Doctor Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak
(Summary from Goodreads)
Doctor Zhivago is the story of the life and loves of a poet-physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Taking his family from Moscow to what he hopes will be shelter in the Ural Mountains, Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between the Whites and the Reds. Set against this backdrop of cruelty and strife is Zhivago’s love for the tender and beautiful Lara: pursued, found, and lost again, Lara is the very embodiment of the pain and chaos of those cataclysmic times.
I approached Doctor Zhivago thinking it was about the great illicit love of Yuri and Lara, and expected intense bursts of tragical passion interspersed with long speeches about everything in the world. And, while that wasn't exactly far from truth, it is a misleading simplification of this novel. In the tradition of the great Russian writers, Pasternak wrote a novel with far more scope that meets the eye. Throughout Doctor Zhivago, Yuri Zhivago observes the rise of the Soviets with increasing disappointment and the transformation of the Russian people with incredulity. His illicit affair with Lara is parallel to the inevitable trajectory of materialism (Marxism) and he equates Russian history with his own lovelife. And the affair is still painfully beautiful and heartbreaking. Pasternak, obviously influenced by Tolstoi (whom he had met), further developed the return to spirituality, to Christianism, as a need for human beings to really be, and be happy. And he masterfully interwove this concept with the main story, presenting it as a natural opposition between communism and individuality. This novel is the dream of many a grad student.
Unfortunately, reading this novel requires full effort on the part of the reader. It is painfully slow-paced. There isn't an actual plot, but just Yuri Zhivago's life, which can get frustrating, because the story goes nowhere defined. Also, many important things happen outside the pages, and it is the reader who must fill in the blanks. To further complicate things, the reader must have a solid grip of:
a. Russian names: first name, patronymic (father's name, with a different ending for males and females), and family name, plus hundreds of nicknames. That alone can get very confusing, but Pasternak does an ensemble cast for his novel, with very minor characters that 200 pages later become super important. If you are really paying attention during the first two-three parts, and learn who is who, it is no problem, though.
b. Russian history: no, Wikipedia won't do the trick. Unless you spend a whole day reading it. Pasternak gave no dates nor who had the power throughout the novel, but it is important to know both. (He wasn't a jerk. At the time he wrote the book, it was contemporary history, and it would have been as superfluous as saying at the start of this review that Obama is president of the US). Prior to this, I read A History of Twentieth-Century Russia by Robert Service and found it very useful in order to be able to follow the course of events in Doctor Zhivago. It was enlightening and not very politically biased, but also little dry.
I know this implies hard work and am perfectly conscious that not everyone out there is willing to strain themselves so much in order to read a book. For me, it has payed off.
Doctor Zhivago is the story of the life and loves of a poet-physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Taking his family from Moscow to what he hopes will be shelter in the Ural Mountains, Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between the Whites and the Reds. Set against this backdrop of cruelty and strife is Zhivago’s love for the tender and beautiful Lara: pursued, found, and lost again, Lara is the very embodiment of the pain and chaos of those cataclysmic times.
I approached Doctor Zhivago thinking it was about the great illicit love of Yuri and Lara, and expected intense bursts of tragical passion interspersed with long speeches about everything in the world. And, while that wasn't exactly far from truth, it is a misleading simplification of this novel. In the tradition of the great Russian writers, Pasternak wrote a novel with far more scope that meets the eye. Throughout Doctor Zhivago, Yuri Zhivago observes the rise of the Soviets with increasing disappointment and the transformation of the Russian people with incredulity. His illicit affair with Lara is parallel to the inevitable trajectory of materialism (Marxism) and he equates Russian history with his own lovelife. And the affair is still painfully beautiful and heartbreaking. Pasternak, obviously influenced by Tolstoi (whom he had met), further developed the return to spirituality, to Christianism, as a need for human beings to really be, and be happy. And he masterfully interwove this concept with the main story, presenting it as a natural opposition between communism and individuality. This novel is the dream of many a grad student.
Unfortunately, reading this novel requires full effort on the part of the reader. It is painfully slow-paced. There isn't an actual plot, but just Yuri Zhivago's life, which can get frustrating, because the story goes nowhere defined. Also, many important things happen outside the pages, and it is the reader who must fill in the blanks. To further complicate things, the reader must have a solid grip of:
a. Russian names: first name, patronymic (father's name, with a different ending for males and females), and family name, plus hundreds of nicknames. That alone can get very confusing, but Pasternak does an ensemble cast for his novel, with very minor characters that 200 pages later become super important. If you are really paying attention during the first two-three parts, and learn who is who, it is no problem, though.
b. Russian history: no, Wikipedia won't do the trick. Unless you spend a whole day reading it. Pasternak gave no dates nor who had the power throughout the novel, but it is important to know both. (He wasn't a jerk. At the time he wrote the book, it was contemporary history, and it would have been as superfluous as saying at the start of this review that Obama is president of the US). Prior to this, I read A History of Twentieth-Century Russia by Robert Service and found it very useful in order to be able to follow the course of events in Doctor Zhivago. It was enlightening and not very politically biased, but also little dry.
I know this implies hard work and am perfectly conscious that not everyone out there is willing to strain themselves so much in order to read a book. For me, it has payed off.