If you're looking for light entertainment, and perhaps deep thoughts, check out Woody Allen's 1975 film Love and Death. In the clip above you see Diane Keaton as Sonja and Woody Allen as her cousin Boris, the evening before Boris is to engage in a duel. He goes on and on about, you guessed it, wheat.
Throughout the film, Allen parodies Russian literature, especially Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. There are scenes related to War and Peace, and the film is set in the Napoleonic era (i.e. the 1810s, about which Tolstoy wrote his masterpiece), but it includes references to other Russian authors as well, including the 20th century poet Anna Akhmatova. It's ridiculous, and the acting can be great. I highly recommend it.
Tolstoy said that "in Anna Karenina I love the idea of the family." Here we see Sonja (a true American woman of the 1970s!) feeling suffocated at the prospect of a large family and indeed commitment of any kind, but as you've noticed in Anna Karenina Levin is constantly thinking about how he should live his life -- and in the end both questions and answers are often related to family.
At a number of junctures in the novel Levin feels tortured and wonders how he should live. To name just a few:
Levin is destined to be a family man. But on the way to getting there, he has several experiences worth contemplating. In Part III, Chapters IV and V, for example, he spends time mowing with the peasants. This work, which is physically exhausting, requires a different kind of concentration from Levin:
Throughout the film, Allen parodies Russian literature, especially Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. There are scenes related to War and Peace, and the film is set in the Napoleonic era (i.e. the 1810s, about which Tolstoy wrote his masterpiece), but it includes references to other Russian authors as well, including the 20th century poet Anna Akhmatova. It's ridiculous, and the acting can be great. I highly recommend it.
Tolstoy said that "in Anna Karenina I love the idea of the family." Here we see Sonja (a true American woman of the 1970s!) feeling suffocated at the prospect of a large family and indeed commitment of any kind, but as you've noticed in Anna Karenina Levin is constantly thinking about how he should live his life -- and in the end both questions and answers are often related to family.
At a number of junctures in the novel Levin feels tortured and wonders how he should live. To name just a few:
- in the face of his brother Nikolai's death
- when interacting with Dolly Oblonskaya (Kitty's sister) visiting in the country (Part III, Chapter X)
- when discussing his brother Sergei [or Sergius] with his wife (Part VI, Chapter III)
- when hunting with Oblonsky and Vasenka Veslovsky -- whose high spirits are fairly annoying (Part VI, Chapter X)
- when hunting alone with his beloved dog Laska (Part VI, Chapter XII)
- and of course while he waits for Kitty to give birth.
Levin is destined to be a family man. But on the way to getting there, he has several experiences worth contemplating. In Part III, Chapters IV and V, for example, he spends time mowing with the peasants. This work, which is physically exhausting, requires a different kind of concentration from Levin:
While working he sometimes forgot for some minutes what he was about, and felt quite at ease; then his mowing was nearly as even as that of Titus. But as soon as he began thinking about it and trying to work better, he at once felt how hard the task was and mowed badly.
This passage highlights Levin's biggest problem: instead of living, he thinks about living. If only he could act instinctively, not get so hung up on ideas, figure out the natural way to function in the world.
Like, for example, the peasants do.
Further evidence of Tolstoy's love of the peasantry is found in Part III, Chapter XXV. This short chapter about the "well-to-do peasant" is more important than you might imagine: this peasant family and household impress Levin immensely. The wealth and, more importantly, good humor of this family, who all work together in a rational and joyful way, remains an ideal: Levin "every now and then recalled that household, as if the impression it had left on him demanded special attention."
Why, do you think, are these moments -- hunting alone with a dog, interacting with children, admiring a peasant household -- so important for the novel?
When Anna says to Dolly: "I wish to live, not hurting anyone but myself. I have a right to do that, have I not?" (Part VI, Chapter XVIII), does she have that right, or does she not?
Like, for example, the peasants do.
Further evidence of Tolstoy's love of the peasantry is found in Part III, Chapter XXV. This short chapter about the "well-to-do peasant" is more important than you might imagine: this peasant family and household impress Levin immensely. The wealth and, more importantly, good humor of this family, who all work together in a rational and joyful way, remains an ideal: Levin "every now and then recalled that household, as if the impression it had left on him demanded special attention."
Why, do you think, are these moments -- hunting alone with a dog, interacting with children, admiring a peasant household -- so important for the novel?
When Anna says to Dolly: "I wish to live, not hurting anyone but myself. I have a right to do that, have I not?" (Part VI, Chapter XVIII), does she have that right, or does she not?