Man is born to live, not to prepare for life. Life
itself, the phenomenon of life, the gift of life, is so
Most of us are only familiar with Doctor Zhivago from the epic David Lean film version (indeed this is one of the books I come across most frequently at book sales, almost always unread). The movie is beautiful but strangely inert, has a somewhat disjointed narrative and conveys no clear philosophical message--flaws which I always assumed were a function of the difficulty of converting a Russian novel to film and the inexplicable casting of two really awful actors (Omar Sharif & Julie Christie) in the lead roles. But now, having reread the novel, it seems to me that these weaknesses are inherent in the novel. Just as Lean seemed most interested in the story as a vehicle for presenting cinematic images, the real life in Pasternak comes less from the narrative itself than from the poetry that Zhivago produces. And the message of the novel, assuming that there is one, is presented awfully subtly. Zhivago himself, the name means "life" in Russian, is a pretty docile
leading man. The story follows him as he is buffeted by the winds
of change in Russia from 1903 to his death sometime after WWII.
But Doctor Zhivago is understood to be semi autobiographical and to the extent that Zhivago is acted upon rather than acting himself, perhaps he is intended to convey Pasternak's own ambivalence about the role he had played by remaining in Soviet Union and continuing to work. Indeed, there is a really poignant moment in Isaiah Berlin's piece on the author, where Pasternak, near desperation, seeks to solicit Berlin's opinion on whether people believe that he has collaborated with the government because he remained in the USSR or whether they instead accept that he felt compelled to stay. In fairness to Pasternak, it should not be necessary to leave a country (as did Solzhenitsyn) or be disappeared (as was Isaac Babel) or be imprisoned (as were countless others) in order to demonstrate the legitimacy of your opposition to an evil government. To be honest, the subtlety of Pasternak's message and our increasing distance from the time when even such subtleties could prove incendiary, served to deaden the effect of a novel which already suffers from being a tad too episodic. In the final analysis, I guess I respected the book more than enjoyed it and found it more interesting as a key artifact of an age that is quickly receding from memory than compelling as a novel. (Reviewed:) Grade: (B-) Tweet Websites:-WIKIPEDIA: Boris Pasternak - -OBIT: Pasternak Is Dead; Wrote 'Dr. Zhivago': Pasternak Dead; Soviet Writer, 70 (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, May 31, 1960) -POEM: “The Color Blue” by Boris Pasternak: Poems read aloud, beautifully (Amanda Holmes, April 19, 2022, American Scholar) - -ESSAY: How Boris Pasternak defied Soviet tyranny with a Shakespeare sonnet (Douglas Murray, February 19, 2023, Free Press) -ESSAY: The Environmental and Humanistic Sensibility of Pasternak and Lessons from Dr. Zhivago for Today (Walter G. Moss, 6/05/22, History News Network) Book-related and General Links: -Encyclopedia Britannica : Your search: "Boris Pasternak" -POETRY: Boris Pasternak "Winter's Night" "There'll be noone in the house..." "February. Get ink, shed tears..." -Portrait of Boris and Alexander Pasternak by Leonid Pasternak (1862-1945) -Boris Leonodovich Pasternak (Nobel Site) -Boris (Leonidovich) Pasternak (1890-1960)(kirjasto) -Pasternak, Boris Leonidovich (Britannica Guide to the Nobel Prizes) -Boris Leonidovich Pasternak Winner of the 1958 Nobel Prize in Literature (Nobel