Leo Tolstoy's 1878 novel interweaving the tragic story of Anna Karenina (adultery, social condemnation, suicide) with Levin's spiritual journey toward authentic meaning — widely considered one of the greatest novels ever written; opens with the Anna Karenina Principle.
Creates the definitive psychological portrait of social and personal destruction — the novel's first sentence ('Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way') encapsulates Tolstoy's insight that failure has specific causes while success has generic ones — what Jared Diamond later called the Anna Karenina Principle.
Discussing
Ask anything about Anna Karenina — their ideas, influences, contradictions, legacy.
Sign in to start a conversation.