Doctor zhivago
This epic tale about the effects of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath on a bourgeois family was not published in the Soviet Union until 1987. One of the results of its publication in the West was Pasternak's complete rejection by Soviet authorities; when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958 he was compelled to decline it. The book quickly became an international best-seller.Dr. Yury Zhivago, Pasternak's alter ego, is a poet, philosopher, and physician whose life is disrupted by the war and by his love for Lara, the wife of a revolutionary. His artistic nature makes him vulnerable to the brutality and harshness of the Bolsheviks. The poems he writes constitute some of the most beautiful writing featured in the novel.
Stats for nerds
3recommend
13mentions
12people
2013–2022years
23% recommend62% neutral15% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Perhaps a bit cliche, but I started on a "Great Russian novels" marathon at the start of the year and have read all of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy.
Brothers Karamazov was my favorite. I liked ''War and Peace too', and can somewhat understand why they call 'Anna Karenina' one of the best books ever written.
Just recently, I finished 'Doctor Zhivago', and 'Fathers and Sons', and 'The Master and Margarita'. I thought they were all brilliant.
Since the year is coming to and end, I hope to reread VS Naipaul's 'A House for Mr Biswas'. It's my favorite novel and I keep coming back to it again and again.
- Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, great read!
- I think this is a fascinating story. Doctor Zhivago is a hauntingly beautiful work --- one of my favorite books and films, certainly, and I am surprised by its importance as a political tool --- really, as a tool of propaganda! I found this story deeply interesting, and it notably answers questions and rumours that had been standing for fifty years. It's an important piece of journalism.
I now only wonder if the CIA had any similar involvement with the 1965 film...
- Famously, after Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, a flood of derogatory letters were published in Soviet newspapers, each beginning with "I have not read the novel..." As a result, Pasternak was forced to decline the Nobel Prize.
- Some Russian books are heavy going because of the often use of several 'different' names for their characters: you get the surname alone, the first name and patronym (parent's name), the first name alone, and the colloquial use of the first name all referring to the same person. As an example, using an English name: you might get "Smith", "James, son of Michael", "James", and "Jimmy", all of which can equally apply to a person called "James Smith".
But the classic Russian writers are famous because of their writing, same as French, English and American authors are.
Some of the most famous Russian books include 'Anna Karenina', 'War and Peace' and 'Doctor Zhivago', and these three have been made into Russian and/or Western films. Like all films, the film versions often cut out whole swathes of the original story, but can give an outline of what the books contain.
- Pasternak was given Nobel prize for "Doctor Zhivago". When reading the book I was disappointed a bit: why give such a high prize for such a boring book. Only about 15-20 years later I understood that Nobel Prize is mostly about politics, not literature.
I don't know if Maria is a good poet. I'm not a big fan of poetry. Opened a couple of her old poems (on stihi.ru) and wasn't impressed.
But since almost half of the article is devoted to how it is important to be in opposition to the current Russian government and how it's a good thing to vilify Russian past (especially Soviet past), I tend to assume that she's an ordinary poet (maybe not bad but definitely not exceptional like the article claims) that is just being used as an ideological weapon against Russia.