Prize Internet Archive) -BORIS PASTERNAK (1890-1960) -EXHIBIT: Poetry in Revolution: The Pasternak Family Papers (Herbert Hoover Memorial Exhibit Pavilion) -ARTICLE: The hard life of Boris Pasternak: Russian writer who was forced to turn down the 1958 Nobel Prize is focus of new exhibit at Stanford (Therese Lee, Palo Alto Weekly) -ARTICLE: SOVIET WRITERS REINSTATE PASTERNAK (PHILIP TAUBMAN, NY Times) -ARTICLE: PASTERNAK LETTERS TELL OF WORK ON 'ZHIVAGO' (AP, Boston Globe) -ARTICLE: 30 YEARS LATE, SOVIET'S UNION OF WRITERS HONORS PASTERNAK (FELICITY BARRINGER, NY Times) -ARTICLE: 'Doctor Zhivago' to See Print in Soviet in '88 (FELICITY BARRINGER, NY Times) -ARTICLE: Pasternak Retreat to Be a Museum (FELICITY BARRINGER, NY Times) -ARTICLE: PASTERNAK'S SPIRIT IS EVICTED FROM HIS OLD DACHA (SERGE SCHMEMANN, NY Times) -ANNOTATION: Pasternak, Boris Doctor Zhivago (Medical Humanities) -ESSAY: Doctor Zhivago and Khrushchev (About.com) -ESSAY: TRANSLATING PASTERNAK (LEV LOSEFF, NY Review of Books) -ESSAY: Isaiah Berlin: Conversations with Akhmatova and Pasternak, NY Review of Books -Librarians Choose A Century of Good Books (Library Journal; November 15, 1998) -REVIEW: Peter France: Pasternak in Private, NY Review of Books My Sister, Life and Other Poems by Boris Pasternak Pasternak, A Collection of Critical Essays edited by Victor Erlich Boris Pasternak's Translations of Shakespeare by Anna Kay France -REVIEW: Helen Muchnic: Pasternak in His Letters, NY Review of Books Letters to Georgian Friends by Boris Pasternak and translated by David Magarshack -REVIEW: Helen Muchnic: A Somber Theater, NY Review of Books The Love-Girl and the Innocent by Alexander Solzhenitsyn Five Plays of Alexander Ostrovsky translated and edited by Eugene K. Bristow The Trilogy of Alexander Sukhovo-Kobylin translated by Harold B. Segel The Complete Plays of Vladimir Mayakovsky translated by Guy Daniels The Blind Beauty by Boris Pasternak Meyerhold on Theatre translated and edited by Edward Braun Notes of a Director by Alexander Tairov and translated by William Kuhlke -REVIEW: John Bayley: Big Three, NY Review of Books Letters: Summer 1926 by Boris Pasternak, Rainer Maria Rilke, Marina Tsvetayeva Letters on Cézanne by Rainer Maria Rilke, edited by Clara Rilke, and translated by Joel Agee -REVIEW: Henry Gifford: Indomitable Pasternak, NY Review of Books Boris Pasternak: A Literary Biography Volume I, 1890-1928 by Christopher Barnes Boris Pasternak: The Poet and His Politics by Lazar Fleishman Boris Pasternak by Peter Levi Boris Pasternak: The Tragic Years, 1930-60 by Evgeny Pasternak -REVIEW: of A VANISHED PRESENT The Memoirs of Alexander Pasternak. Edited and translated by Ann Pasternak Slater (Harlow Robinson, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of BORIS PASTERNAK The Poet and His Politics. By Lazar Fleishman (David Bethea, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: V.S. Pritchett: Private Lives, NY Review of Books The Correspondence of Boris Pasternak and Olga Freidenberg, 1910-1954 -REVIEW: THE CORRESPONDENCE OF BORIS PASTERNAK AND OLGA FREIDENBERG 1910-1954. (Helen Muchnic, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: THE CORRESPONDENCE OF BORIS PASTERNAK AND OLGA FREIDENBERG 1910-1954. (John Leonard, NY Times) -REVIEW: of THE PARADOX OF HISTORY Stendhal, Tolstoy, Pasternak, and Others. By Nicola Chiaromonte (Hayden White, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of THE MEMOIRS OF LEONID PASTERNAK Translated by Jennifer Bradshaw. Introduced by Josephine Pasternak (JOHN BAYLEY, NY Times Book Review) GENERAL:
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