From Narnia to Russia...

Finally finished The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. It was a long, interesting read. Made up of seven books arranged in order of the story, not necessarily the publication dates, it brings the reader into the fictional world of Narnia and usually deals with some sort of good vs. evil battle fought by the people of Narnia and a couple of children from the "other" world. It was toward the last half of the story that I realized how much of the story was based on the Christian religion. A little research and yup, this is a pretty commonly accepted fact. Apparently, another set of titles on my list, Philip Pullman's series His Dark Materials is seen as a response to The Chronicles of Narnia, written by a self-described atheist who rejects the spiritual themes in The Chronicles of Narnia.

I'm sort of tired of children's literature for the moment, or else I would have started that series to compare.

So, now onto a very adult book: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. This book intimidated me for years. I felt it would be beyond my comprehension, too difficult to attempt and I almost left it off the list. But, a conversation on a CBC radio broadcast between two writers who discussed Tolstoy and his writing peaked my interest and I decided to give it a try. Gotta at least try, right?

I'm glad I did. I started it yesterday and I'm already on chapter 15. Of course, seeing as the book is broken down into eight parts with a total of over 200 chapters, this isn't all that impressive. It's the size of a brick. I'll be reading it till well into August, if not September.

So far, I'm disliking Oblonsky and I'm liking Levin. Oblonsky has charm and that certain smoothness that politicians always possess but he feels no guilt for cheating on his wife and offers no apologies. If anything, he's upset that he got caught and feels he should have hid the affair better. He even goes so far as to console himself with the fact that he had to cheat because his wife is no longer attractive. What a romantic. Levin, on the other hand, is very stern and unattractive, keeps his feelings close to his chest. But inside, he's a mess for Kitty and I find him kind of endearing. 

So that's where I'm at in the story. Hopefully I'll stay interested!