Hello everyone. Welcome back to Bibliophilia Book Reviews. In this post, I will be doing a wrap up of all the books I read in August. This month I only read 2 books, so here goes:
1. FANTASY: Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch
This book is a procedural fantasy novel set in London whose protagonist is a probationary constable/recently recruited wizard caught in the middle of two different cases: the supernatural death of William Skirmish and a feud between Mama Thames and Father Thames (hence the title of the book). Tasked to solve both of them by his superior, Thomas Nightingale, I couldn’t help thinking this book was similar in premise to The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. The difference is that I actually liked Probationary Constable Peter Grant (I hated Harry Dresden despite his popularity and could never get through any of the books; I read Storm Front because I absolutely had to, but I hated it.) I also liked the author’s writing style. It was very funny. Unfortunately, I put the book down for a couple of days and found out that I had completely lost track of what was going on when I picked it up again on the third day, so that told me a lot about me liking it. The ending completely passed me by, and I didn’t catch entirely how Peter solved the cases. So I haven’t picked Book 2 up yet. Maybe I’ll continue, but I don’t know yet either. There are other books that I want to read more than this one.
CLASSIC: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy is such a widely known book that it needs no introduction, whether you have read it or not. The plot is also so well-known that today Anna Karenina is one of the quintessential novels of female infidelity. But what I had not counted on was how Anna (and Vronsky) would eventually fade into the background the further along into the novel I read. And how the novel’s theme—family—would shine at the end.
Tolstoy is a master at describing the ordinary lives of these characters and I think that that is where the brilliance of this novel lies. But what I found utterly breathtaking is the way Tolstoy does it. Duality is everywhere in this novel: the fall of Anna and the rise of Levin, the portrayal of female infidelity (Anna’s) vs. male infidelity (Stiva’s) and the consequences of each, the spurned wife vs. the spurned husband, the contrast between the unhealthy and deteriorating relationship of Anna and Vronsky versus the healthy and loving one of Levin and Kitty, and Anna’s death vs. the birth of Levin’s son, Dimitri, just to mention a few.
But what is more, Tolstoy writes several passages with such mastery that they just stick with you. For example, the ball scene where Kitty expects Vronsky to propose to her but is instead spurned for Anna, Anna and Vronsky’s consummation scene, Anna’s admission to her husband in the carriage that she has been unfaithful to him, Vronsky’s breaking of the horse during the races, Kitty’s laying in and the birth of her and Levin’s son, the death of Nikolai, Levin’s brother, etcetera. But the most important ones, at the end of the novel, are the scenes portraying the mental health of both Anna and Levin and the turmoil of their thoughts. Both are thinking about killing themselves, but only one of them finds a reason to live and to keep on living while the other does not and she kills herself (Anna throwing herself in front of a train is no spoiler, I hope) as a consequence. And this is where the ultimate duality of the novel lies: life vs. death.
Earlier in the year, I read War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy and I didn’t have a whole lot to say about it for my review even though it runs for more than 1200 pages. But now I understand why Tolstoy himself said that W&P wasn’t a novel, not in the sense that Anna Karenina is a novel and I agree with him. Tolstoy did not know what to call W&P. In his mind, it was more of a chronicle of the events leading up to the invasion of Russia in 1812. And while Natasha’s, Andrej’s, and Count Bezukov’s lives are inevitably intertwined with Napoleon’s invasion of the Motherland, the invasion itself is at the forefront of the story and is the main protagonist of the book. This does not occur in Anna Karenina. Here, the characters take center stage and we witness how their lives unfold as a consequence of their own actions and decisions.
I highly recommend this book, but I also know that it is not for everyone. Some people find it boring and I see where they’re coming from and we’re all entitled to our opinion. But I loved it. I hope you pick it up and love it as well.
That is everything I read this month. Thank you for reading.
