Product Description

This selection of Boris Pasternak’s correspondence with his parents and sisters from 1921 to 1960 sheds new and revealing light on the great writer’s life and work. His letters are accomplished literary works in their own right, on a par with his poetry in their intensity, frankness, and dazzling stylistic play. In addition, they offer a rare glimpse into his innermost self, significantly complementing the insights obtained from his work. Those glimpses are especially poignant in that after 1923 Pasternak was never to see his family again.

The collection reflects the events of Pasternak’s life during forty turbulent years. His father was a distinguished painter and his mother, a concert pianist; his admiration for them colors the entire correspondence. But other topics also find a place: descriptions of his life under the harsh Soviet regime, reflections on his work, on his meetings with famous contemporaries, and on current events, including arrests and executions. In particular, the dramatic happenings of 1956–1960—the publication of Doctor Zhivago, being awarded the Nobel Prize, and the international political storm that followed—weighed heavily on Pasternak and his family. As an evocation of his times, his letters are as powerful as his literary works, with their intimate biographical detail, emotional honesty and—despite the tightening censorship—the openness and candor of their revelations.

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 (2)

A true artist is an iconoclast
In this autobiographical essay B. Pasternak reveals his views on art, his failed careers, his life and loves as a student, his travels across Europe and the artistic and political scene in the USSR.
After studying music (under the baton of A. Scriabin) and philosophy (neo-Kantianism in Marburg), Boris Pasternak finally found his true vocation: literature.

His artistic faith
As superbly explained by his French translator, Michel Aucouturier, B. Pasternak's aesthetics are fundamentally influenced by Schopenhauer. Art, true lyricism, binds 'the world as representation' (the objects) to the 'world as will' (our perceptions). True art reveals unexpected features, new aspects of reality. Prose or poetry give a name to these new aspects for the first time and in a unique manner. In this way, art creates a new reality through the 'strength' (the feelings of the author) and through images. In other words, the lyrical principle is a principle of subversion. Art cannot be driven by political imperatives. The poet is always a rebel against the social order: the most enduring images are those of the iconoclast.

Mayakovsky and the totalitarian State
Among the authors of the various Russian literary movements at the time, V. Mayakovsky was B. Pasternak's real hero. The suicide of the one `who had the novelty of the time in his blood', was a very serious blow for B. Pasternak and an unmistakable omen of things to come. (See the memoirs of D. Shostakovich for another view on Mayakovsky.)
During his travels across Europe, B. Pasternak was amazed by Venice, but he stumbles on its 'boca di leone'. Those boxes were for him the symbols of the totalitarian police State: mouths of lions are haunting you everywhere, putting their noses in everything that is intimate; mouths of lions that gobble up one life after another in the secret of their dens.

This literary and politically important book is not a good introduction to B. Pasternak's work. Its phraseology is sometimes ultra poetic. It lacks also the vigor of his masterpiece 'Doctor Zhivago', one of the greatest novels of all time.

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

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One of the great books of twentieth-century poetry. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Powerful poetry of material things
Some of our strongest poets are those who energize the material things and concrete sensations of daily life in special ways. Objects set apart by poetic imagination and power become sacred and establish a bond between the reader as perceiver and the thing perceived. By extension the bond opens the reader to an entire universe of ensouled matter--a new way of looking at the world.

Such is the poetry of Boris Pasternak in this 1917 book written at the height of The Great War and on the eve of the October Revolution. Pasternak's spirited materialism predates William Carlos Williams's concept "No ideas but in things."

Pasternak sets many of these poems in concretely described locations where his magical materialism can go to work. In "The Flies of the Moochkap Teahouse,"

The spirit sweats--the horizon's
tobacco-tinged--like thought
Windmills image a fishing village
Boats and weathered nets.

This poet's world view of ensouled materiality provides a unique perspective on the new century just beginning. Each reader must decide for him or herself just how prescient or prophetic Pasternak's"The Definition of Soul" was to become.

It falls like a ripe pear into the storm
with a single clinging leaf
How faithful--it quits its branch--
reckless--it chokes in the heat.

We learn much about Pasternak from his later novel and the film (Dr. Zhivago) it spawned--but we don't experience his power as a poet. He was possibly the the most poetically powerful of figures in what is known as the Silver Age of Russian Literature, including Marina Tsvetaeva Selected Poems (Tsvetaeva, Marina) (Twentieth-Century Classics), Osip Mandelstam Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam (New York Review Books Classics), Anna Akhmatova Anna Akhmatova (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets), and Nikolai Gumilyov The Pillar of Fire, among the most talented and brilliant poets of the twentieth century. They bore the brunt of the Soviet regime's ideological attacks and physical repression.

