Part II, Chapters 10-15: Manning Up

One thing about Anna Karenina that took me by surprise is how chick-litty it can be. I've barely scratched the surface, and I've already encountered ballroom dancing, lovestruck princesses, weepy tête-à-têtes,  detailed descriptions of gowns, and sentences like this:

Yet, while she looked like a butterfly clinging to a blade of grass, and just about to open its rainbow wings for fresh flight, her heart ached with a horrible despair.

I am speaking as someone who has the entire Sound of Music soundtrack memorized when I say that just typing that sentence made my mouth taste like caramel syrup. There's nothing wrong with a tea party or five, but I've also been wondering when I was going to be able to break out my album of "Misc. Manly Stuff" images for the blog.

Like Olympic athletes! They're the epitome of manly...oh, wait.

My wait is over. Today I plunged into a testosterone-scented pool of hunting expeditions, sex with beautiful women, sowing fields, and -

Hold on. Sex? Yes, that's right, Anna finally gives in and gets it on with Vronsky, after "almost a year" of wheedling. I had to read the part that says this about five times to make sure that it actually happened, because Tolstoy is extremely subtle in his language on this subject. (Or maybe reading Lady Chatterly's Lover in the seventh grade permanently desensitized me to the treatment of coital relations in literature.) He dwells a lot longer on the immediate aftermath, which involves Anna sobbing in all-consuming shame and Vronsky thinking about her in weirdly morbid metaphors.

But in spite of all the murderer's horror before the body of his victim, he must hack it to pieces, hide the body, must use what the murderer has gained by his murder.

The full description is so unsettling that I can't bring myself to insert the clever joke about la petite mort that would otherwise be mandatory. Let's just say that neither had the kind of reaction desirable to their situation, and that Anna should have received sufficient red flags by now that this affair is probably not going to end happily.

Most of these chapters aren't about Vronsky and Anna, though. They're about Levin. More specifically, Levin putting aside his disappointment over the failure of Operation Snag Kitty and developing mad skills in the field of agricultural theory. Sometime I'm going to have to borrow one of those Ag students that N.C. State is crawling with and get a full explanation for his elaborate "human character as a factor in farming equations" idea. Until then, I'll just assume it's brilliant, since he frequently complains that no one else on the farm knows what the heck they're doing. Oh, and before I forget, is Levin an example of manliness, or what? Working like a freakin' Horatio Alger character to dominate in his career field, now that's manly.

Let's hear it for masculine domination of the corporate ladder! What? Well, that's awkward...

Then, what d'you know, Stepan drops by for a hunting-slash-business trip in the country. He's his usual self: hearty appetite, cheery temperament, comparisons of women to bakery items. It's interesting that Levin values him so much as a friend, even when he is completely taken aback by his Stepan's elaboration on the delights of marital infidelity. I have to admit that I'm not sure to what to think about this now that Anna is guilty of the same transgression. Is Stepan less guilty because he genuinely doesn't believe it's wrong, while Anna feels strongly that it is and gives into her temptation anyway? Is Anna more innocent because she feels regretful afterward? Or is adultery just adultery?

Maybe Stepan and Levin get along because they both like hunting. And hey, fighting through a forest to shoot animals and watch them bleed their tiny lives out onto the grass has to be the epitome of manhood.

I give up.

Thanks to today's Official Lit Dish, you can enjoy Russian-style marinated mushrooms just like the kind that Stepan and Levin enjoyed. In pictures, they look exactly like the kind in Rams Head Dining Hall at UNC, which are my third-favorite salad bar item after the hummus and Turkish figs.