Part II, Chapters 1-3: Hello, Kitty

And now we break from the steamy sexual tension of Anna and Vronsky to catch up with Kitty, who was last seen choking back tears as her Big Night spiraled into a living version of Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know." Like Levin, she does not easily recover from the pangs of unrequited love. Unlike Levin, her reaction to it is to come down with a mysterious illness that involves "failing strength" and doesn't respond to treatment. Everyone just assumes that Vronsky's rejection left her heartsick, a condition quite common to Unrequited Tragic Maidens in classic literature. It's kind of a wimpy reason to lie in bed all day, but it was more socially acceptable back then.

The modern equivalent is excessive use of Tumblr.

 Except they're only half right. Kitty's sick, all right - sick of the slimy underbelly of high society, to which Vronsky's betrayal opened her eyes.

"If mamma takes me to a ball - it seems to me she takes me only to marry me off as fast as possible, and get me off her hands...These suitors so called - I can't bear the sight of them. It seems to me as if they're always taking stock of me...everything appears to me, in the coarsest, most loathsome aspect."

She's Holden Caulfield, calling out the prep school phonies. She's Nick Caraway, shouting that the East Eggers are a rotten crowd. She's Cinderella, if Cinderella had decided that Prince Charming was totally superficial and divorced him to start her own housekeeping business. She is mad about being objectified and that is awesome.

Even if the chance that she'll pull a River Tam and vent her frustration over an oppressive system into crazy ninja moves is, admittedly, rather low.

The irony is that both of Kitty's parents are obsessing over the Vronsky situation when her sister - Dolly - is dealing with post-childbirth recovery, six kids with scarlet fever, and an AWOL husband who has already started up a new affair after promising it would never, ever happen again. Come to think of it, Dolly gets about as much crap in this part of the book as Levin did earlier. C'mon, Stepan, you can at least lend a hand with the Oblonsky Bunch when you aren't busy with your girlfriend...especially considering that children died from scarlet fever all the time in the 1800s. (One of them was Leo Tolstoy's seven-year-old son, Ivan.)

However, despite the debauchery and reality television-worthy antics in the lives of Tsarist Russian aristocrats, there's one perk that makes me think twice about throwing a Pity Kitty party. Namely, that the doctors recommend going abroad as the best treatment for her condition, and her mom and dad buy into it. Ha! I wish that every time I felt strangely weak, my parents would spring for a trip to Paris or Milan. I'd even take Disney World. Or how about just the Lands in Epcot?

Canadians in kilts playing Celtic rock? I feel better already.

One of the remedies tried on Kitty was iron, which was probably administered in the form of pill supplements invented during the nineteenth century. A much tastier source would have been this granola, made with ultra-healthy blackstrap molasses. It's also one of the Official Lit Dishes that I can easily make in my dorm's kitchen. If only European travel was as accessible as this treatment...