Here is poetic brilliance and talent of the first rank--the power of poetry of material things on display.

Right up there with Mandelstam, Mayakovsky, and Pushkin
Pasternak's poetry is better than his prose. Why he is still often better known for the latter baffles me. I suggest this or any of his collected poems to the reader looking for creative, quality poetry. Pasternak certainly ranks as one of the greatest amongst the group of very talented Russian poets that emerged during the first quarter of the 20th centuary. His poems deserve just as much (if not more) recognition as his novels.

Sister of Mine: Poetry of Detail<p>
While Pasternak is known in the United States mainly for his novel "Dr. Zhivago" - or, more to the point, the film based on "Dr. Zhivago" - he was quite an accomplished poet. A better poet, I think, than he was a novelist. Although I've never read Mr. Rudman's translation - or, for that matter, any translation at all - "Sister of Mine-Life" keeps to its bosom a host of beautiful poems.

Rather than try to explain Pasternak's incredible gift for metaphor and detail, his absolute love of words - he was a decent translator of Shakespeare and others - I'll roughly approximate my favorite poem, from it's original Russian. It is untitled.

***

My friend, you ask, who ordered
That the holy idiot's speech should blaze?

***

Let us trickle words
As the garden drips amber and lemon
Absently and generous,
Gently, gently, gently.

And there's no need to explain
Why there is such ceremony
Of madder and of lemon
Scattering on leaves.

Who made pine needles rush
On a long stick, like music
Through the locks of Venetian blinds,
To the bookcase.

Who reddened the rug of mountain ash
Rippling beyond the door,
Written through with beautiful,
Quivering cursives.

You ask, who orders
That August be great
To whom nothing is small
Who lives in the finishing

Of maple leaves;
Who, since the days of the Ecclesiastes,
Hasn't left his post
And is hewing alabaster?

You ask, who orders,
That the September lips of asters and dahlias
Shall suffer?
That leaves
Should fall from stone caryatids
To the damp gravestones
Of autumn hospitals?

You ask, who orders?
--Omnipotent God of details,
Omnipotent God of love,
Of Yaigails and Yaidvigas.

I don't know, was it decided,
The riddle of the road to the afterlife,
But life, like the stillness
Of autumn -- is details.

I can't quite transmit the pine needles rushing through the Venetian blinds as boats through a sluice, but I'm sure Mr. Rudman could. Even through my approximate translation, it's possible to see what a man of detail Pasternak was. In my edition, the introduction begins: "With Pasternak, you must hurt" -- as great ideas are, the editor notes, painful.

Pasternak certainly took painful care of his words, his thoughts, his beauty. And "Sister of Mine-Life," one of his earlier collections - (the summer of 1917) - is beautiful, detailed and pained.

***

As a post script, I prefer "Sister of Mine-Life," to "My Sister-Life" because the construction "sistra maya" - rather than "maya sistra" stresses that she's my sister.

Also, because life and sister are both female in gender, "my sister" and "my life" are dually coupled in Pasternak's title. "My" could refer solely to sister, or it could be my life, as well.

... Read more

Product Description
n celebration of the 40th anniversary of its original publication, here is the only paperback edition now available of the classic story of the life and loves of a poet/physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. ... 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

Customer Reviews (1)

Personal and literary biography
Hingley does a good job of approaching Pasternak, particularly given that Pasternak was so chary of providing evidence of his personal life. The biography was well written, and certainly motivated me to keep reading.

I knew a fair amount about Akhmatova and Tsvetayeva going in to reading this book and it felt like it filled in missing pieces of the same story. For me, the only unfortunate aspect was the nagging feeling that Hingley was somehow taking sides in the veracity of the various women in Pasternak's life. It added a weird gossipy kind of tone to some of the issues that were discussed.

Still a commendable effort, and recommended if you are looking for a decent Pasternak biography. ... Read more

Product Description
Small 8vo. Green boards with gilt "Modern Library" logo on front. ... Read more

Product Description

Boris Pasternak’s widely acclaimed novel comes gloriously to life in a magnificent new translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the award-winning translators of War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and to whom, The New York Review of Books declared, “the English-speaking world is indebted.”
 
