Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (1877). Anna’s adulterous love affair with Count Vronsky—which follows an inevitable, devastating road from their dizzyingly erotic first encounter at a ball to Anna’s exile from society and her famous, fearful end—is a masterwork of tragic love. What makes the novel so deeply satisfying, though, is how Tolstoy balances the story of Anna’s passion with a second semiautobiographical story of Levin’s spirituality and domesticity. Levin commits his life to simple human values: his marriage to Kitty, his faith in God, and his farming. Tolstoy enchants us with Anna’s sin, then proceeds to educate us with Levin’s virtue.
Total Points: 238 (MB 10) (JBarn 7) (CB 7) (JBud 6) (BMC 1) (PCap 4) (PC 5) (CD 7) (BEE 9) (GG 7) (RG 9) (HaJ 10) (DLod 4) (MMCPH 4) (MM 10) (NM10) (PM 2) (CM 6) (SM 10) 7) (SO’N 7) (TP 9) (RPri 8) (FP 10) (APat 10) (JSalt 3) (LShriv 8) (AMS 10) (SS 2) (ST 9) (EWhite 10) (TW 7) (SY 10)