Customer Reviews (1)

Russian original is what you need if you can read in Russian
Doktor Zhivago was rejected by the Soviet journal Novyi Mir so it was published in Russian in Milan in 1957, after being smuggled abroad. Only some poetical excerpts appeared in Moscow. The book was banned in the USSR for three decades - for "nonacceptance of the socialist revolution"...
It's one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, and to fully realize it, you should read it in Russian. It's one of the most moving novels about the meaning of life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Superb story of love and life
This is a gripping story about life, love, and the tragedy of war.Yuri Zhivago is a doctor in Russia during the tumultuous times of the Russian Revolution and civil war.Zhivago is both a skilled MD and a compassionate man, both of which are in short supply in war-ravaged Russia.Events separate Zhivago from his wife and children, and at times from his mistress Lara.Like so many others, Zhivago's life is largely controlled by fate and larger events, yet he retains his humanity and love of life.Probably the book's strongest part concerns the love affair played out in an abandoned home during winter - with the civil war never far away.English-speaking readers may need a few pages to warm up to the author's style (including dual names for the characters), but this powerful book is well worth reading.

Author Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) was named 1958 Nobel Prize winner for this stunning effort - an award the Soviet Government ordered him not to accept due to Pasternak's critical look at the Bolshevik Revolution.This is not an easy read at first, but it is an enduring and powerful one.

Overrated, but still a classic
Dr. Zhivago is one of those rare stories with a main character that is marred in several ways.Fluctuating in philosophy and love, Yury is frustrating yet captiving.So is the novel.The details, the way Boris describes the first night Yury and Tonya fell in love was brilliant.His message of pacifism is made obvious, too much so in my opinion, and the poetry of Dr. Zhivago allows the reader a great insight into his mind.However, I found the ending flat.After Tonya flees, it seemed to drag on too long before the book actually reaches closure.I loved the first four hundred pages, but went through the last hundred by sheer will. This book is considered a classic and is very fitting of such a category.It's detail, it's splendor, it's tales of Russian history are unparallaled, but the ending is very anti-climatic and leaves somewhat of a bitter taste after an otherwise beautiful literary work ... Read more

Product Description
Experimental in its category, Boris Pasternak’s first autobiography, originally published after the great success of his Dr. Zhivago.The awarding of the 1958 Nobel Prize for Literature to Boris Pasternak and the subsequent calumny of his fellow citizens in Soviet Russia focused unusual attention on Pasternak's great novel, Dr. Zhivago, and the small body of his other work. At the time, the latter was only available (in any language, as far as is known) in New Directions' Selected Writings of Pasternak, first published in 1949. The 1958 edition was issued with a new introduction by Babette Deutsch under the title of the book's main component, Pasternak's autobiography.

Written when he was forty, Safe Conduct puzzled many readersin Russia and when it appeared in English, because its isolated sharp impressions and juxtapositions seem to denychronology, but at least one critic recognized it as "the most original of autobiographies, employing a new technique of great important."

Also included is a group of remarkable short stories, translated by Robert Payne, dealing with the mysteries of life and art, and a selection of the poems that have made Pasternak known, to the few at last, as the "outstanding Russian poet of the century." these are translated by the British Critic and poet C. M. Bowra, and by Miss Deutsch. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excruciating
This was assigned to me in grad school in my "fiction as autobiography" class. It succeeded in making me angry for a week. I would write more but I don't want to spend any more time on this book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Redundant Alchemy as Translation: From Gold to Gold
"Translation," as Vladimir Nabokov said, "is a form of betrayal." As such, poetry in a foreign tongue is seldom worth reading in translation -- one usually finds the fire and beauty of the wordtrapped behind the translator's teeth. Fortunately, for the Englishreader, George L. Kline has the smile of a jack-o'-lantern. Not merelycontent to convey the meaning and ambiguities of Pasternak's poems, Klineclosely mimics the rhythms and sonorous melodies of the Nobel Prizelaureate's Dylan Thomas-esque lines. Compare the following stanzas from"Lessons in English." The first is from Merrill Sparks'competent translation; the second is a morsel from Kline's breathtakingtranslation:

When it came time to sing for Desdemona/ And she began --her song, restraining,/ The darkest demon saved for her dark day/ A psalmof stream-beds, weeping, flowing.

