Anna Karenina

By: Leo Tolstoy

Narrated by: David Horovitch

Length: 38 hrs

Publisher's summary

Anna Karenina seems to have everything - beauty, wealth, popularity and an adored son. But she feels that her life is empty until the moment she encounters the impetuous officer Count Vronsky.

Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude.

©1994 BBC Audiobooks Ltd (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Dear Anna

I Loved this book. I wished so badly I could speak with Anna.
The performance was AMAZING to me, I was actually able to keep track of the complicated relationships between characters and of each character because of the narration. He did it perfectly.
coming from someone who has not seen the movie or even looked up the plot to the book I was shocked at then end. I even cried for Anna and her son. This book gave me all the emotions you can think of. A must read if you ask me!

Written in a different time.

I am so used to the cookie cutter way storylines are written and and played out with all of today’s movies and books that I believe it has effected my ability to fully appreciate this book. This book is a challenge. It goes to and fro from character to character’s storylines and then fills in large areas with rather pointless long winded narratives that you can get lost very easily. I don’t regret taking the time to listen to this book. It just was not what I expected

A story like none other

This is just the best story I've ever listened to, what a understanding of people's lives .

I Wish I Had Read this Long Ago

What made the experience of listening to Anna Karenina the most enjoyable?

The storytelling is wonderful. Tolstoy's descriptions made me feel I was watching this as a movie in my mind.

Who was your favorite character and why?

I had no favorite character. I felt they were all egoistic and even if they were thinking of others, it was in either a patriarchal or narcissistic way.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

I really dislike films made from books. The scenes are never as vivid as the ones I see in my mind.

Any additional comments?

I wish I'd read this book in school. It would be great to dissemble and get points of view of others.

A book I'll never forget

Loved it. Going in I was expecting Anna Karenina to be so heavy that it would be a chore to chip away at, but I was quite wrong. Tolstoy's writing was an absolute pleasure. The characters feel so real that I feel as though I know them. I pitied and despised Anna, and admired Levin, especially because he wasn't perfect (making him relatable). Beautiful writing. Heart-wrenching and moving novel.

And David Horovitch — PERFECTION.

Fantastic book, extremely well narrated

Tolstoy has an amazing ability to articulate the nuances of human thought. To some extent, augments my own internal dialog. This is not an easy read, but incredibly rewarding. I highly recommend this version as David Horovitch was an exceptional narrator.

Amazing performance by the narrator

Excellent narration and 1.5x speed kept me going through the dull parts. Farming? the Serbian question? I'd have put it down if I was reading instead of listening. Great listening experience overall.

Great narration!

The book is an unrivaled masterpiece so I’ll just comment on what a great narration it is, significantly superior to any alternative I’m aware of.

Read for a good life

The book is absolutely amazing, read it if you want to be inspired to have a great family life. The narrator pronounces the Russian names weird, but overall very good reading.

outstanding performance!!!!!

First and foremost, Anna Karenina is acclaimed as the greatest novel ever written and what a well deserved title that is.

A 38 hour story could easily be presumed as exhausted, and as well Tolstoy leaves no stone unturned, it is still a masterpiece of large and small scale social subtly and insight.

But the most amazing feature of this recording is David Horovitch (the narrator). This recording took quite a while to work my way through, but if I didn't think it was literally impossible, I'd assume this to be recorded in one take.

The level of consistency of David's performance is astounding. I am also convinced that he speaks English, French, and Russian because of the fluidity with which He pronounce Russian phrases/ names as well as French phrases/ names without a single beat skipped.

Beyond the technical facilities required to simply speak 800+ pages of words, the skill and phrasing to which they were said left nothing to be desired. So much character and tonal nuance paired with a level of insight to the larger situation at hand as well as the the situations to come helped tremendously in being as aquatinted as I possibly could with the active plot.

(I would also like to note that this translation pulls no punches in it's insulting descriptors of people. Which I found very funny!)

I think I've made it more that clear of my appreciation for this audiobook, but if I had any recommendations for taking it on that would be to also have a physical or at least digitally written copy of a different translation. Reason being that even though I love this version, translations can vary to degrees that I found important. Different connotative values for phrases/ words or layouts of paragraph do have an impact on how the information is understood. Reading while listening was a definite learning curve, but I think it served me well in getting a better understanding of the the story and perhaps Tolstoy's intended story.

Anyway, 10/10 would recommend. Good soup!