First published in Italy in 1957 amid international controversy—the novel was banned in the Soviet Union until 1988, and Pasternak declined the Nobel Prize a year later under intense pressure from Soviet authorities—Doctor Zhivago is the story of the life and loves of a poet-physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Taking his family from Moscow to what he hopes will be shelter in the Ural Mountains, Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between the Whites and the Reds. Set against this backdrop of cruelty and strife is Zhivago’s love for the tender and beautiful Lara: pursued, found, and lost again, Lara is the very embodiment of the pain and chaos of those cataclysmic times.
 
Stunningly rendered in the spirit of Pasternak’s original—resurrecting his style, rhythms, voicings, and tone—and including an introduction, textual annotations, and a translators’ note, this edition of Doctor Zhivago is destined to become the definitive English translation of our time.

Customer Reviews (1)

A new translation brings new life to one of the 20th century's great literary events.
Boris Pasternak's most famous novel, and the source for one of the biggest (both in box office and scope) films in cinematic history, arrives in stores once again, translated for the 21st century.As already noted by the product description, "Doctor Zhivago" was an international sensation on its initial publication in 1957 - smuggled out of the Soviet Union and published first in Italy due to the censorship of the Communist government, it was rapidly translated into English (and other languages).Max Hayward's work was of good quality, particularly given the time constraints under which he laboured - good enough to make the novel a bestseller and probably the most famous work of Russian literature published in the 20th century.It earned its author the Nobel Prize in Literature, though political considerations interfered even then to block his acceptance.

Nevertheless, the theory and practice of translation has evolved considerably in the last half-century (and probably will continue to); works are continually retranslated, sometimes with minor variations in style, sometimes with bigger ones.Now comes the turn of "Doctor Zhivago".And as any fan of Russian literature could tell you, there could be no better team on hand to handle it than Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.This husband-and-wife team has become the gold standard in Russian-to-English translation over the last quarter century, having produced a truly astonishing volume of work:the major works of Dostoevsky, Count Tolstoy, Bulgakov, Gogol, and Chekhov (Pevear has also translated Dumas' "The Three Musketeers" from French by himself, I guess for a change of pace).Now they've turned their hand to Pasternak's magnum opus.The resulting translation is up to their usual standards.

One won't get too far into story summary, given how famous this is, but in brief it is a semi-autobiographical account by the author of the tumultuous history of Russia in the early 20th century.Beginning with the fall of the Tsarist despotism, the brief and doomed interlude of attempted democracy under Kerensky, and the assumption of power by the Bolsheviks, with ensuing civil war, we follow Dr. Yuri Zhivago.Something of an idealist, like Pasternak (or Pasternak's self image, anywyay), Zhivago struggles with his love for Lara, and the conflict it creates with his family.That's the part everybody remembers, anyway, almost invariably.David Lean's famous film, as big as it was, could only tell a condensed version of Pasternak's story, which is larger still on the page; but that is true with all the great novels.Pasternak weaves an epic account of one of the greatest political earthquakes in history, which claimed millions of lives, and is comparatively little-remembered in the contemporary West.

Recommended.And one hopes that Pevear and Volokhonsky can make time for Sholokhov. ... Read more

Product Description
This is the long-awaited concluding volume of Christopher Barnes's acclaimed biography of the Russian poet and prose writer, Boris Pasternak. Barnes discusses Pasternak's relations with the Communist régime and the literary establishment, his original writing, and the controversies surrounding the publication of Dr. Zhivago and the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature. ... Read more

Product Description
The summer of 1926 was a time of trouble and uncertainty for each of the three poets whose correspondence is collected in this moving volume. Marina Tsvetayeva was living in exile in France and struggling to get by. Boris Pasternak was in Moscow, trying to come to terms with the new Bolshevik regime. Rainer Maria Rilke, in Switzerland, was dying. Though hardly known to each other, they began to correspond, exchanging a series of searching letters in which every aspect of life and work is discussed with extraordinary intensity and passion. "An extraordinary correspondence.... Makes us weep for what seems a vanished golden age of European culture." -- John Bayley ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

these letters should have been kept private
here we have three great poets. sounds inviting, interesting, wonderful. instead boris writes like an infatuated 14 year old. marina is often hysterical. their ego's are so soft, constant reassurance seems to be the name of the game. a polite letter from a bored rilke has marina and boris delirious with happiness, too excited to sleep, pouring over every 'the' and 'and', looking, searching for 'deeper meaning.' if this book is read as letters by three unknowns, i doubt it would be published. boris is a cad. after one letter stating undying love for marina, he wishes to leave his wife, leave his child, pack his suitcase and live happily ever after with an also married marina. i guess their life partners are expendable when it comes to poetry, or, more like it, the rich and pathetic fantasy world of boris and marina. this is one of the most uninteresting books i have read. my advice - stick to the poetry and avoid these sickly sweet letters.

