I first read Anna Karenina in my school days. Frankly speaking, I wondered what the fuss was about and I still wonder.
Here is a married woman who falls passionately in love with another. Carried by her passions, she elopes with her lover uncaring about anything but her love and lover.. but instead of the happy ever after, she gets a gloomy sunset..
When you think about it, it seems a pretty ordinary love story but its the treatment of Leo tolstoy and the times in which it is set in that elevates it to the ranks of classic imo.
You run the whole gamut of emotions with Anna, from disgust, anger, pity to compassion, I think Anna is the only heroine who commands all this emotions within a span of a book.
Heavy read but worth it.