2024 Week 4: Anna Karenina

I'm down to the last few pages of Anna Karenina. It's so hard to describe this book. I expected it to be difficult reading, but it's actually so binge-able. Each chapter is super short and the story follows a whole bunch of characters (sometimes from the POV of children, dogs, and horses) so it doesn't feel anything like a 800-page doorstopper.

There are 2 main narratives in Anna Karenina. First is of course the titular character, who, despite being married with a son, chooses to be with her lover Vronsky. Unwilling to get a divorce (which would sunder her from her son forever), Anna lives in isolation as a fallen woman, rejected by society. Meanwhile, although he gave up a military career for Anna, Vronsky still lives as a fairly independent man. The relationship between them sours due to the impasse over the divorce. Anna goes mad and kills herself.

The other one, which isn't as melodramatic, is Constantine Levin and Kitty Shcherbatsky. We first meet them when Levin proposes to Kitty and she rejects him in favour of Vronsky. Levin flees back to his country home and throws himself into manual labour, while Vronsky throws Kitty over for Anna Karenina. After this period of mutual heartbreak, Levin and Kitty meet again and they get married. 

I wish I had read Anna Karenina before getting married. It would have prepared me better for the trials of domestic life as two people merge to form one household.

I have never related to any fictional character as much as I do Constantine Levin. Apart from Kitty, Levin is pretty much alone. He's too intellectual to hang out with the other fun-loving aristocrats in his circle, yet too pragmatic as a landowner and farmer to be at ease with Russian intelligentsia. He even tried hanging out with the peasantry but quickly felt out of place. 

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Other books I finished this week are Tim Marshall's Prisoners of Geography and Tom Standage's A History of the World in 6 Glasses. 

I talked about Prisoners of Geography in my last post. Well, it was an okay read but not very illuminating. I appreciate it for the maps and the geographical knowledge but I am still very skeptical about the author's thesis. I might have to read Daron Acemoglu's Why Nations Fail as a counterpoint.

As for A History of the World in 6 Glasses, it was a fun romp through several millennia, but it was very light reading and left me wanting something denser.

Not sure what to read next for nonfiction. I think I'll buy the Penguin History of the World as it seems quite reputable while being readable.

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Well, the highlight of my week was getting cleared by the doctor after blood test #2 showed that, far from having any nutritional deficiencies, I am CHOCK full of folate and vitamin B12.

Another highlight was going to Hai Di Lao at 313@somerset for the "high tea" buffet. This is really just the standard $4 condiment buffet, except this outlet also has eclairs, cream puffs, cookies, cakes, a chocolate fondue station, and (my favourite part) a CoffeeBot coffee and tea dispenser.

What else. Oh, have been doing quite a bit of Deliveroo this week. It's fun in small amounts but I can see why it would be damaging to the brain, not to mention career prospects, in the long run. 

Eeyore has developed a taste for cat food.

Poor old cat.

Goodbye to Xiao En!