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...

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!