Customer Reviews

Pasternak: Doctor Zhivago (Landmarks of World Literature)

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This book goes into great detail about "Doctor Zhivago" by Pasternak. It is NOT obvious in the Amazon documentation that this is not the actual novel by Pasternak. DO NOT buy this book if you need to purchase the original novel.

"Doctor Zhivago" by Boris Pasternak, © 1957, 1958, 1958

Quite the love story. It is sad, and a lot is made of the Russian Revolution, as is right. The times were in turmoil and it affected everyone. It is to be noted that the same events are happening in Iraq today: factions fighting factions; injustice and terrorism are treated as if just and right because the perpetrators are a part of some group that thinks so; etc.
This is really a soap opera. People live their lives and have troubles, solve problems, create heartache and what not, just like we do in real life. The story does not deal in psychology, so a few times the choices of the characters are truly left to your own intuition and understanding of human nature. Some of the philosophy spouted by these people gets a bit esoteric and convoluted, by and large, it is understandable, just a bit odd to read in a literary story.
As I read the book, I began to feel as if, if I tried, I could see Lara as a microcosm for Russian peasants. They were violated young, treated all right for a time, left to their own resources, on and on, up through the Russian Revolution. Maybe that is the quality of this book that so many people were enthralled to read it. It could also have been the history told through personal toil that was what people of the West were really interested in. I am not a real fan of that sort of literature. I did not enjoy reading Galsworthy, "The Forsthye Saga" either. They are just too mundane
It is interesting that this is a story of a philander. Yuri marries his childhood sweetheart, then finds another sweet and gentle soul to enjoy. The marriage falls apart due to social conditions and Yuri's inability to do anything for his family. At one point, he realizes he has not been much of a father to his children. It makes him sad, but there is little he can do to undo or make things better for any of them. I guess that, in the sense that a philander goes outside of his marriage to have sex for the heightened libido or something, Yuri is not like that. He truly loves his wife and Lara, seemingly equally as much. They both have the sun shining out of their root charka, as far as he is concerned. As for his last lover, there he is just trying to still be human, but his mental state is such that he fails at that and in the end abandons her.

I AM UKRAINIAN BUT ALSO I SPEAKE RUSSIAN. THE BOOK PRACTICALLY STRESSED ME WHEN I WAS YOUNG. NOW I AM THINKING ABOUT THE BEST TRANSLATION OF B.PASTERNAK'S POETRY GIVEN IN THIS BOOK, ESPECIALLY BICOUSE OF THE COMING SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHDAY! IF SOMEBODY KNOWS GOOD TRANSLATION OF PASTERNAK'S "HAMLET" AND "SHAKESPEARE" PLEASE DO NOT HESISTATE TO COMMUNICATE WITH ME. ALSO I TRY TO TRANSLATE PASTERNAK'S POETRY INTO UKRAINIAN