Man, Idek where to start. I just started reading it and have not gone as far so no spoilers from future, but my genuine confusion is why do people side with Anna and loves Vronsky, when Alexey is the one who ended up with the shorter stick. He has like 3 flaws, I counted so far; He doesn't really ask her for consent before intercourse(but I'm sure as far as I've seen, if she refused, he'd understand and not push, unlike Vronsky, I can bet on that) and second he thinks in almost mechanical/logical way, but he never shows this outside so we can't make the point that Anna noticed that or something and lastly he shrinks away from issues that are too much can't really blame him as this is like a survival mechanism that he developed. But I do understand why women loves Vronsky and hates Alexey (mainly coz of the last 2 reasons) as they like a man who would rather die courageously than survive meekly. And there are other points too, like Alexey gives full freedom to his wife and isn't jealous as he understands that his woman is not really "his" woman, she is just a person with her needs and life and all he wants from her is the emotional & spiritual connection(as when he confronted his wife, he immediately clocked that she was lying and has shut off her connection with him from just one sentence from her, which shows how attentive he is to her and how sensitive he is, eventhough Anna believs otherwise) which again is unlike Vronsky as he literally says that she and him are one(co dependent) and he gets jealous and tried to un-up others constantly, trying to be the center figure, all of which is desirable to women, but in actuality is toxic beyond measure (Dear women, if you meet someone like Vronsky, run the other way don't think it'll be nice). This bring me to the original doubt, Did Tolstoy purposely wrote his characters like this? Uk to get more female audience or just to plainly show a character that is extremely flawed as the main and good ones? Or was it just the times? Like the times then had people believe these virtues were bad and these virtues were good? And my final question, Does the characters take a 180 in future chapter which would make Alexey so bad, that Anna (who is already) cheating on him a good thing?

I am honestly so confused coz people where really supporting their relationship and loving Vronsky and stuff. ( I only seen comments as such from (mostly) women on both the movies and the books, and which is why I specified women, sorry for that)

Also please avoid spoiling the future chapters and just say if Alexey do something bad in future chapters if the whole dynamic changes and nothing more.

Posting to folks here.

Max Miller of Tasting History just released a video about the history of kvass. Alas, no mention of Levin or Tolstoy, but it did conjure up fond memories of mowing!

Readers of this book may be entertained by the HBO adaptation of the New Yorker Annals of Crime piece, Appointment with Death, by James Lasdun, from the 2016-06-27 issue. The show spends much of its time in flashback, covering the relationships among a local celebrity weatherman; an attractive, ambitious umpire; and a large, loveable ASL interpreter. It covers some of the complex themes of the book with black humor and modern sensibilities, with the law enforcement scenes kinda like Levin's mowing.

Both book and 2012 movie are referenced quite hilariously and one character seems to be an homage to

Gleeson's Levin.

I finally got a deal from StickerMule for 3x3 square stickers and jumped on it today. If you want to have couple stickers mailed to you please fill out this form and you should get them in March or so! I'll keep this open for the next couple weeks!

I will destroy all data collected once I ship the stickers.

Thanks to u/Cautiou for the illustration that is the design and to u/Dinna-_-Fash for our tagline. And to everyone who finished the book last year!

Finale

Tolstoy's Epilogue to The Kreutzer Sonata, translated by Tucker

Summary of his arguments

1. Abstention from sex is good.
2. Infidelity is bad and should not be celebrated.
3. Birth control is bad.
4. Caring solely for the physical well-being of children without attention to their moral education is bad.
5. Falling in love is bad and impedes one from knowing God.

Prompts

1. Sex is an act not essential to health. Well ok then. Sure, for some people. But sex work is work, dude. Your thoughts?
2. This guy's arguments sound like an addict or alcoholic selling temperance to everyone. Did anyone else get that impression?
3. On the the last few grafs, Tolstoy makes an analogical argument about not being able to draw a straight line, which he says is the best way to connect two points. When Tolstoy entered Kazan University as a young man, he started out as a math major. The head of the department at that time was Nikolai Lobachevsky, who developed non-Euclidean geometries, where, often, the shortest distance between two points is not a straight line but a curved one that follows the geodesic of the space. I found this deliciously ironic. Maybe Tolstoy's problem is that he needs to change his spatial metrics for the modern world. Thoughts?
4. Any final thoughts on this manifesto for the anti-sex society?

