She was his belle ideal. A fuck-up, just like he was. Fallen, prodigal. His book-end match. Through her he could admit what he could not about his own life with standing in society. She started as a sinner, and her husband a saint, but in the architecture of Tolstoy's arches, she stands in relationship to Levin, representing his innermost thoughts and experience.
The story of the individual, however, is not complete without the judgment of society. Few things, short of Jesus, can stop the train. It is the writer's task to observe the ways of judgment, cultural and individual, negative as well as positive. Thus the off-set focus of Levin's story, the last hours in the life of Anna Karenina.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Thoughts from an obscure literary life. Your average joe as literary critic, writer, poet, social commentator, cultural observer, barman, wine enthusiast, Irish-Polish American.
Blog Archive
About Me
- DC Literary Outsider
- Washington, DC, United States
- Gandhi tells us to be the change we want to see in the world. I wanted to see a blog on writing. Not necessarily the craft stuff, the things you could learn in a classroom, but the basic matters (and mysteries) of creativity, depth and subject matter. I am a veteran barman of Washington, DC. My novel, A Hero For Our Time, a modern retelling of Hamlet, is available on Amazon.com. (My thanks to Mr. Lermontov, God rest his soul, for allowing me to nod to his singular classic.) What makes writing literature? Writing will always be an art form to honor.
No comments:
Post a Comment