Somehow I missed that Anna Karenina was being remade into a movie this year. And let me tell you, the trailer looks truly gorgeous! It look sensuous and whirling and everything a film adaptation of Anna Karenina should be. It’s directed by Joe Wright (Atonement and Pride and Prejudice) and the adaptation was written by Tom Stoppard who also wrote Shakespeare in Love so I have an inkling that it’s going to be good!
Watching this, I realized I don’t remember the book well enough. I read Anna Karenina as a challenge in 10th grade. I used to do academic competitions and I was the team’s only literary person. I remember learning that if they were talking Russian literature 9/10 the answer was War and Peace or Anna Karenina or Leo Tolstoy (when this wasn’t the answer Dostoyevsky was) . I wasn’t quite brave enough for War and Peace so I tried Anna Karenina.
I liked the book though, despite the fact that the large chapters on Russian politics and farming provided a struggle. I think someday I’ll have to read it again. Perhaps after seeing this lovely film adaptation.
Side Story: I answered Anna Karenina on a TV quiz show (Scholastic Scrimmage) once, but the team leader/ my largest nemisis of the time mispronounced Karenina. We still got the points but the host mocked us. I was quite mad at him since I had said it correctly. Now we are dating. Life is strange.
Katelyn Garmong 