of the Penguin Podcast. The brilliant Rhianna Dhillon interviews the director Emerald Fennell and then talks to Harriet Evans and me about the novel and the film adaptation.
On a related note, you might also be interested to listen to these episodes of my former podcast, On the Road with Penguin Classics, about great nineteenth-century novels: The Woman in White with Olivia Vinall, The Mill on the Floss with Louis de Bernières, Frankenstein with Anil Seth and Fiona Sampson and Pride and Prejudice with Monica Ali.
Catalogue
To mark the 80th anniversary of the Penguin Classics series this year, Penguin are publishing a complete catalogue of every Penguin Classic title currently available in the UK. It’s beautifully produced — and I’m proud to say that I helped to assemble the text inside.
This 400-page Catalogue will be available to purchase from April 16th. Here is Penguin’s description:
From Achebe and Austen to Zola and Zweig, and from the Epic of Gilgamesh to twenty-first century dystopias and autofiction, here is the complete list of every Penguin Classic in print. Published in a beautiful clothbound format, the list is arranged alphabetically by author and also includes key bibliographic information such as sub-series, genre and ISBN. Comprising 3,500 entries, this is the essential reference guide to the world’s largest and best-loved classics list.
Annual book subscription
And if you’re enjoying our read-alongs, why not treat yourself to the Hatchards Classic Book Club annual book subscription?
You (or a friend) can receive all the books we read each month here on Read the Classics, beautifully gift-wrapped and delivered to your door, anywhere in the world, as well as a year’s complimentary subscription to Read the Classics, so you can choose to read along with us, if you wish.
To find out more, follow this link or email Hatchards directly: subscriptions@hatchards.co.uk
The Age of Innocence (4 of 4)
Finally, this week we finished reading The Age of Innocence. What an ending! Here are my thoughts:
