Doctor Zhivago (original 1957; edition 1958)

Set in the early days of the USSR, Doctor Zhivago is the story of the doctor and the sweeping changes he bears witness to.

Oh, I had a hard time with this one. It was sheer stubbornness that got me through. I didn't particularly like Doctor Zhivago, I thought Lara was crazy, and I couldn't keep up with the politics. I kept thinking that I should look up the Russian Revolution (or whatever it's called) and try to make some sense out of what was going on, but I didn't care enough to even do that.

There were philosophical discussions planted smack in the middle of conversations. Of course I didn't believe anyone has ever actually talked that way. I couldn't follow the philosophy and then I lost the thread of the conversation by the time the characters got back to talking about something I was interested in.

The doctor was the epitome of "not to decide is a decision." He just went with whatever situation he found himself in. He had some ideals when he was young that he fought for, but then he became jaded and seemed not to really believe in anything. But I could be wrong about that. As his family life changed, he never fought for anyone. He just took the easiest path before him.

Lara was at least passionate but I felt she was inconsistent. Who did she really want to be with? I'm not entirely sure. She said one thing but did another.

What I did take away from the book is how confusing it must have been to live through a time like this. I have a feeling the confusion about who was fighting whom and why was done deliberately. I can't imagine living through a war and never being sure who was on what side and which side I should be on to get through safely. You can see how tightly I would hold to my ideals--I just want to make it through!

And Russian novelists and their character names! Holy cow! I can't keep up with everyone and their nicknames. I just can't. That adds to my confusion as well.

Because I never fully caught the thread of the book, this is really all I can say. It was not the book for me, but if you're curious, don't let me discourage you. ( )

The Russian Revolution, the civil war that followed, and romance -- you can learn a lot and also enjoy the story. Pasternak was a poet as well and it shows in his writing, even in translation. ( )

it's not the fault of this book that it took me so long to read. i actually quite liked most of it. it would help to know more russian history, but i think i got the important points. more than the story, though, i enjoyed the writing, especially early on. ( )

"The calamity of mediocre taste is worse than the calamity of tastelessness."
(p. 568)

I don't think I can really judge this book properly: it's a big, slow, quiet book, and I wasn't in the right place for that. I read it during a time when my life was moving very quickly. (And I didn't have as much time for reading as I've been used to, so this took way longer than I was mentally prepared for.) So your mileage may vary. The lesson is, read the book your life has room for. Lots of time on your hands? Once I got laid off and spent the next two weeks (two weeks!) reading War & Peace. That was a good idea. Right now, I should probably stick to comic books.

"Consciousness is poison, a means of self-poisoning for the subject who applies it to himself."
(p. 75)

This is a quiet book. It has flashes of wonderful insight:

"Decidedly all mothers are mothers of great people, and it is not their fault that life later disappoints them."
(p. 332)

"Misha gradually became filled with scorn for adults, who had cooked a pudding they were unable to eat. He was convinced that when he grew up, he would untangle it all."
(p. 13)

And some beautiful writing:

"There in the haze of a mist the sun rose and peeped dimly between the scraps of floating murk, the way naked people in a bathhouse flash through clouds of soapy steam."
(p. 287)

And "Swarms of the enormously multiplied, glutted mice darted underfoot on the road by day and turned into a slippery, squealing, slithering mush when stepped on."
(p. 552)
which is wonderful in its disgusting vividness.

And a great thing to say to your artist friends:
"He considered art unsuitable as a calling, in the same sense that innate gaiety or an inclination to melancholy could not be a profession."
(p. 73)

But it's very slow. You know that old rule, "Show don't tell"? Pasternak doesn't know that rule.

I expected a romance, and I guess I got one...but one friend told me as I was starting, "I kept shouting for him to stay with Lara!" and I was expecting a story about a quiet, stolid man who wrestled with his responsibilities toward his family and his attraction for another woman. The truth is, he doesn't wrestle terribly hard. The big revelation for me about Dr Zhivago was that he's an asshole. He makes no effort to recover his family. And he abandons Lara in a particularly vile way. This is a guy who really just wanders from one woman to another, discarding them whenever his path happens to lead in a different direction.

"From fear alone of the humiliating, annihilating punishment that non-love is, I would unconsciously beware of realizing that I did not love you. Neither I nor you would ever find it out. My own heart would conceal it from me, because non-love is almost like murder, and I would be unable to deal such a blow to anyone."
(p. 492)

That's a deadly insightful thing to say, and it speaks to Zhivago's inability to man up.

Zhivago wrestles with individuality throughout the book:
"And thus it turns out that the only true life is one that resembles the life around us and drowns in it without leaving a trace, that isolated happiness is not happiness, so that a duck and alcohol, when they seem to be the only ones in town, are even not alcohol and a duck at all."
(p. 203)

But

"He wanted to cry out to the boy and to the people in the car that salvation lay not in faithfulness to forms but in liberation from them."
(p. 292)

But he remains a passive character, unable to reconcile his views into a real philosophy and instead letting the wind blow him whichever way it goes.

So that's all very interesting, and this is an insightful character study. Still, though: it's like 700 pages long, and not a ton of things happen. Good for a long winter's week when you don't have much going on. Bad for reading in snatches.

"Lara reflected on the diligence with which drunk people always like to imitate drunk people, and with all the more giftless and amateurish deliberateness the drunker they are."
(p.113)

Sadly, this was not a particularly drunk review. ( )

Also have the 23rd impression - sept 1968 ed Fontana Books(1 of 23 books all for $10)

I should re-read this sometime. 3 stars is a little low. ( )