When it was Desdemona's hour to sing,/When her voice steadied and grew strong,/ Black day, a demon blacker far,sent up/ A psalm for her of wailing river-runs.

So fine are these seventranslations that one wallows for more of Kline's touch. To best know thebeauty of Pasternak, short of learning Russian, seek out this glorious (butall too brief) book.

Redundant Alchemy as Translation: From Gold to Gold
"Translation," as Vladimir Nabokov said, "is a form of betrayal." As such, poetry in a foreign tongue is seldom worth reading in translation -- one usually finds the fire and beauty of the wordtrapped behind the translator's teeth. Fortunately, for the Englishreader, George L. Kline has the smile of a jack-o'-lantern. Not merelycontent to convey the meaning and ambiguities of Pasternak's poems, Klineclosely mimics the rhythms and sonorous melodies of the Nobel Prizelaureate's Dylan Thomas-esque lines. Compare the following stanzas from"Lessons in English." The first is from Merrill Sparks'competent translation; the second is a morsel from Kline's breathtakingtranslation:

When it came time to sing for Desdemona And she began -- hersong, restraining, The darkest demon saved for her dark day A psalm ofstream-beds, weeping, flowing.

When it was Desdemona's hour to sing, Whenher voice steadied and grew strong, Black day, a demon blacker far, sent upA psalm for her of wailing river-runs.

So fine are these seventranslations that one wallows for more of Kline's touch. To best know thebeauty of Pasternak, short of learning Russian, seek out this glorious (butall too brief) book. ... Read more

Product Description
The Russian Revolution forms the background to this beautiful but heartbreaking tale of four young people, Yury, Tonya, Lara and Pasha, who find love only to lose it again in tragic circumstances.A classic love story, Dr Zhivago remains one of the best-loved romantic books of the century. It was also beautifully filmed with Omar Sharif and Julie Christie in the leading roles. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (90)

A DISAPPOINTMENT
I wanted so much to read this book, because I loved the film by David Lean and can watch it over and over again. However, I could not get past 150 pages in the book before I threw it aside as not worth the immense effort.There were so many irrelevant characters being introduced, and then disappearing, never to be heard of again. And then there were so many incidents described that were just irrelevant to the story --silly narratives that I found inconsequential to the main action, which I knew quite well from the film. Lastly, the same characters were named in so many different ways, I found myself constantly confused. My favorite author is Trollope. He writes long novels, but all characters and all incidents are relevant and have meaning to the plot as a whole. Anyway ... I have given up on Dr. Zhivago and will have to be content with the 2 films!!

Meditation on the Revolution
This is at the very least, a wonderful novel.

The film tells the story of the love affair, but in the novel the love affair is set against the backdrop of two revolutions, the first world war, the civil war, the new economic plan etc etc. There is very little of this in the film.

The novel is a meditation on the decades of continual upheaval and violence, on love, religion, politics and the meaning of life. In most novels this would be pretentious and/or dull, but this is the Russian novel we are talking about.

Zhivago has the characteristic I remember from Dostoevsky of the novelist thinking out loud, as if writing it was his therapy, his processing the revolution.

Love, Love...is Stronger than Death
The greatest Russian novels capture life, and Pasternak does so quite eloquently with Doctor Zhivago. The novel entices and lures with its imagery, which operates on realistic and emotional levels. The details offer verisimilitude and the poetic creates visions and subconscious associations. The revolution provides the framework for life and art. The life force and principle of individuality is manifest in Zhivago. The vagaries of time are like a fairy tale, but this unrealistic quality is actually the ingredient that begets believability. The unpredictability of life, the surprise, chance and our subsequent reaction is what defines the human experience and journey of the soul. The love between Lara and Zhivago is primordial, fundamental, natural and is suppressed in the amoral, duplicitous revolutionary era. Yet, there is hope for Russia and the individual due to the act of creation, both in progeny and art ~ the gifts and celebration of life.

Excellent
I received my book and found it to be in excellent condition, I am always satisfied with the service and delivery of Amazon products. I trust my shopping experience at Amazon. Excellent company.

