21世纪报能力十二.docVIP

能力提升（十二） 编制：王敬刚 审核;：李霞 TRULY great works of literature present the big picture. They act as windows to the outside world in its glorious entirety. Authors work their whole lives to construct such windows, and most fail. Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, however, managed to achieve this feat (技艺) not once but twice. In War and Peace (1869) he created a picture of 19th century Europe in the aftermath (余波) of the French Revolution, showing the big political and military events, but also exploring how these events affected individuals. He excelled himself a few years later with Anna Karenina (1873-1877), a second huge novel. The story focuses on Anna Karenina, unhappily married to a government official called Karenin. She meets and falls in love with Count Vronsky, whom she leaves her husband for. The relationship is troubled from the beginning. They run away to Italy, but cannot live happily there. When they return to Russia the two experience the pressures of social norms (规范). People in the country are hostile (敌视的) to marital infidelity (不忠), and particularly nasty (恶意的) to unfaithful women. One of Tolstoy’s points is to show how unfair this attitude is. At the beginning of the novel we have another difficult marriage, that of Anna’s brother Oblonsky, who has many *affairs, causing great pain to his wife Dolly. But Oblonsky receives nothing like the response his sister does. Although both are unfaithful (不忠诚的) and Anna’s love for Vronsky, unlike her brother’s affairs, is quite sincere. Anna’s life ends tragically, in a very famous railway station scene. One of the wonders of this story is Tolstoy’s weaving (编织) together a number of stories, all related to family life, and in particular unhappy families. The novel’s very famous opening sentence gives us its theme (主题): “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”. We have the tales of Dolly and Oblonsky, Anna, Karenin and Vronsky but also Levin and Kitty. Kitty, who is Dolly’s sister