I disagree with both of you. For example, Tolstoy didn't approve of Anna's isolation from ther son by Russian law and society and religion. It's easy to sit and judge today, what with no-fault divorce, joint custody, laws favoring custody, particularly mothers. She was caught in a terrible trap made by her hidebound, judgmental and backward society.
Anyway, who cares what Tolstoy "intended?" The book now belongs to the ages. Tolstoy said a lot of things he may not have intended because he was trapped in his age and his book was not. I'm sure many careful readers of AK today are more compassionate for Anna and Vronsky than Tolstoy was in his own mind. I find the epigraph to the book very puzzling and judgmental sounding unless I just don't get it.
Tolstoy said more than he realized. Like all great novels this one has no easy answers. It more raises the great issues than anything else.
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Interrupt all you like. We're involved in a complicated story here, and not everything is quite what it seems to be.
—Paul Auster
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