At the Guardian she tagged the ten worst couples in literature, including:Anna Karenina and Alexei Vronsky (Anna Karenina)Read about another entry on the list.
OK, so the sex was exciting and it was one of the great love affairs, but Anna and Vronsky would have had life a lot easier if they had just stuck to their marital partners – Anna especially. Of course it was the right decision to leave the dull Karenin for the passionate Vronsky, but Anna also wouldn't have been banished to a country house and ostracised from society before ending up under a train if she had remained faithful. Swings and roundabouts.
Anna Karenina also appears on Hanna McGrath's top fifteen list of epigraphs, Amelia Schonbek's list of three classic novels that pass the Bechdel test, Rachel Thompson's top ten list of the greatest deaths in fiction, Melissa Albert's recommended reading list for eight villains, Alison MacLeod's top ten list of stories about infidelity, David Denby's six favorite books list, Howard Jacobson's list of his five favorite literary heroines, Eleanor Birne's top ten list of books on motherhood, Esther Freud's top ten list of love stories, Chika Unigwe's six favorite books list, Elizabeth Kostova's list of favorite books, James Gray's list of best books, Marie Arana's list of the best books about love, Ha Jin's most important books list, Tom Perrotta's ten favorite books list, Claire Messud's list of her five most important books, Alexander McCall Smith's list of his five most important books, Mohsin Hamid's list of his ten favorite books, Louis Begley's list of favorite novels about cheating lovers, and among the top ten works of literature according to Peter Carey and Norman Mailer. John Mullan put it on his lists of ten of the best erotic dreams in literature, ten of the best coups de foudre in literature, ten of the best births in literature, ten of the best ice-skating episodes in literature, and ten of the best balls in literature.
--Marshal Zeringue
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