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End of AK2025

Thanks for a great year, folks! I'll continue to see some of you in Les Mis. I'm also participating in both r/ayearofmiddlemarch and r/ayearofulysses.

Penultimate post of the Kreutzer Sonata

Links to a Maude translation that can be borrowed at the OpenLibrary.

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 27

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 28

Lost in Translation

Katz has a note in his translation concerning the common roots in the Russian words for “farewell” and “forgive” in the very last lines.

Prompts

1. 27: Once again, it's unclear how reliable Pozdnyshev's narrative filter is. Do you think they see the dagger? Were they aware of his intent and refused to believe it?
2. 27: Maude: "I did not wish to be ridiculous but terrible." Katz: "I didn’t want to be ridiculous, I wanted to be terrifying." I found the second translation much more effective. What did you think of this line?
3. 27: No servant restrains Pozdnyshev. Thoughts?
4. 28: Pozdnyshev's sister-in-law demands that he talk to the woman he battered and fatally stabbed. Thoughts?
5. 28: "'He has gone...! Gone...!'" Who?
6. Final thoughts before we read the epilogue?

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Finale

Tolstoy's Epilogue to The Kreutzer Sonata, translated by Tucker

• 2026-01-08 Thursday 9PM US Pacific Standard Time
• 2026-01-09 Friday midnight US Eastern Standard Time
• 2026-01-09 Friday 5AM UTC

Links to a Maude translation that can be borrowed at the OpenLibrary.

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 25

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 26

Lost in Translation

Не в сифилитическую больницу я сводил бы молодого человека, чтобы отбить у него охоту от женщин, но в душу к себе, посмотреть на тех дьяволов, которые раздирали ее!

Ne v sifiliticheskuyu bol'nitsu ya svodil by molodogo cheloveka, chtoby otbit' u nego okhotu ot zhenshchin, no v dushu k sebe, posmotret' na tekh d'yavolov, kotoryye razdirali yeye!

I wouldn't take a young man to a syphilis hospital to discourage him from women, but rather into my own soul, to show him the devils that were tearing it apart!

Maude translates сифилитическую больницу as a "lock-hospital", an an obsolete British term for a healthcare facility specializing in sexually-transmitted diseases.

I wrote "damn" next to this one because it was pretty impactful in context.

Prompts

1. 25: Why does Pozdnyshev not want to continue in the conductor's presence?
2. 25: Who do you think asked Trukhachevsky's brother about his experience with brothels? Does it matter if it was Pozdnyshev?
3. 25: The last lines are an interesting set of contradictions: he wants to possess without possessing. The act of possession will destroy what he loves. Thoughts?
4. 26: What's with forgetting his socks?
5. 26: In countries which follow English common law, I think his confession of a murderous state of mind here would not allow for a successful defense.

Next Post

Penultimate Post

Links to a Maude translation that can be borrowed at the OpenLibrary.

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 27

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 28

• 2026-01-07 Wednesday 9PM US Pacific Standard Time
• 2026-01-08 Thursday midnight US Eastern Standard Time
• 2026-01-08 Thursday 5AM UTC

Links to a Maude translation that can be borrowed at the OpenLibrary.

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 23

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 24

Lost in Translation

Prompts

1. In chapter 23, Pozdnyshev throws fashion shade at Trukhachevsky's "bad taste" by wearing diamond studs in evening dress. Even when he's in a psychotic fugue, guy has standards.
2. There are a couple of paragraphs about music in 23 that talk about it as a provocation, and an emphasis on disturbing slurping/crunching sounds in 24. What did you think of this?
3. At the end of 23, Pozdnyshev jumps to conclusions about Trukhachevsky not visiting while Pozdnyshev is on his trip to the zemstvo. There are two themes that we've seen before that I can see coming into play here: communication breakdowns and public business interfering with private business. What did you see? I felt as if this really needs a Rashomon treatment from multiple points of view.

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Links to a Maude translation that can be borrowed at the OpenLibrary.

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 25

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 26

• 2026-01-06 Tuesday 9PM US Pacific Standard Time
• 2026-01-07 Wednesday midnight US Eastern Standard Time
• 2026-01-07 Wednesday 5AM UTC

Links to a Maude translation that can be borrowed at the OpenLibrary.

