ANNA KARENINA (Leo Tolstoy) - December 6/12

Well, here it is. The worst, most boring book I've ever read. This interminable read, which I've been working on for about three months now, just feels endless for the most part, as Tolstoy devotes chapter after chapter to utterly mindless and stupendously pointless subplots and diversions - including farming, the pros and cons of communism, etc. There's some good stuff here - the Anna/Vronsky romance is, after all, awfully melodramatic - but it's maybe 5% of a book that's otherwise packed with filler. (Take out everything not related to the relationships, and you've got AT BEST a short story.) Anna's grim death notwithstanding (she changed her mind and everything), there's very little here to recommend. Just an awful, awful piece of work. no stars out of ****