Part II, Chapters 16-21: A Horse Named Frou-Frou

Everybody has one: that friend who wildly overestimates his or her knowledge about a subject to which you've devoted your life, your love, and your Facebook cover picture. The outcome can range from amusing to downright infuriating, depending on how much the right pronunciation of your childhood heroes' names matters to you.

"I wish J. K. Rall-ling had made Hermy-one end up with...why are you twitching like that?"

Levin's clueless friend is Stepan, and the result is one of the more comical scenes about land dealership I've encountered in literature. Stepan's city boy notions about forest prices are like calling Gabby Douglas "un-American"; not just off the mark, but completely and appallingly wrong. Levin knows better, of course, but Stepan is too much of a sophisticate to take advice from someone who oversees countryside property for a living. This ticks off Levin considerably (since Tolstoy has already established him as some kind of agricultural savant) and sends him into an unironic defense of the stratified class system that would warm the hearts of all 11 people who want the feudal system instated in America.

"[L]iving in good style - that's the proper thing for noblemen; it's only the nobles who know how to do it...The gentleman does nothing, while the peasant works and supplants the idle man. That's how it should be."

At least his anti-revolutionary rant is a break from the 24/7 all-Kitty-all-the-time broadcast running through his brain. Now that he's learned from Stepan that she's still on the market, Levin is lovin' once again. Too bad his snotty attitude about Vronsky ought to be a complete turnoff for any self-respecting woman:

"You consider Vronsky an aristocrat, but I don't. A man whose father crawled up from nothing at all by intrigue, and whose mother - God knows whom she wasn't mixed up with...No, excuse me, but I consider myself aristocratic, and people like me, who can point back in the past to three or four honorable generations of their family..."

Whoa there, Lev. First, you're getting mighty close to caste system mentality, and second, you're the one with the brother who beat up a village elder. Take a chill pill and learn a lesson from Poli Sci Ryan Gosling.

That's better.

Meanwhile, Vronsky is busy managing the taxing duties of horse races, an affair with Anna, and his job, in that order. I'm still not clear on what being a regiment leader actually means. It's this supposedly prestigious position that requires him to occasionally eat steak with a bunch of permanently hungover manboys. If you substitute Ramen for steak, that sounds suspiciously like the daily routine of a million plain old college students, but it's afforded Vronsky a great deal of respect...although it still doesn't stop his fellow officers from making fun of how fat and bald he's getting.

In case this wasn't a big enough hint at Vronsky's waning masculinity, Tolstoy had to go and have him name his prized racehorse Frou-Frou. And the man wonders why his jockey doesn't treat him with his due respect.

To everyone who realized this was the namesake for that horse in The Aristocats: I tip my hat to you.

With this additional poor reflection on Vronsky's decision-making, I'm more skeptical than ever about his resolution at the end of Chapter 21 to "abandon everything" and run off with Anna. I mean, we're talking about the guy who made sex with Anna his goal for an entire year, only to worry about having too much once he got it:

[H]e needed occupation and distraction quite apart from his love, so as to recruit and rest himself from the violent emotions that agitated him.

Consistency issues aside, I do owe Vronsky for inspiring today's Official Lit Dish. In honor of his beefy breakfast, here's a recipe for portobello mushroom steaks. They're a healthy and meatless alternative that Tolstoy - a committed vegetarian - would have surely appreciated.

Chapters 21-27: Blueblood Blues

Illicit love! Crushed hopes! Gossiping cliques! Impractical poofy gowns!

No, I'm not talking about the backstage drama at a high school production of Oklahoma!. This is something with an even greater share of sweat, tears, and corsets: a ball. Fictional balls never go smoothly, but no one  told Kitty, who seems to thinks that dancing in a pink dress is the ideal way to win a higher social standing and the heart of a handsome man.

Because it worked for Carrie, right?

Of course, it's no surprise for any observant reader when Vronsky zones in on Anna instead. Not after what happened the evening before the ball, when he stopped by the Oblonsky house for exactly long enough to catch a glimpse of her. But for naive young Kitty, the sight of her would-be beau waltzing the night away with Anna is quite a shock. And why not? It's the end of her belief in society's assurance that, as an innocent and beautiful (and aristocratic) maiden, she deserves a "happily ever after" with the perfect husband. Fairy tales that supported this trope were all the rage in Russia at the time. Being upstaged by a much older, married woman blows all the messages they preach out of the water.

Meanwhile, our homeboy Levin is going through his own share of angst now that he's sure Kitty rejected him in favor of Vronsky:

Yes, there must be something disgusting, repulsive about me...What right had I to imagine she would care to join her life to mine? Who am I, and what am I? A nobody, not wanted by anyone, nor of use to anyone.

Even though Tolstoy piles on the self-loathing to the point when I thought he should have titled this book The Sorrows of Young Levin, I feel for the guy, especially when he makes a point to check on his deadbeat brother. Despite Nikolai Levin's history of assaulting young boys, old men, and everyone in between, our Levin is determined to find the good in him somewhere. Personally, I don't blame their other brother from disowning Nikolai, who goes on to scream at his mistress that he's going to beat her when she tries to take away his vodka. What a charmer.

I would question how he got a girlfriend in the first place, but Chris Brown's success at receiving female attention has disillusioned me.

Furthermore, Nikolai's lecture to Levin on the need for a communist revolution is so unconsciously hypocritical that it's hysterical. Here he is, complaining about the plight of workers and bashing his brother for having "aristocratic views," while doing...what, exactly? Oh yeah, that would be drinking himself into oblivion with the money his family sends him. He's the opposite of Stepan: his lifestyle and politics are totally out of sync. As a Mac user who doesn't like corporate acts of evil, I won't be too critical of him on this matter, but it sure isn't winning him brownie points from his actual hardworking brother.

Still, things are looking up for Levin once he finally gets back to his farm, where he resolves to stop expecting that he'll ever have a woman in his life other than his housekeeper and his favorite cow. Freud followers might say this is just as well, since it doesn't take a psychoanalyst to recognize Oedipal undertones in his notion of the perfect woman.

Levin scarcely remembered his mother. His conception of her was for him a sacred memory, and his future wife was bound to be, in his imagination, a repetition of that exquisite, holy ideal of a woman that his mother had been.

Borderline madonna fixation aside, it's no wonder that he's crazy about Kitty - they're both idealists with romanticized notions of courtship and marriage. And, as of now, both of them have had their dreams soullessly crushed. I smell a theme in the works...

Other than to not count your dance offers before they hatch, as Kitty learned the hard way.

Speaking of smelling, this Official Lit Dish is for anyone who likes the aroma of simmering beets. Because Anna leaves the ball before supper is served, I can only guess as to what delicacies the guests enjoy. However, it's absolutely plausible that there's a soup course, and borscht was at that time a soup enjoyed by the Russian nobility and peasants alike. If you're not afraid of brightly colored vegetables, this would be an excellent (and nutritious) meal that matches the color of Kitty's face when she realizes that she has no partner for the mazurka.

More shenanigans coming tomorrow, when (I'll admit it, I peeked ahead) we see what's going on in Anna and Vronsky's heads after this turn of events. Can't wait to wrap up Part One of this eight-part behemoth!