A revelation, a model, for the possibility of human communication
This book, the March/Sept. 2001 edition, is for me like a hot springs swimming pool for the tired body, what spring is to the birds, what rain is for parched meadows: a sensory experience that brings well-being to the sore human soul. The jacket cover comments by John Bayley and Mark Rudman give an accurate idea of what the correspondence was between these three writers 80 summers ago: yes, the letters among them are literature, and yes, reading them might make us weep for a vanished golden age of culture.But this collection of letters and poetry is for us today, addresses our global conflicts now; Rilke and Tsvetayeva knew that they were writing for the future; Pasternak knew that, too, but in these letters Boris comes across as more firmly rooted in the present moment (perhaps because he's best known as the author of a novel, Dr. Zhivago, immortalized by a David Lean film in the mid-1960s).

I know nothing of the Russian and German languages and cannot judge the translation as a "correct" one, but the reader who benefits from this book is one who wonders what people felt and how they lived during a time when the Soviet government was ratcheting up the tension that led to the period of the commissars and Stalin.When I began reading this book, I knew little about Rilke and Pasternak, and had never heard of Marina Tsvetayeva.But these writers--as human beings--were no different than anyone else in that they were subjected to the same pressures as anyone living in poverty and fear.Rilke, Pasternak, and Tsvetayeva reacted to their circumstances with beautiful words.They have proven to me--beyond a doubt--that even under the worst governmental regimes, the intelligence we give to our emotions and the joy we have in verbal expression will triumph.Today, we merely die of complacency.

Ultimately, this edition is Marina Tsvetayeva's book: her genius is evident in every phrase of her two essays inspired by the death of Rainer Maria Rilke--80 years ago, December 29, 1926--essays of lyrical prose-poetry translated beautifully by Jamey Gambrell, and appended to the end of the correspondence.The reader cannot simply turn to the back of the book and read Tsvetayeva's essay "Your Death"; one must read everything that comes before.This book also reminds me how indebted all writers and readers are to anyone who--often through extraordinary efforts--saved fragile paper documents, also the artistry and science of translators, archivists, and libraries, as well as the descendants and extended family of the writers.Thank you Alexandra Ryabinina, Yevgeny Pasternak and Yelena Pasternak, Konstantin Azadovsky, Margaret Wettlin and Walter Arndt for a truly astounding commitment to culture.

In the Company of Angels
Words have tremendous power, and reading the letters written from one person to another often helps us to know that person far more intimately than anythng else ever could.

During the summer of 1926, three extraordinary poets (two Russian and one German) began a correxpondence of the highest order.These three extraordinary people were Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetayeva and Ranier Maria Rilke.Rilke, who is revered as a god by both Pasternak and Tsvetayeva, is seen by them as the very essence of poetry, itself.

None of these three correspondents is having a good year:Pasternak is still living in Moscow, attempting to reconcile his life to the Bolshevik regime; Tsvetayeva has been exiled to France with her husband and children and is living in the direst financial straits, with each day presenting a new hurdle in the struggle to simply "get by;" Rilke's situation is perhaps the worst of all...he is dying of leukemia in Switzerland.

Pasternak and Tsvetayeva have already exchanged years of letters filled with the passion and romance of poetry, itself.Although Pasternak saw Rilke briefly in 1900, Tsvetayeva has never laid eyes on her idol.These three poets are, however, connected by a bond far stronger than the physical.They are kindred spirits, and each find repetitions and echoes of himself in the other.

Tsvetayeva quickly becomes the driving force of this trio.This is not surprising given her character.She's the most outrageous of the three, the boldest, the neediest, the one most likely to bare her inner soul to its very depths.Tsvetayeva's exuberance, however, eventually has disatrous effects.