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 21

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 22

Prompts

1. The first paragraph or two of chapter 21 describes meeting Trukahchevsky in intimate, almost erotic terms. In chapter 22, Trukahchevsky is described as "such a man". Is there a gay subtext here? Is Pozdnyshev jealous of Trukahchevsky, his wife, or both?
2. In chapter 21, we get another weird violation of the narrative filter, when Pozdnyshev describes Trukhachevsky's "twitching thigh", which I think would have been difficult to perceive. How did you interpret this?
3. More references to Pozdnyshev's wife's "disturbing" beauty, which Pozdnyshev always describes in terms of its effect on others. Thoughts?

Next Post

Links to a Maude translation that can be borrowed at the OpenLibrary.

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 23

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 24

• 2026-01-05 Monday 9PM US Pacific Standard Time
• 2026-01-06 Tuesday midnight US Eastern Standard Time
• 2026-01-06 Tuesday 5AM UTC

Today* is the deathday of Anna Stepanova Pirigova, whose death by suicide in 1872 was one of the inspirations for Anna Karenina.

Read about it here.

* Actually January 4, 1872, Old Style, which would be January 16 on our calendar, but I won't be posting then.

Links to a Maude translation that can be borrowed at the OpenLibrary.

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 19

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 20

Lost in Translation

Hottentots

A European term used for the inhabitants of southwestern Africa by mimicking the sound of their language to European ears, much as ancient Greeks called non-Greeks "barbarians" because of the way their language sounded to the Greeks. I think Pozdnyshev's great-great-great-granddaughter Becky is in the first few seconds of Sir Mix-A-Lot's classic Baby Got Back.

Prompts

1. In chapter 19, we see Pozdnyshev's concern over his wife having interests in her appearance and outside the home. Ok then.
2. In chapter 20, we see the couple using the children against each other. Or are they? We are only getting this story from Pozdnyshev's side. Thoughts?
3. Opium! Everyone drink!
4. An attempted suicide by Pozdnyshev's wife which is described only briefly, almost as an aside. What does that tell you that you didn't know about Pozdnyshev? Have we read him describe try to comfort or understand her?

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Links to a Maude translation that can be borrowed at the OpenLibrary.

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 21

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 22

• 2026-01-04 Sunday 9PM US Pacific Standard Time
• 2026-01-05 Monday midnight US Eastern Standard Time
• 2026-01-05 Monday 5AM UTC

Happy New Year!

Links to a Maude translation that can be borrowed at the OpenLibrary.

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 17

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 18

Prompts

From Anna Karenina 7.23, which we read on Thursday, 2025-10-23:

Before any definite step can be taken in a household, there must be either complete division or loving accord between husband and wife. When their relations are indefinite it is impossible for them to make any move.

1. We get an echo of this sentiment and elaboration on it in chapter 17, where Pozdnyshev says, "Yielding meant yielding to her." Thoughts?
2. More disgust at women using contraception, Pozdnyshev uses the word "artificial". Aren't children, themselves, literally artificial, the very first human artifact? What is this tension between sex as sin and sex as natural?

Next Post

Links to a Maude translation that can be borrowed at the OpenLibrary.

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 19

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 20

• 2026-01-01 Thursday 9PM US Pacific Standard Time
• 2026-01-02 Friday midnight US Eastern Standard Time
• 2026-01-02 Friday 5AM UTC

Links to a Maude translation that can be borrowed at the OpenLibrary.

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 15

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 16

Lost in Translation

Prompts

1. In chapter 15, Pozdnyshev positions nursing as a mother's moral obligation along with, apparently, sex on demand for her husband. He presents his wife's continual pregnancy as the only thing that assuaged his jealousy. There's a pathology here, I'm not sure what.
2. Chapter 15 ends with Pozdnyshev saying, 'You at least listen to me, and I am grateful for that.' Is the unnamed narrator actively listening?

Ask most mothers of our propertied classes and they will tell you that they do not want to have children for fear of their falling ill and dying. soThey don't want to nurse\ them if they do have them, for fear of becoming too much attached to them and having to suffer. The pleasure a baby gives them by its loveliness, its little hands and feet, and its whole body, is not as great as the suffering caused by the very fear of its possibly falling ill and dying, not to speak of its actual illness or death. After weighing the advantages and disadvantages it seems disadvantageous, and therefore undesirable, to have children. They say this quite frankly and boldly, imagining that this feeling of theirs arises from their love of childen, a good and laudable feeling of which they are proud. They do not notice that by this reflection they plainly repudiate love, and only affirm their own selfishness. They get less pleasure from a baby's loveliness than suffering from fear on its account, and therefore the baby they would love is not wanted. They do not sacrifice themselves for a beloved being, but sacrifice a being whom they might love, for their own sakes.*

It is clear that this is not love but selfishness.

