To be fair, Tolstoy named his novel for Anna, having dismissed the early working title of Два Брака (Two Marriages). When he wanted to emphasise contrasting principles in his titles, he did so: War and Peace, Master and Man. Nor did he trouble himself to create obvious connections between the stories. After Vronsky's pursuit of Anna frees Kitty to marry Levin, the couples have no significant effect on each other. Levin and Vronsky meet thrice, Anna and Levin meet for a few hours, and Anna and Kitty meet for a few minutes.
Nonetheless, many critics of the last few decades have argued that the two stories are connected, following Tolstoy's own claim that the novel was "законченный" (well-finished). Such critics point out the similarities of Anna and Levin as great readers, strongly invested in their relationships, who are capable of extreme mental states and suicidal thoughts. The fact that they end up filled by misanthropy and philanthropy respectively is indicative of how the managed contrasts between them work in Levin's favour. Anna elopes as Levin marries; Anna honeymoons in Italy whilst Levin honeymoons on the land; they meet in Moscow, where Levin becomes a father and Anna commits suicide.
Yet the stories' suggested contrasts fail to adequately encompass either. For one thing, Levin and Anna are at very different stages in their marriages. A fair comparison of Anna is not to the newly-wed Levin or Kitty, but to how they might be nine years later. A different justice operates in the two stories: Levin has had pre-marital affairs as Vronsky has, but comes away relatively unscathed by the novel's plot and its implied judgment.
More importantly, Levin's and Anna's concerns are simply too divergent to allow their stories to shed much light on each other. At the end of the novel, Levin, happily married, is concerned with why to live under any circumstances given that he will one day die. Anna, unhappily married, had been concerned with how to live under her particular circumstances, which had obscured from view the largest questions such as occasioned Tolstoy's own breakdown on finishing the novel. Alexandr Zarkhi, in his 1967 film version, interpolates into their one meeting a discussion about suicide — but even on this subject they, like their stories, have relatively little to say to each other.
The novel's very composition as separate stories (Levin's was spliced into Anna's) permits a difference of genre, rather as people's actual lives can seem to belong to different genres. Whereas Anna's roman aspires towards the condition of the European novel (Madame Bovary precedes it by two decades), Levin's story has the aspect of autobiography. Tolstoy's diary has a gap during the composition of the novel, as though writing Levin's story had replaced its function. In comparison to Anna's omen-fulfilling tragedy, Levin's muddling through to his final epiphany feels realistic.
But if Levin's concerns are of limited relevance to Anna, of how much relevance are they to us? Most of us have no option of choosing life on a country estate over urban life, and the town-country divide carries a fraction of the moral weight which it did in Tolstoy's time and country. Unlike Levin, who sees in the peasant Platon an incarnation of the Russian virtues, we no more seek for wisdom or virtue in one class than in any other.
Nonetheless, many critics of the last few decades have argued that the two stories are connected, following Tolstoy's own claim that the novel was "законченный" (well-finished). Such critics point out the similarities of Anna and Levin as great readers, strongly invested in their relationships, who are capable of extreme mental states and suicidal thoughts. The fact that they end up filled by misanthropy and philanthropy respectively is indicative of how the managed contrasts between them work in Levin's favour. Anna elopes as Levin marries; Anna honeymoons in Italy whilst Levin honeymoons on the land; they meet in Moscow, where Levin becomes a father and Anna commits suicide.
Yet the stories' suggested contrasts fail to adequately encompass either. For one thing, Levin and Anna are at very different stages in their marriages. A fair comparison of Anna is not to the newly-wed Levin or Kitty, but to how they might be nine years later. A different justice operates in the two stories: Levin has had pre-marital affairs as Vronsky has, but comes away relatively unscathed by the novel's plot and its implied judgment.
More importantly, Levin's and Anna's concerns are simply too divergent to allow their stories to shed much light on each other. At the end of the novel, Levin, happily married, is concerned with why to live under any circumstances given that he will one day die. Anna, unhappily married, had been concerned with how to live under her particular circumstances, which had obscured from view the largest questions such as occasioned Tolstoy's own breakdown on finishing the novel. Alexandr Zarkhi, in his 1967 film version, interpolates into their one meeting a discussion about suicide — but even on this subject they, like their stories, have relatively little to say to each other.
The novel's very composition as separate stories (Levin's was spliced into Anna's) permits a difference of genre, rather as people's actual lives can seem to belong to different genres. Whereas Anna's roman aspires towards the condition of the European novel (Madame Bovary precedes it by two decades), Levin's story has the aspect of autobiography. Tolstoy's diary has a gap during the composition of the novel, as though writing Levin's story had replaced its function. In comparison to Anna's omen-fulfilling tragedy, Levin's muddling through to his final epiphany feels realistic.
But if Levin's concerns are of limited relevance to Anna, of how much relevance are they to us? Most of us have no option of choosing life on a country estate over urban life, and the town-country divide carries a fraction of the moral weight which it did in Tolstoy's time and country. Unlike Levin, who sees in the peasant Platon an incarnation of the Russian virtues, we no more seek for wisdom or virtue in one class than in any other.
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