Anna Karenina – Michael A. Kahn

Fathers and Sons and the Iliad: An Apology to Homer

Posted on March 20, 2021April 4, 2021 by Michael Kahn

I confess to a failure to appreciate certain works of literature that bask in universal acclaim. One example triggered my apology to Tolstoy for failing to love Anna Karenina–a novel on every list of the greatest works of world literature. And for years I felt a similar bafflement over my lukewarm reaction to Homer’s The…

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I’m Sorry, Anna.

Posted on December 9, 2017October 26, 2019 by Michael Kahn

For more years than I’d care to admit, my take on Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina was perfectly summed up by fellow Missourian Mark Twain, who famously defined a “classic” as a novel “that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.” But then a few months ago, while browsing my bookshelves in…

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A Truly Challenging Question for Me (and You)

Posted on August 1, 2017February 16, 2019 by Michael Kahn

I received an email from the folks at Goodreads asking for me to answer the following question: “If you could travel to any fictional book world, where would you go and what would you do there?” What a great question! And one you should ask yourself as well. Here’s how I answered it: I started…

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“You Can’t Make This Stuff Up”

Posted on January 16, 2016January 16, 2016 by Michael Kahn

Fiction versus reality. I have written occasionally, and contemplated more often, the profound wisdom behind the old saying that truth is stranger than fiction. The laws governing the real world are, in fundamental ways, different than the laws governing the world of fiction. Coincidence is a fact of life–right out there in the open, obvious…

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