• Anna Karenina

  • By: Leo Tolstoy
  • Narrated by: Davina Porter
  • Length: 36 hrs and 45 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (928 ratings)

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Anna Karenina  By  cover art

Anna Karenina

By: Leo Tolstoy
Narrated by: Davina Porter
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Editorial reviews

Davina Porter's performance of Tolstoy's dauntingly long and involved world classic makes one feel grateful not to have to make this difficult literary journey alone. Porter's voice is pleasant, expressive and versatile; her Russian pronunciations impressive; and her understanding of the work excellent. In an unhurried and confident fashion, Porter reveals the twisting social and personal tensions that ensnare a very mortal married woman who falls into illicit love. Porter's interpretation gives a warmth and consistency to this demanding novel which silent readers would be hard-pressed to approach, let alone duplicate. This is an outstanding example of performance literature.

Publisher's summary

Tolstoy's masterpiece begins, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

This is the story of the unhappy family of Anna Karenina. The novel contains much concerning Tolstoy's spiritual crisis and his search for the meaning of life. But it is also chiefly about marriage, and 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 Russia's landscape. It is a magnificent story that shimmers with the intensity of intelligence and passion, especially through this superb narration by Davina Porter.

Public Domain (P)1990 Recorded Books

Critic reviews

"Porter reads magnificently." (Los Angeles Times)

What listeners say about Anna Karenina

Average customer ratings
Overall
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Story
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

a good supplement

I used the audible version to help me read through the actual text version, and found it very helpful. It's such a big book, it can be intimidating. I'm planning on doing the same with Tolstoy's 'War and Peace'. The problem with Russian literature (very generally speaking, and for me at least) is that the names are a little tricky, and it can be hard to keep track of them (let alone pronounce them!). So having it read to you is vastly helpful. The characters still resonate through my mind. Anna is such a tragic heroine (if you choose to categorize her as 'heroine'). She reminds me of Emma Bovary (of 'Madame Bovary').
Sometimes I simply listened, sometimes I read along. Although sound quality is not the greatest, I found it enjoyable listening and would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Russian literature.

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48 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

wonderful translation & reader

This is an excellent translation read with wonderful, evocative expression by Davina Porter. After some searching I found the text version from Random House/Modern Library Paperback translated by Constance Garnett AND Leonard Kent AND Nina Berberova. There is an original translation by Constance Garnett alone but that is different. I like to be able to refer to a hardcopy text of my audiobook, and it's nice if the translations actually match up. The reader really brings alive this outstanding novel.

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30 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Even Better Aloud

This was my first audiobook from Audible. I chose it because I wanted to reread Anna Karenina -- it is a favorite of mine. Hearing it aloud reminded me that until the last century these great novels were meant to be told and read aloud. The capable narration and dramatic interpretation of Davina Porter made it much easier to keep track of the unfamiliar names and story lines and brought each main character to life. As for the story itself, it was one of my favorites and is now even more so with hearing of it and the new insights I got this time around.

Highly recommended!

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28 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Anna Karenina

Of all the Russian literature I have listened to in audio form, this was by far the best experience. I don't really know what the narrator did differently here, but the rhetorical digressions flowed with the story well enough that I rarely noticed them. It may just be Tolstoy's skill, but bravo to Divina Porter for many hours of entertainment. I enjoyed the story, the ideas, and the characters very much. If you have to choose between this novel and War and Peace, although they are both excellent, choose this one.

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17 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

BORING!

I hate to say it - the only reason I continued to torture myself with the book was because I had paid for it! I was searching the whole time for a reason that this book made it into the "classics" pile and not the trash heap. It was awful! There are parts of the book that seem to have only been put in there to further torture the reader and had no apparent point except to lengthen the book. I actually found myself hoping that Anna will die in childbirth just so the book would END!!! I normally enjoy the classics, but this was a total and complete snore.

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16 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Love gone bad, read well

This book is a classic and read very well by the narrator. Having no idea what the story was about when I decided to get this book, I was in for a huge surprise. This book is an excellent narrative on a variety of male-female relationships that all demonstrate some type of domestic abuse. The heroines are looking for a truly love filled life and find themselves in varying degrees of despair due to their beloved men becoming controlling, cheating, manipulative, or even vindictive husbands. This story is not for the faint hearted or for those who like to read about romance.

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15 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Intelligent and tender

This novel is a remarkable achievement. It is like looking at an intricately pieced quilt, one in which every thread has been braided by hand and dipped in liquid gold. Rarely have I read a novel in which even minor characters have rich, fully realized pasts and deep interior lives. The story is long, but Tolstoy is not wasteful with words. Every sentence tells. The narrator is lively, with a pleasant, soothing voice. I worried whether I would be able to stick with five 7-plus-hour takes, but I was sorry to see it end.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

What am I missing?

I am an avid reader, having read hundreds of books in my lifetime. I love the classics, but I found this to be extremely boring, disconnected, and preachy. It seems that Tolstoy used every character's thoughts to portray his own political, religious, and economic views. Over and over and over, I lost track of the plot, wrapped up in some blathering soliloqy. Davina Porter was the one saving feature to this novel. She is one of the absolute best narrators and she did a fabulous job with even this boring dribble. I actually purchased this book simply BECAUSE Davina Porter was the narrator. She didn't let me down, but this book did. I had to push myself to finish it. Boring, boring, boring.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Enjoyable

I really enjoyed this book. While the unabridged version is long and a bit wordy at times, I can't imagine the abridged version could possibly do justice to the complexed stories and character development. If you enjoy light, airy stories that get to the point quickly, this is not the book for you. If you like to really get into the characters, enjoy a developing story and just love to sit back and listen, this is a perfect choice.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent Narration enhances Very Long Book!

Although I always yearn to listen to Russian novels due to fond memories of reading them many years ago, I have been discouraged from trying an audio version because the length means I will be reading the same book for a whole month now that I have so little free time to read compared to when I was a student.

I bought this Davina Porter audio YEARS ago and could never face so much time with one book. For some reason I recently decided I was 'in the mood'. I listened to a sample, dreading the thought of buying yet ANOTHER version (I mistakenly bought two different versions in 2004) to get good sound. What a nice surprise! The recording is as good as anything being recorded today, and despite being a really picky listener I have no complaints at all.

On the contrary, 'Anna Karenina' contains long disquisitions on political and agrarian economy which are very demanding of a wonderful narrator and are well served by Davina Porter. Her expression is always lively, her emotion appropriate and her pronunciation is perfect. She uses different intonations for different characters for variety, but not different voices - her rhythm is wonderful, and her accents in French for example, are very comprehensible. There are so many Russian and French and German names that this book could be a disaster for an unskilled reader, but everything she says is comprehensible and beautifully pronounced - even when it isn't actually the way a native would speak. You never lose the meaning of the text which is incredibly important in such a long book with so many foreign words.

For readers/listeners with the time to devote to a classic Russian tome, this is a wonderful recording.

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4 people found this helpful