Product Description

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Thus begins Leo Tolstoy's masterpiece. Tolstoy's own spiritual crisis and his search for the meaning of life are deeply felt throughout this powerful tale about the growth and death of love.

The touching picture of Anna Aarkadyevna Karenina's slow disintegration has fascinated readers for well over a century. Beautiful and charming, Anna lives in a splendid world of her own making. She smokes, rides horseback, plays tennis, takes opium, practices birth control, and-although she is already married-falls in love with a handsome army officer. Anna's life is played out against a backdrop of dazzling balls and the vastness of the Russian landscape. A magnificent story that shimmers with intelligence and passion, Anna Karenina is one of the most extraordinary novels ever written.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #78670 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06
• Format: Unabridged
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 30
• Binding: Audio CD

Customer Reviews

Wonderful
Reading a masterpiece like Anna Karenina is daunting -- requiring as it does a large investment of time and mental energy. But the audio format and Davina Porter's wonderful narration make it work. The narrator is critical in such a format. A good narrator seems like a companion for a long journey, and an expert one can provide some interpretation of a great work akin to the role of a conductor or an actress. Porter is able to do justice to the characters. Her interpretation of Anna's husband makes the man as unattractive as, I think, Tolstoy wanted him to be.

Classics, like youth, are wasted on the young. I read Anna Karenina at 19 and couldn't appreciate its richness until I've lived a life. What comes through on the second reading is the vanity of romantic love. Vronsky and Anna are the picture of perfect lovers. But love is also a social construct, and the relationship does not work without the supporting fabric of family, children, and friends -- however hypocritical that social milieu can be. Of course what's missing most from Anna and Vronsky's life is spirituality. Love needs a spiritual as well as a social context to survive and thrive.

I fell in love with Anna on the first reading and did not remember much about Levin's character. While Anna is still a wonderfully attractive and rich character on the second reading, Tolsoty's ultimate disapproval of her and his identification with Levin are far clearer on the second read.

Great audio version!
This is a great audio version of Anna Karenina. Although the narrator's Russian pronunciation of the names leaves something to be desired, everything else is superb. She is able to effectively create the characters in your mind, and does it so well that you don't even notice the narration--you simply see the images in your mind.

Very, very enjoyable.

Bad sound quality ruins a good production
Be warned. The sound quality on these CDs is very poor. They sound like highly compressed MP3s. Why they would do this is baffling, and if I was the narrator of the set I'd be furious with the finished product.
There's another unabridged Anna Karenina CD set by Blackstone books read by Nadia May that has better sound quality, though still not great.
On the other hand the 2 volume unabrigeded War and Peace set by Naxos AudioBooks, 2006 has a great narrator and crystal clear uncompressed sound. It's more expensive than this set, but a magical experience to listen to. In contrast, this set should have been great, but I soon gave up since it sounds like I'm listening to the narrator through a lousy modem instead of in my living room by a warm fire.