Doctor Zhivago in Reading with Style

Aug 22, 2009 Juniper rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned, 2015-books, in-translation

a funny thing happened on the way to reading this book - i remembered pasternak's niece had written a review of the new translation by pevear and volokhonsky, so i looked it up (linked below). i didn't read the whole thing until after i finished the novel, but i read enough to know she is not a fan. which was a total bummer. i have come to love the work P&V do translating the russian classics. but i am at a huge disadvantage because i don't speak russian, all i know is that when i have read thei ...more

Like · see review

Mar 30, 2011 Tien rated it liked it

Shelves: classic, russia, snakes-ladders

The only reason I read this is so that I can say I’ve read it – which is mostly the case with classics. They’re classics for a reason, right? So, I’ve got to read it for myself. I didn’t really have high hopes for Doctor Zhivago as it just never attracted me to begin with. But whoever expected a romance novel, you could not be more wrong. There are romantic descriptions (example below) but for the more common understanding of romance novel, it is not.

She liked to sit in the dim light of candles, The only reason I read this is so that I can say I’ve read it – which is mostly the case with classics. They’re classics for a reason, right? So, I’ve got to read it for myself. I didn’t really have high hopes for Doctor Zhivago as it just never attracted me to begin with. But whoever expected a romance novel, you could not be more wrong. There are romantic descriptions (example below) but for the more common understanding of romance novel, it is not.

She liked to sit in the dim light of candles, and Pasha always kept a few spare ones. He replaced the stump in the candlestick with a new candle, put it on the window sill, and lit it. The flame choked and spluttered, shooting off small stars, and sharpened to an arrow. A soft light filled the room. In the sheet of ice covering the windowpane a black eyelet began to form at the level of the flame.

There is, of course, love but this book really is about Doctor Zhivago, of who he is (a bourgeois son), who he grew up to be (a doctor of low/middle class status), and the Russian politics. It’s about the life of an eccentric intellectual in early 1900s. I was soon quite lost as I just couldn’t keep up with change in nicknames and there are, at least, a handful for each character! Plus, I found the conversations to be really strange – just the way they speak to each other, I really couldn’t get the hang of it. Overall, it was an okay read for me

One of the most passionate speeches in the book:

“Don’t be upset. Don’t listen to me. I only meant that I am jealous of a dark, unconscious element, something irrational, unfathomable. I am jealous of your toilet articles, of the drops of sweat on your skin, of the germs in the air you breathe which could get into your blood and poison you. And I am jealous of Komarovsky, as if he were an infectious disease. Someday he will take you away, just as certainly as death will someday separate us. I know this must seem obscure and confused, but I can’t say it more clearly. I love you madly, irrationally, infinitely.” ...more

Like · see review