One reason is that it is written by a great Russian author, Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy is one of the finest storytellers of all time. His stories are more often than not dripping with the cruel touch of reality, and the drops of reality falling down from his stories hit you so hard on the face that you are forced to speculate about your own life and existence.
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Anna Karenina is the masterpiece of Tolstoy, which has over time become the favorite novel of almost all the literary enthusiasts, passing the test of time which many classic novels fail to do.
Anna Karenina develops very strongly on that universal theme on which more than half of the literature of the world is based –Love. With love there is jealousy, infidelity, and the hypocrisy of the aristocratic class of Russia.
(Courtesy: weheartit.com)Other great Russian authors like Fyodor Dostoevsky and Vladimir Nabokov, have called Anna Karenina “the best book ever written”. Gary Saul Morson, a critique of the book remarks, "As a book about infidelity, Anna Karenina is also a book about the nature of honesty and truthfulness." (Source: guardian.co.tt)
(Courtesy: pinterest.com)It is this analytical story-telling, the precise and accurate portrayal of the Russian society, and the exact slice of life that makes Anna Karenina, the best novel ever. The Guardian puts the novel in the three great books of all time, the other two being Les Miserables by Victor Hugo and Moby ***** by Herman Melville.
The story revolves around a lady who commits adultery and is disgraced by the society for what she has done. The interesting part is the man for whom she cheats her husband, Vronsky, is accepted back by the society as if he did nothing wrong. It is this hypocrisy of the social standards that makes this novel relevant and loved even today.
(Courtesy: 1001moviequotes.wordpress.com)Tolstoy was a part of the Russian aristocracy and knew about all the functioning, as well as the double standards of the society which he so subtly portrayed in his masterpiece. This special touch of the real scenarios and situations also contribute a great deal in making Anna Karenina the best novel.
Beside all this, there’s one thing that gives a special edge to the novel –Tolstoy’s exceptional knowledge about the women of the circle he used to move in and their extraordinary depiction. Critiques even today call Anna Karenina the Russian sister of Madame Bovary.
If you have not read the novel, you can watch the movie adaptation. Here's the trailer:
