I've fallen behind in both my blogging and my reading but I've spent a very productive week otherwise. It's strange for me to be stuck in a book this long, I'm now at the end of three weeks on it. It's funny that even though I am still enjoying the story, I have a restless urge to just put it down. I guess in general I tend to be the reading equivalent of a sprinter and this is more like running cross country.
I finished Part 6 this morning (two more to go) and it was a bit of a shift in tone. Most of it revolved around Levin and his household instead of shifting as regularly between the three groups. What really struck me was how insanely complicated russian imperial politics were. Levin is completely awash in it for the first time and seems absurdly confused by it while everyone around him seems to conspire to make it look like it is the simplest thing. I wonder if, by his choice of point of view, Tolstoy was making a point about the politics of his day. I have to admit that my sense of russian history is a little shaky and I certainly haven't a clue what Tolstoy's personal politics were. I just get the idea that he was making a point somehow.
In a funny way, I'm feeling inspired to pick up a history on late imperial Russia.
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