You might have seen that I'm going to attempt to read 12 classic novels in 2012, important books that I somehow failed to read in my previous 38 years of living. (Click here for my blog post about it.) A couple of friends, Michelle and Shellie, have decided to join me on the first one, Anna Karenina, which I'm going to read in January. Have you checked the calendar? January is racing toward us like a high-speed train.
Anna Karenina is the tragic tale of the woman who wrote the "Banana Fanna" song. You know: Anna anna bobanna banana fanna fo fanna me mi mo manna Karenina.
At the end, poor Anna slips on a banana peel.
Hold on, just checked my notes. That's not right. It's a tragic love story about married aristocrat Anna Karenina who has an affair with the affluent Count Vronsky. Oh well, it's still perfect for the dark and dreary days of January when I will be sitting on my arse for most hours of the day. So why not join me in reading a book about people who make really poor decisions while sitting on your arse, too?
Before you decide to forsake viewings of Hitch on TBS or TNT for readings of Anna Karenina, here are some important facts about Leo Tolstoy's classic novel:
1. Anna Karenina contains 351,000 words.
2. The novel was published in serial installments from 1873 to 1877 in the periodical The Russian Messenger. That's a period of four years. We'll be reading it in four weeks.
3. In this time, I will gain four pounds. Why? Because I like to eat crackers with cream cheese and drink cranberry and vodka cocktails while I sit on my arse and read all the livelong day. Totally worth the calories, my friends. Plus, we'll need extra sustenance to lift this book (unless you have a Kindle and then you might want to cut out the cream cheese).
4. I found a Web site that shows the entire text of Anna Karenina in two images. Here they are. See, how tiny this book really is? We can absolutely do this!
If you join in, here are the rules of the book club:
There are no rules.
If you hate the book, if you throw it across the room and accidentally injure a household pet, if you fall asleep two pages into reading it each night and start over the next night and never get past page two, if you give up on the hundreds of Russian names and try to chuck it all and instead decide to order a Russian mail-order bride to make January more interesting, no problem.
If you watch Hitch instead, that's cool, baby. (You know how it is, rockin' and rollin' and whatnot.)
At the end of the month, we can check in and give our opinions on the book, whatever they may be.
We can talk about how we're so much better than all those dumb-dumbs who spent January watching Hitch on TBS. Oh, Hitch, how I love thee. But I refuse to watch you again. I'm just going to post this video instead. Get your fix and then pick up a book! Sign up in the comments if you want to feel like you're committing to something.
Happy reading!
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