Perhaps the Masterpiece of Twentieth Century Russian Literature
Many great things can and have been said about Doctor Zhivago, but the greatest, simplest, and truest is that it is the twentieth century War and Peace. Like that mammoth, it is an epic tale of diverse, interrelated characters and conflicted loves against the backdrop of a crucial Russian history period -- just before the Revolution until just after World War II. It is perhaps the masterpiece of twentieth century Russian literature and one of the century's best novels.

Few works have greater historical value. Doctor covers about thirty years, much of it in great detail. We get an astonishingly intimate glimpse of Russian life on the Revolution's eve, vividly showing why reform was necessary. The depiction of its enactment and aftermath is just as unforgettable - virtually an inside look at one of the twentieth century's most transformative events, including many ugly sides that the Soviets did not want known. This gave Doctor much notoriety, including being banned in its own country, and Pasternak may have had reform at least partly in mind, but his main intent was surely realism. The same determination to say the truth underlies the whole, giving a profound glimpse of what it was like to live in this important time and place. Anyone at all curious about it can easily learn as much here as in any history book.

Doctor would be valuable for this alone but of course has far more. The book certainly would not have achieved mass appeal without its many fascinating characters. It has a large cast, and those unfamiliar with Russian name conventions will almost certainly need a list. Even so, the book is never even remotely boring because the cast is so varied and intriguing. The title hero is one of the century's most representative characters, epitomizing his time while pointing forward. Though far from perfect, he is in many ways admirable and thoroughly interesting and, above all, fully human. This last, so important in realism, is true of all the characters; fully believable, they seem truly alive in a way few characters do. We identify with them, whether they are sympathetic or not, because they think and act like real people, i.e., they are often complex, convoluted, or even contradictory. Their great diversity seemingly encompasses nearly all of humanity, showing Pasternak's great range.

The novel certainly would not be what it is without this essential human element, which lends universality, while the setting makes it distinctly twentieth century. However, many factors gloriously recall the great nineteenth century Russian novels, specifically lengthy dialogue that philosophically probes theological, political, and artistic issues. This is a fundamental part of the book -- and Russian literature generally -- and unfortunately the kind of thing that adaptations nearly always drop. Many who love the general story may not know just how much they are missing. Classic Russian literature fans must have been overjoyed by Doctor's 1954 publication, likely having concluded long before that such works were forever gone. Current readers are less prone to appreciate such things because they are now anathema, but they are in many ways the book's heart. They explore, more overtly and in some ways more profoundly, issues examined dramatically in the action. Perhaps most important is Pasternak's apparent agreement with War's central rejection of the Great Man Theory of history. Like Tolstoy, he seems to believe great changes are the sum of the masses acting independently. Here is where his extensive use of coincidence becomes important. Doctor abounds in unlikely coincidences but not the kind that unskilled writers rely on for plots. His point is that ostensibly unconnected lives are intimately intertwined, and that small interactions, even seemingly random ones, snowball to create great change. It is an ambitious point, but he pulls it off masterfully, as with the rest of the book.

All told, Doctor is essential for anyone even remotely interested in Russian literature and highly recommended for those at all intrigued by twentieth century literature or history generally.
... Read more

Product Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Boris (Leonidovich) Pasternak, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 6897 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Encyclopedia of Russian History, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 1416 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Providing a comprehensive discussion of the people, politics, economics, religion, culture, and social systems of Russia, this work spans the time from the earliest beginnings of the Russian nation (among the ancient Eastern Slavic tribes) to the end of czarist Russia and on through the rise and fall of the Soviet Union. It provides the necessary information for readers to obtain a greater understanding of and appreciation for Russia in all of its many spheres. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Read it in Russian!
Doktor Zhivago was rejected by the Soviet journal Novyi Mir so it was published in Russian in Milan in 1957, after being smuggled abroad. Only some poetical excerpts appeared in Moscow. The book was banned in the USSR for three decades - for "nonacceptance of the socialist revolution"...
It's one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, and to fully realize it, you should read it in Russian. It's one of the most moving novels about the meaning of life. ... Read more