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I finished reading Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak on 7 April 2025. The book is very good; and not too terribly difficult to read at all. It is very readable. It is a love story that takes place during the end of WWI and the Bolshevik Revolution. It follows the life of, you guessed it, Doctor Zhivago, and a childhood friend / nurse that he fell in love with and who loved him. Their lives criscrossed eachother; they were both married, yet to their deaths they were in love. It is a great story in the context of a world war and then a civil war / revolution that turned the whole of society and relationships upside down. It disrupted every aspect of life, including theirs. It is also kind of a tribute to the grandeur and lasting history of Moscow. The love story is one told over and over again, just in different ways, right? That interplay between the historical context and their relationship(s) is what I found best about the book. Anyone in today's society who suggests that we should have a civil war or anything of the sort, perhaps should read this book to feel how disruptive it is and in the end does it really have the likelihood of achieving its goal? I don't know that the reader falls in love with any of these characters in the book. I didn't feel any movement toward either one in either direction (like or dislike) too profoundly as with perhaps other books. Although, at points I was thinking, the war is over and one of them seemeed to have a drastic disregard for the wellbeing or even whereabouts of their spouse. . . the other quietly sacrificed everything for theirs while still being in love with another. Maybe the symbolism is found in the ending in which they both get their due in different ways. At the end of the book is the poetry purportedly written by Doctor Zhivago, it was ok; I guess I was expecting it to tie more into this love relationship with the nurse and his life more particularly. There were some passages in there I really liked, but for the most part felt them as "meh." I did like the ones about the seasons; there are several religious based ones that will appeal to some readers more perhaps. I will leave you with a couple quotes from the book for your thoughts and discussion: *. "The war was an artificial break in life - as if life could be put off for a time. what nonsense!" P146. *. "For life, too, is only an instant, only the dissolving of ourselves in the selves of all others as if bestowing a gift --" P535 in the Poem titled: "Wedding." Other books I have read that might parallel this to one extent or another: Madame Bovary and Ethan Frome perhaps; both of which were very good. |
currently now / after Doctor Zhivago, I am reading "The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Bennett, the Signet Classics publication of it.   |