But seriously, this may be one of my favorite books ever, but the story of Anna isn't, and her descent into despair isn't.What rivets me so, it's Levin out on his farm scything the hay with the tenant farmers and becoming himself.
Levin is awkward in society. He needs wide open spaces. The stuffy, cluttered drawing rooms of Moscow make him feel penned in. He gets clumsy and feels anxious and hates the tight-fitting suits and always spills soup on his coat--he's that guy. But out in the fields with his scythe and the fresh air, he has space to be the man he is. He isn't clumsy, but almost primal. I can see him shirtless on the fields for hours, days, with the graceful motion of his strong shoulders feeling the rhythm of the land around him. Levin doesn't care for lace and frills, but he does care about purity--he has a pure, unadulterated heart, and he will protect and love those he cares for.
The most telling moment about Vronsky in Anna K, is when he races his beautiful horse Frou-Frou and she crashes so that she breaks her spine. He loved her more than almost anything in life, and he rode her into death and shot her in the head without shedding a tear. I can't even talk about all the symbolism or the motifs of running too hard, or going till you absolutely break. There is something magnificently selfish and soulless in his beautiful eyes which become more and more vacant as the film goes on. Anna herself veils herself more and more till she is almost always in darkness at the end of the film.
Alexei also represents the organised man who is so good that he's incredibly boring most of the time and it will take a very special women to appreciate him the right way. Alexei's stoic, "Christ-like" and yet some how inhuman forgiveness of Anna seemed defiant and unmasculine. How he can be such a champion in the courtroom and a spineless martyr in the bedroom is beyond me.
Alexei's sterile, by-the-book love fails in the end. Vronsky's fire storm of love burns he and Anna to the ground. And don't even get me started on Oblonsky...
I know Levin starts out as the underdog of Anna K, but he's really this unsung romantic hero. He becomes himself out on the fields, he goes back for what he wants, and is ready to love and protect it. He knows who he is and what he offers and to whom he's offering it. Levin is a real man emotionally, physically, even if he doesn't have the best clothes and throw the fanciest dinners.
Which brings me to the my favorite scene of the BOOK, not the movie... where they are truffle hunting and he proposes! Ok... the theatricality of life in the city and the eyes on you and your marriage--Tom Stoppard totally hits the nail on the head when he adds in the meta-theatre of the stages throughout the movie. Levin wants to live outside of all that in the countryside--he doesn't want his entire life and marriage to be a spectacle, but to live simply and genuinely, not worrying about appearances, but the heart.
He needs Katia to be ok with this, so she visits his farm with her family before he proposes. She gives him her heart genuinely and lives in a heart to heart relationship with him. Not for sex, not for appearances, not to be taken care of... for true love. So yes, out of the rich, the lusty, the athletic, the famous, the hardworking, men in Anna K... I fell for the awkward romantic guy because he makes his life worth sharing with someone and then gives her his real heart and self cause I am that girl.
Of all the men I meet, the ones I respect the most are genuine, but the ones I love give their hearts, even if they do it awkwardly.
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