Nein!

     Simply put, you should never, ever read the abridged version of any work of art – novel, poem, play, doesn’t matter.  This is not a prejudice.  It is the considered judgment of an artist - form is matter and matter is form, and the intelligent and sensual enjoyment of form is what matters in such reading, not simply getting the ‘gist of the story’, as though that were possible apart from form.
     To take the example in the offending post, Anna Karenina isn’t simply the story of an adulterous woman who ends up…doing something I won’t divulge to those who have yet to read the tale.  It is, however, much more than that – you just can’t get at the vapid horror of Anna’s motiveless acts, both her affair with Vronsky and her…, without also dwelling with patience on Levin’s eventual happy marriage and suchlike.  The novel, contrary to my former opinion, has a most delicate, intricate, and ingenious structure.  It is, in short, a masterpiece of form, and you will miss that if you don’t take the time to read the whole thing. 
     Of course, I would be amiss were I to avoid the hard reality – in any work of that size, there are bound to be longeurs, and it’s necessary to endure ’em to get at the whole.  Life, after all, consists of long stretches of sheer boredom.  How can the novel, of all things, that form devoted to the exploration of man’s being in the world, not share that trait?  Having said that, those passages are few and far between, for even in his most languid depiction of the sheer giveness and tedium of human life, Tolstoy manages to give it form and so make true art out of what might have been a proto-existentialist grumble.
     Dear readers, should you find Anna Karenina or some such work to be a bore, well, just don’t read the damn thing.  You’re under no obligation to read it just because it’s a ‘classic’ or some such.  You might also find that coming back to such a work after a few years is a help.  Still, remember, a work of art has a wholeness to it, a form that can’t be mutilated without doing violence to that whole.  Better to decide that you just don’t care for a work like Tolstoy’s, a work to be encountered whole.
     Now, this is an imperfect world, and translators and editors do their many parts to undo the wholeness of the works in their fiduciary charge.  Thus it is often difficult to know how to trust a translator, say, of a novel as vast and rich in language and structure as Anna Karenina.  I insist, however, with Milan Kundera that such translation is possible and necessary, especially in an art like the novel.  Be discerning, and trust above all those who humble themselves before the particularities of the work at hand, and you’ll be close to the kingdom.  Nonetheless, nothing is indeed pristine and perfect in this world – it bears repeating.  This is all the more reason to act with care, respect, and humility when we turn to works like this. 
     So, again and again I say, it’s better to decide that you just don’t want to read the work at all than to take up the work of a hack who has willy-nilly cut pieces away from a novel or a poem or a play.  Such ‘abridgement’ is an act of vandalism; it’s nothing less than brute violence for the sake of convenience.  If you’re going to read a work of art, then submit, take the time and energy and even the physical pains it might give you.  Or don’t – that’s a far more honorable, and humble, act than abridgement.