I can already feel that I’ve lost weight. The hunger isn’t nearly as pervasive as it was the day before, but I still find myself visually raping every piece of food I see.

In the mornings I have tea just as before, followed by a day of water and the lemonade. After work I go to the gym. I skip my usual treadmill run and use the elliptical and bike machines so I can read Anna Karenina at the same time. I don’t last long: I feel weak and tired. After 40 minutes I go home and read. Today I read from pages 230 to 320. Moving right along, but still behind schedule. Speaking of ‘behind schedule,’ here’s a fun fact: I haven’t shit in two days.

Fearing embarrassment and worried about the inevitable gossip regarding his wife’s infidelity, Alexey Alexandrovitch decides not to divorce Anna. He tricks himself into thinking Anna’s fling is a phase that will soon blow over. He tells her to stay away from Vronsky. It doesn’t work. He then threatens to take Anna’s son away if she keeps bringing Vronsky around the house. Vronsky secretly hopes Alexey will be a man and fight a duel over Anna, but this never happens. An army buddy corners Vronsky and tells him that women only ruin a man’s aspirations. Vronsky doesn’t listen. After an impressive speech, Alexey is responsible for the passage of a prestigious law.

Most of this section actually focuses on Levin. Left to himself in the country, Levin is faced with a series of spiritual and philosophical problems. He befriends a group of farmers who have an extraordinary conversation regarding politics’ relation to agriculture and the division of labor. Returning home, Levin has a Eureka moment and devises a new system of labor where workers are rewarded with more pay and responsibility.

Kitty recovers from her illness and returns to Moscow. Levin meets up with Dolly, and she tries to convince him to try his hand with Kitty again. He refuses, still hurt over his bruised ego. Levin’s sick brother Nikolay visits and calls him out on his political views, saying his new labor plans are just another self-centered ploy to bring his life meaning. Levin later realizes that he still loves Kitty.

At night I dream of fields of tall, corn-like stalks that grow human turds. The stalks are harvested by hundreds of workers bearing scythes, and the turds are then passed out among thousands of peasants, who eat them straight from the vine like fruit.

Almost every character in this book is completely irredeemable. You don’t really find yourself ‘rooting’ for anyone apart from temporary situational spurts when characters are forced to account for basic necessity. There are no whites or blacks in this book, just a splotched miasma of grays. Vronsky is, essentially, a militarized frat boy who has absolutely no feelings for anyone save Anna. He also has the depth of a napkin. Ditto for Alexey (though even his ‘love’ for Anna is questionable as he sees everyone around him as a means to elevate his social standing). Regardless, he could grow a pair. Anna is a self-centered bitch who plays Vronsky off Alexey so she can have her cake and eat it. Levin, the best character in this book, acts like a teenage goth kid. His philo.-101 identity problems are really annoying. They’re also hypocritical, given he’ll preach about the rights of peasants immediately before treating his own workers like complete shit. It’s pretty obvious that Tolstoy has a lot of venom for the wealthy, as he’s done a great job of making the reader want to kick every one of his characters in the face.

To be continued …