James Wood (post 4) on “Anna Karenina”: Award-winning critic at The New Yorker, and professor of literary criticism at Harvard, writes on characterization

Wood’s essay “Anna Karenina and Characterization” concludes as follows:

“Nothing is finer in the book than its last hundred pages…Again and again, Anna struggles with her essence, which is freedom, irrepressibility…As she falls under the wheels of the train, she has, in a way, finally merged with her essence. For we are told that this woman with a light step ‘fell on her hands under the carriage, and with a light movement, as if preparing to get up again at once, sank to her knees.’ Light in step when we met her, she is now light unto death” (1, p. 108).

The key phrase is “…as if preparing to get up again at once…,” but Wood seems to have no idea what this means and little idea of Tolstoy’s characterization.

Please search “Anna Karenina” in this blog for relevant past posts.

1. James Wood. “Anna Karenina and Characterization,” pp. 96-108, in The Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel. New York, Picador/Farrar Straus Giroux, 2005.