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laura_huey's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This beautiful translation by Pevear & Volokhonsky was superbly read by Juliet Stevenson. I sometimes found it hard to keep track of the vast array of characters because of the use of first name & patronymic, surname only, and a wide range of nicknames for each person. It’s slow moving and the characters are very complex, but well worth a read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Abandonment, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Bullying, Cursing, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Rape, Sexual assault, Vomit, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Deportation
kimveach's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I've wanted to read this book for a long time, and I finally did. It was a long slog. While parts of the book were fascinating, there was too much war and philosophy for me to truly enjoy it. The translation was excellent. It had lots of notes that helped explain the references Pasternak was using. Without these, it would have been difficult for me to comprehend. I can appreciate this book, primarily since it was written against the government's wishes.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Gore, Gun violence, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Genocide, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Vomit, Dementia, Death of parent, Alcohol, Dysphoria, and Deportation
flara's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I have so many thoughts I don't know where to begin. I guess I'll start on a positive note before I spiral: I think Pasternak did an excellent job at portraying very specific period of time in Russian history. I have relatives who lived in those places at those times and it felt like I could see into their lives, even though we have never met. Pasternak gives you little vignettes of places and 'happenings' that don't contribute much to the plot but yet they complete the picture and bring you closer. I felt like I was watching (reading) a B-roll and Doctor Zhivago was a film series.
I would much prefer if this was called General Zhivago, a book about Yuri's mysterious brother who randomly comes in and out and saves Yuri's ass. How am I supposed to care about a man, who doesn't appear to care about anyone, has children with multiple women to whom he proclaims his love and affection but then never really thinks about those children ever again? How was this supposed to be a love story??? At the beginning I was grasping for any encounter between Yuri and Lara, but that was because I always knew they were meant to be together at some point. However, as soon as they did come together, I didn't care at all, because there was nothing to care about. They say they love each other and so on, but I didn't find it believable.
And now the children part. Yuri is forced to join a partisan group during his wife's pregnancy. This is during a horrendous civil war that followed a world war. Everything is in shambles, people are struggling to survive. His wife is in a foreign village PREGNANT. Yuri sees burning villages. He is a witness to a soldier murdering his wife and children because he could not stand the thought of the Whites coming and killing them, so he decided to end their lives' swiftly, by himself, to spare them from suffering. Yuri is also witness to mother just abandoning their newborn babies to the wilderness, because they have no milk, and apparently leaving your child to be eaten by a wild animal is preferable to a long dying of hunger. He experiences all of this, and his main thought after finally escaping the Red partisans and getting to Yuriatin is 'I better get myself shaved and my hair cut before I see Lara'. May I please remind you that at the beginning of the book Yuri is an orphan boy who cries over the death of his mother. You'd think he would want to make sure that his children never have to experience an absent parent. Oh and then he has more children with a much younger woman and he he pulls a disappearing act on them too??? WTF Yuri???
Vasya, a young man who joins him for a brief period at the end of the book, is by far the cleverest character, because he eventually realises that Yuri is full of BS and that Yuri is putting minimal effort into 'trying to reunite with his family'. How did this man get not one, not two, but three women into subjecting all their devotion to him, I will never understand. I realise that he is most probably suffering from all sorts of trauma, and we can see that he slowly looses his marbles towards the end. But it seems that his shortcomings were simply magnified by the violent events and passing of time; they were there before.
Also, why does everybody keep running into each other? 500+ pages, over 10 000km, and yet everyone and everything is connected? This is where I truly felt like I was watching (reading) a film series, because the coincidence was astronomical.
I'm sure I found many other things completely outrageous, but I can't recall them right now. I think this book has merit for its portrayal of historical events and capturing the essence of those times. But it fails as a vessel for Zhivago's and Antipova's lovestory.
I would much prefer if this was called General Zhivago, a book about Yuri's mysterious brother who randomly comes in and out and saves Yuri's ass. How am I supposed to care about a man, who doesn't appear to care about anyone, has children with multiple women to whom he proclaims his love and affection but then never really thinks about those children ever again? How was this supposed to be a love story??? At the beginning I was grasping for any encounter between Yuri and Lara, but that was because I always knew they were meant to be together at some point. However, as soon as they did come together, I didn't care at all, because there was nothing to care about. They say they love each other and so on, but I didn't find it believable.
And now the children part. Yuri is forced to join a partisan group during his wife's pregnancy. This is during a horrendous civil war that followed a world war. Everything is in shambles, people are struggling to survive. His wife is in a foreign village PREGNANT. Yuri sees burning villages. He is a witness to a soldier murdering his wife and children because he could not stand the thought of the Whites coming and killing them, so he decided to end their lives' swiftly, by himself, to spare them from suffering. Yuri is also witness to mother just abandoning their newborn babies to the wilderness, because they have no milk, and apparently leaving your child to be eaten by a wild animal is preferable to a long dying of hunger. He experiences all of this, and his main thought after finally escaping the Red partisans and getting to Yuriatin is 'I better get myself shaved and my hair cut before I see Lara'. May I please remind you that at the beginning of the book Yuri is an orphan boy who cries over the death of his mother. You'd think he would want to make sure that his children never have to experience an absent parent. Oh and then he has more children with a much younger woman and he he pulls a disappearing act on them too??? WTF Yuri???
Vasya, a young man who joins him for a brief period at the end of the book, is by far the cleverest character, because he eventually realises that Yuri is full of BS and that Yuri is putting minimal effort into 'trying to reunite with his family'. How did this man get not one, not two, but three women into subjecting all their devotion to him, I will never understand. I realise that he is most probably suffering from all sorts of trauma, and we can see that he slowly looses his marbles towards the end. But it seems that his shortcomings were simply magnified by the violent events and passing of time; they were there before.
Also, why does everybody keep running into each other? 500+ pages, over 10 000km, and yet everyone and everything is connected? This is where I truly felt like I was watching (reading) a film series, because the coincidence was astronomical.
I'm sure I found many other things completely outrageous, but I can't recall them right now. I think this book has merit for its portrayal of historical events and capturing the essence of those times. But it fails as a vessel for Zhivago's and Antipova's lovestory.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Infidelity, Violence, Blood, Murder, and War
Moderate: Drug use and Death of parent
Minor: Cannibalism
aliceswips's review against another edition
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
All the characters had the same voice.
The reflections were so long that they became blurry and repetitive. There were no time markers, and the transitions from one period to another were very vague(at one point I no longer understood how old Zhivago was).
The author creates the character of Lara with a thousand facets, then presents her death/disappearance with a small paragraph and closes it there.
Many of the characters lacked distinctive traits, making it difficult to distinguish between them. They came and went in the doctor's life, and I struggled to identify them.
The descriptions were really vivid though.
The reflections were so long that they became blurry and repetitive. There were no time markers, and the transitions from one period to another were very vague
Many of the characters lacked distinctive traits, making it difficult to distinguish between them. They came and went in the doctor's life, and I struggled to identify them.
The descriptions were really vivid though.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infidelity and War
Moderate: Pedophilia and Murder
julianh's review against another edition
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, and War
Moderate: Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Murder, and Pregnancy