Although Pasternak and Tsvetayeva consider Rilke their superior by far, these are not the letters of acolyte to mentor, but an exchange of thoughts and ideas among equals.If you've ever read the sappy, sentimental "Letters to a Young Poet," you'll find a very different Rilke in this book.Gone is the grandiose, condescending Rilke.In his place we find an enthusiastic Rilke, one filled with an almost overwhelming "joie de vivre," despite his sad circumstances.

As Susan Sontag says in her preface, these letters are definitely love letters of the highest order.The poets seek to possess and consume one another as only lovers can.But even these lovers haven't suspected that one of their trio is fatally ill.Pasternak and Tsvetayeva are both shocked and devastated when Rilke dies.

Love, many people will argue, is best expressed when the people involved are able to spend time together.There is, however, something to be said for separateness, for there is much that can only come to the surface when the lover is separated from the beloved.

These letters can teach us much about Rilke, Pasternak and Tsvetayeva.They can also teach us much about the very depths of the soul...both its anguish and those sublime, angelic heights...areas not often explored by anyone, anywhere, at any time. ... Read more

Product Description
The 25 poems from Pasternak's masterpiece Doctor Zhivago are followed by a masterful critique of their function in the novel and their value as poetry. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Poetry within poetry
Doctor Zhivago is one of my all-time favorite movies.
When there is a snow storm, I play Dr. Zhivago.A little
background, so you know how much I love this.I purchased
a used copy of the book and the real surprise was the
"gift within the gift."Inside the book, there was an
inscription that read, "From the depths of my Slovic heart."
It melted me.Obviously, this book was given to a
"special" someone.I think the original purchaser would be
very happy to know that someone much like he/she now owns it.
Enough said on that topic.

OK, on to the product - I thought it was great, but was
surprised (not disappointed, just surprised) at the amount
of religious "themed" poems found within ... a sign of the
times and that's history.

THE POEMS OF DR. ZHIVAGO
THIS BOOK WAS GIVEN TO ME AS A GIFT A VERY LONG TIME AGO, BACK IN 1975. THE POETRY WAS WONDERFUL AND BEING IN LOVE WITH A VERY SPECIAL PERSON AT THE TIME AND SHARING "THE POEMS OF DR. ZHIVAGO" WITHHIM......MADE ME BELIEVE THIS BOOK WAS MADE FOR "LOVERS"! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A rare prose work from the author of 'Doctor Zhivago'.
Pasternak's novella is more of an extended prose poem - its movement is not through narrative or character, but the flux of imagery, both observational and metaphorical.An invalided Russian soldier arrives in 1916 at a remote factory town near the Urals to stay with his married sister; he rests after the long train journey, and reminisces, or dreams, about the months preceding the outbreak of World War One, his graduation from college, his job as a tutor with a wealthy, unhappily married family, his relations with various women (his sister, his mistress, her paid companion, prostitutes).

This slight story is merely a frame on which is hung the overpowering expression of a developing artistic sensibility, as it transforms the world around it - the sights, sounds and smells; the description of storms, city streets, parks, dust-winds, snows. The language is continually, fluidly metamorphosing, in keeping with the artist's mind, so that the reader is continually jolted and carried away from thought to evocation to feeling.In this world, the human beings are passive, phantom-like, while things, objects, nature, have an active, conscious power.

Like Joyce'ssimilar 'Portrait of the artist as a young man', this dense poetry of autobiography and bildungsroman strives towards the creation of a work of art, in this case a rather portentous drama (which is apparently devastatingly beautiful in the Russian); while the reader is always conscious of the shadows of war and Revolution (the book was published in 1934).

According to Lydia Slater in the introduction, George Reavey's translation came out at a time (1959; revised 1960) when hundreds of inferior, rushed translations were cashing in on the success of 'Doctor Zhivago' and the author's Nobel Prize refusal - she says 'it is surprising to find that some translations from Pasternak really do have something in common with the original text'.Reavey captures the density of Pasternak's language and his jarring stylistic effects, but he rarely captures that 'pure and undiluted poetry', that 'drama and lyricism' Slater finds in the original.In any case, Pasternak's illumination of the mundane and of awakening consciousness seem, to me, to lack the magic or humour of Nabokov's contemporary Russian work. ... Read more

Product Description
A biography of the Russian writer Boris Pasternak, written to mark the centenary of his birth. Best known for "Dr Zhivago", he also wrote an autobiography called "Safe Conduct", two books of poetry, and translations of Shakespeare's tragedies. In 1958 he declined the Nobel Prize, and died in 1960. ... Read more