Friday, March 18, 2011

Commemorating Centennary Celebrations of Leo TolstoyAnna Karenina By Leo Tolstoy

'World of Books'
Book Reading Workshop
Leo Tolstoy Centenary Celebrations in Nov, 2010 made us revisit his works and we did a book reading on "ANNA KARENINA",  which he called his first true novel
An extremely engrossing read, this book tells the tale of one of the most enthralling love affairs in the history of literature.  Penned while Tolstoy was wrestling with a religious crisis that nearly destroyed him, the book is filled with passion and soul-searching. Serialized in the Russian Herald from 1875?877 and published in its entirety in 1878, Anna Karenina was wildly popular and controversial. 
Yet Anna Karenina is a book that covers much more than one woman's misguided love affair. Tolstoy's broad canvas is big enough to include insight into happy marriages, adultery, sexuality, country life, politics, masculinity and femininity, individuality, conformity, altruism, love, death, longing and success. On nearly every one of its more than 800 pages is a sliver of Tolstoy's philosophy of life. Again and again, these small philosophical interludes resound with meaning that is as applicable today as it was more than a century ago. In all of literature, there are few novels that cover as much territory, or have stood the test of time so well.
There is always a struggle between superficial entertainment and meaningful entertainment. It is like the struggle between a video game and a good book. The literary workshop ‘Pleasure of Reading’ wants us all to look at our innate and compulsive love affair with story, as a species. The workshop entailed analysis, readings, movie excerpts and a PowerPoint presentation.
Rendezvous @ICG "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy
18th Mar, 2011 from 5.00pm to 7.00pm
The resource persons were Daniel Driscoll and Jugneeta Sudan