The Anna Karenina Fix

July 2, 2018
For anyone intimidated by Russia’s daunting literary heritage, this humorous yet thoughtful introduction will serve as the perfect entrée. Journalist and comedian Groskop skillfully interweaves her personal obsession with all things Russian with life lessons from the country’s great authors, from the canonical Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky to Anna Akhmatova, a dissident poet not widely known outside her own country. Among the lessons: Anton Chekhov warns against narrowly pinning all one’s hopes on a single thing, Mikhail Bulgakov teaches readers not to take themselves (or life) too seriously, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn offers systems for endurance. While cheerfully acknowledging Russian lit’s frustrating aspects—the multiple diminutive forms for a single name could by themselves drive a reader to distraction—Groskop joyously and convincingly argues that it’s worth the challenge. She shares her own journey as well, searching for the possibly Russian root of her last name and receiving two degrees in Russian. She also finds real-life applications for the lessons, struggling with unrequited love like the hero of Ivan Turgenev’s A Month in the Country, and like Turgenev himself. Elsewhere, she recognizes her obsession as a form of self-delusion like that of the antihero of Gogol’s Dead Souls. Most of all, she advocates reading for fun, and for oneself—a life lesson, indeed.