Leo Tolstoy · 1878 · Garnett translation, 1901
Anna Karenina
Anna Karenina (1878) follows Anna’s affair with Count Vronsky alongside Konstantin Levin’s parallel search for meaning on his estate. The Rhetorician reading companion in IO reader opens on Tolstoy’s famous first line, then keeps tracking how the novel’s balanced, symmetrical sentences carry its argument about family and choice.
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PART I · PARAGRAPH
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Anna Karenina · Leo Tolstoy · tr. Constance Garnett
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Dissects the author's craft — word choice, rhythm, and rhetorical devices.
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Response from the Rhetorician in IO reader · 2026-09-04
Tolstoy employs a masterful chiasmus in this opening axiom, mirroring the structural symmetry of the "happy" state against the fragmented, asymmetrical nature of the "unhappy." The rhythmic repetition of "unhappy" creates a deliberate linguistic imbalance, forcing the reader to dwell on the infinite, chaotic variations of domestic misery compared to the singular, static definition of contentment. By juxtaposing the universal "alike" with the particular "own way," he establishes a sweeping, authoritative tone that transforms a simple observation into a profound sociological thesis. This economy of language functions as a structural blueprint for the entire novel, signaling that while virtue is uniform, the complexities of human suffering are uniquely, and tragically, diverse.
The facts
| Length | about 349,800 words · 17,070 sentences |
|---|---|
| In sentence cards | about 1138 minutes |
| Difficulty | steady |
| First line | Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. |
| Themes | Part 1 · Part 2 · Part 3 · Part 4 · Part 5 · Part 6 · Part 7 · Part 8 |
Is Anna Karenina hard to read?
It's long, with two braided plots (Anna's affair, Levin's farm life), but each scene reads easily on its own. In sentence cards it's about 1,138 minutes.
Which translation is this?
Constance Garnett's 1901 translation, in the public domain.
How long is Anna Karenina?
About 349,800 words across eight parts; roughly 17,070 sentences.
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Colophon
Text: Garnett translation, 1901, from Project Gutenberg (pg:1399). Cover: Standard Ebooks CC0 cover, leo-tolstoy/anna-karenina/constance-garnett. Reviewed 2026-09-04.