Anna Karenina

By: Leo Tolstoy

Narrated by: Kate Lock

Anna Karenina is beautiful, married to a successful man, and has a son whom she adores. But a chance meeting at a train station in Moscow sets her passionate heart alight, and she is defenceless in the face of Count Vronsky's adoration. Having defied the rules of 19th-century Russian society, Anna is forced to pay a heavy price.

Human nature, with all its failings, is the fabric of which this great and intense work is composed. Anna Karenina has been described as the perfect Russian novel.

Download the accompanying reference guide.Public Domain (P)2010 Naxos Audiobooks

Loved it!

Would you listen to Anna Karenina again? Why?

Probably not for a while! The full story is LONG!

What did you like best about this story?

The period piece. The story is about relationships, unfortunately relationships that have gone bad. However, though our times have changed our dysfunctional relationships with each other have not!

What about Kate Lock’s performance did you like?

Great voice, easy to listen to and loved her how she made characters come alive.

Who was the most memorable character of Anna Karenina and why?

Anna herself

Epic story and dramatic reading

Loved the story: phenomenal writing as expected and the narration was a supreme pleasure, a dramatic rendition of this timeless story with different voices for all the varied characters. Well done! Sad the story is finished!

Wonderful reading, but some volume issues

Kate Lock gives a wonderful, passionate reading of Tolstoy's novel. In contrast to another reviewer here, I found her variety of voices enthralling, and the heights of emotional intensity she reaches at times simply stunning.

My only problem with this version is that sometimes the narration is very, very soft, and sometimes the dialogue is very, very loud. I don't know if this is a British thing; at least I've found it to a problem more often with British productions than American. This isn't Kate Lock's fault, and if you can find the right volume setting (or don't mind changing it occasionally as the need arises), this can be a deep and rewarding listen.

Sometimes painful listening

Would you try another book from Leo Tolstoy and/or Kate Lock?

Never by Kate Lock. Ruined Tolstoy.

What did you like best about this story?

A great book by a great author.

Would you be willing to try another one of Kate Lock’s performances?

No

Could you see Anna Karenina being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

Anna could be Caitriona Balfe; Karenin - Jude Law; Vronsky - Rupert Friend; Kitty & Levin - undecided

Any additional comments?

Painful to listen to male characters being depicted by "wheezing" voices. Awful!

Narrator Is Quirky—Read If You're Picky!

This review focuses only on the narrator, Kate Lock.

She's a pretty standard narrator: makes distinct voices for her characters and reads at a steady, not-too-fast pace. There's nothing particularly good or bad about these aspects of performance. But if you're a picky listener like me, and you might be, since this book is over FORTY HOURS long, you may want to know:

1. She "acts" out the dialogue and all parts of it. So if a character coughs while talking, she coughs too. If a character is eating while talking, she talks as if her mouth is full. Some people might enjoy this realism, but I found it gratingly unnecessary. The mid-dialogue laughter is painfully forced.

2. The voices for Kitty and Dolly can be extremely high-pitched, especially when they're distressed—like crying cats.

3. I think this is the Constance Garnet translation; there are no translations for French or German pieces of dialogue, which are luckily sparse.

4. All this said, Levin's dialogue is performed terrifically.

I'll be shopping around for another narrator, however. Hope this helps other listeners!