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Doctor Zhivago

Boris Pasternak,

John Bayley (Introduction),

Max Hayward (Translator),

Manya Harari (Translator)

Start date: February 1, 2021

Finish date: March 31, 2021

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Jan 08, 2018 Sara rated it it was amazing

Shelves: historical-fiction, war, literary-fiction, russia, favorites

”The forest does not change its place, we cannot lie in wait for it and catch it in the act of change. Whenever we look at it, it seems to be motionless. And such also is the immobility to our eyes of the eternally growing, ceaselessly changing history, the life of society moving invisibly in its incessant transformations."

Doctor Zhivago is about nothing, if not about change, transformation, upheaval and survival. Set against the background of the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917, Doctor Zhi ”The forest does not change its place, we cannot lie in wait for it and catch it in the act of change. Whenever we look at it, it seems to be motionless. And such also is the immobility to our eyes of the eternally growing, ceaselessly changing history, the life of society moving invisibly in its incessant transformations."

Doctor Zhivago is about nothing, if not about change, transformation, upheaval and survival. Set against the background of the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917, Doctor Zhivago is a love story between a man and his wife, a man and his mistress and a man and his country. It catalogs the atrocities and the progressions of a political system that seeks to destroy the individual in the name of saving the masses. But, more importantly, it catalogs the attempt of one man to reconcile the ideals of his heart with the realities of a Marxist society. (view spoiler)

The story encompasses, in the life of its title character, all the possibilities of love and suffering open to humankind. The desertion of Yuri Zhivago by his parents (one by leaving and one by death) starts Yuri on his fated journey into a world where partings become commonplace, but where heartache never ceases to accompany them. The love story between Zhivago and Lara is so deep and poignant that it takes your breath at moments.

I was moved by the beauty of the writing, the stark imagery, and the character development that extends itself to even the least significant characters. Pasternak is a poet, and the entire book is a poem, as lyrical as the life’s blood he pumps into his protagonist’s veins.

“They loved each other, not driven by necessity, by the "blaze of passion" often falsely ascribed to love. They loved each other because everything around them willed it, the trees and the clouds and the sky over their heads and the earth under their feet.”

He details the effects of the political changes around him and he seems to lament most of all the loss of personality, of independent thought, of individuality.

The root of all the evil to come was the loss of confidence in the value of one's own opinion. People imagined that it was out of date to follow their own moral sense, that they must sing in chorus, and live by other people's notions, notions that were being crammed down everybody's throat.

Too often when you have loved a book and then see the movie, or have loved a movie and then read the book, there is some disappointment you cannot help feeling toward one media or the other. David Lean did a remarkable job of bringing to life on screen a book that is truly epic in its scope and its meaning. I am pleased to find that this is one time when the movie and the book complement one another perfectly. I approved of the changes that the movie made to both the beginning and the ending of the story--it served to hold the story together in a very cohesive manner and lost nothing of the impact or importance. (view spoiler) Minor objection when you consider the fine quality of the book at large.

If you have never seen the movie, you should see it. If you have never read the book, you are missing something unique and remarkable. ...more

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