Anna Karenina rant

I'm perhaps about a third of the way through. At any rate, I have got past Anna's confession to Karenin and her immediate reaction afterward.

I think I might tap out. I don't believe this novel is above my pay grade so I'm not even interested in comments telling me to come back in 10 years or whatever. I've read and loved Mrs Dalloway, Milkman, Middlemarch, Villette, Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment, Notes From the Underground, Vanity Fair and a bunch of other novels on similar levels of complexity, whether linguistic or narrative.

I don't know what it is, but I'm walking into this novel with the exact opposite of rose-tinted glasses. Every single flaw pops out to me. And some I'm sure aren't even flaws. But the ones that are just send my eyes rolling. (Maude translation) like when Tolstoy comes up with a decent metaphor and then for some reason finds himself breaking down each component of the metaphor and what it's supposed to reflect. And the prose, by God, it's lifeless! There's no zing, no wordplay, just dense stuff! Of the characters I've only been stirred by Karenin and Prince Scherbatsky and that's because I find them funny rather than compelling.

I will likely tough it out. But I wanted to post this because I would rather bounce my thoughts off human skulls than chatgpts zeros and ones that go for praise above all else.