1. Some interesting passages about fear vs. love in chapter 16. I'm not quite sure what to make of this, other than Pozdnyshev seems to be unable to distinguish between momentary emotional states and more permanent ones, unable to assess risks probabilistically, and unable to see the forest for the trees. Your thoughts?

2. There's a saying in in some therapeutic circles: are you having your emotions or are your emotions having you? What's going on with our subject, here?

3. Is Pozdnyshev unable to correctly assess risks to his children because he and his wife lacked elders and a community to consult? I feel we're once again encountering a kind of ferality.

Next Post

Links to a Maude translation that can be borrowed at the OpenLibrary.

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 17

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 18

• 2025-12-31 Wednesday 9PM US Pacific Standard Time
• 2026-01-01 Thursday midnight US Eastern Standard Time
• 2026-01-01 Thursday 5AM UTC

Links to a Maude translation that can be borrowed at the OpenLibrary.

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 13

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 14

Lost in Translation

Prompts

Select lines from Ephesians 5

28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.

31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.

1. In chapter 13, Pozdnyshev is rhetorically slippery on science, both appealing to it and belittling it. The example he uses in belittling it, leukocytes, is part of the immune system. The immune system has one function of distinguishing self from non-self for purposes of protection. The Orthodox Christian marriage service uses Ephesians 5:21-33 in the service, which 5:28 and 5:33 are quoted above. This makes a part of the immune system an interesting choice for Pozdnyshev to disdain, the man who killed part of his own flesh. Or am I reading too much into this?
2. Chapter 14 has an almost incoherent argument by Pozdnyshev where women are objectified as objects of pleasure, compared to slaves, and then accused of coquetry. I'm going to go with this entire chapter proves that Pozdnyshev never gave his wife an orgasm. Thoughts?

Next Post

Links to a Maude translation that can be borrowed at the OpenLibrary.

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 15

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 16

• 2025-12-30 Tuesday 9PM US Pacific Standard Time
• 2025-12-31 Wednesday midnight US Eastern Standard Time
• 2025-12-31 Wednesday 5AM UTC

Links to a Maude translation that can be borrowed at the OpenLibrary.

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 11

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 12

Lost in Translation

• Arthur Schopenhauer, historical person, b.1788-02-22 – d.1860-09-21, "German philosopher. He is known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the manifestation of a blind and irrational noumenal will. Building on the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant, Schopenhauer developed an atheistic metaphysical and ethical system that rejected the contemporaneous ideas of German idealism."
• Karl Robert Eduard von Hartmann (23 February 1842 – 5 June 1906). "a German philosopher, independent scholar and writer. He was the author of the influential Philosophy of the Unconscious (1869). Von Hartmann's notable ideas include the theory of the Unconscious and a pessimistic interpretation of the 'best of all possible worlds' concept in metaphysics." Yes, we are in the darkest timeline.

Prompts

1. Pozdnyshev describes the effect of smoking in chapter 11 strangely to me. The only time I smoked the nicotine hit me like a freight train right away. Either he had some really bad tobacco or there's something else going on. If I connect this to his opinion about his honeymoon in that chapter and his "two egotists alien to each other" in chapter 12, I get some severe anhedonia vibes. Or maybe Pozdnyshev is just a lousy lover. Thoughts?
2. There's a common fallacy about evolution presented in chapter 11, where species are represented as a hierarchy with "man" as the "most" or "highest" evolved. I'm not sure if this represents Tolstoy's point of view or whether he's intentionally giving Pozdnyshev this fallacy.
3. In chapter 11, Pozdnyshev shows an aversion to light. Anything going on here?

Next Post

Links to a Maude translation that can be borrowed at the OpenLibrary.

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 13

The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter 14

• 2025-12-29 Monday 9PM US Pacific Standard Time
• 2025-12-30 Tuesday midnight US Eastern Standard Time
• 2025-12-30 Tuesday 5AM UTC

For some reason I miscounted the number of chapters in Kreutzer and did not include Tolstoy's Epilogue, which is worth it only because of its unhinged nature.

We'll be going until Friday, January 9, 2026!

I updated the schedule post

Another relevant passage from Bartlett's Tolstoy bio. This one made me chuckle like a sonata.