Dr. Zhivago - General discussion

I didn't want to start the reading threads until we decide how to break up the book. Mine has two parts, but part one is quite short. Part two is probably 3/4 of the book.

I propose four threads (plus a wrapup thread):

1. Part One (all 4 chapters)
2. Part Two - chapters 5-8
3. Part Three - chapters 9-12
4. Part Four - chapters 13-end (may vary in some editions)

Whatcha think? Happy New Year!

Sounds good-- I just finished Part 1 yesterday. This is a slow going book. I'm wondering if there's a better translation available? Mine is the 1958 edition translated by Max Hayward and Manya Harari.

Teelgee, I think four threads will work well. I have just had a week's vacation at the beach and took Doctor Zhivago as my holiday read. What a bleak book it is to read under a sunny sky with the warm ocean at my feet and a light breeze on my face.

#2 I have the same edition and also found the book slow going.
Oh, and Happy New Year to everyone.

I have the Max Hayward and Manya Harari edition too. Part Two for me starts on chapter 8, so the editors obviously have played around with it. I've found bits of it slow near the beginning. Its starting to pick up (I'm starting chapter 7) but I'm still waiting for the great love affair to start! I have to say I was expecting a very different book.

It seems pretty evened out. What about the time frame?
*Happy New Year*

Hello All!

Doctor Zhivago is the first novel on my 2010 reading list too, and I'm relieved to find that other people are having the same trouble with it as I am! I'm shocked that I haven't been able to find another translation of such a famous book when this version is so bad. I'm kind of disappointed because I'm getting into the story but the dialouge especially is almost painful.

Did anyone come across another translation?

>#2:
re: "Mine is the 1958 edition translated by Max Hayward and Manya Harari."

I first read this book in the early 60's. My copy was the small paperback and I don't remember it tough going. I just remember loving it.
And while there are several different English translators of Boris Pasternak's poetry, in my searching I have only found the one English translation of Doctor Zhivago.
I hope that none of you lose hope in this literary work and that by the end will find that it truly is a work of art and well worth the time as it was to me.
I am having this same issue right now with Les Miserables and just hoping that the author is laying down the groundwork for something yet wonderful to come.
Boy, this year is starting off with a bang, isn't it? So very many group reads right out of the gate and I hate to miss out on any of them but one just has so much time so I guess we really do need to pick and choose which works will bring to us the most fulfillment in the end.
Good luck to all of us in choosing our best fits and God bless us one and all.
belva

Well, now that I'm over halfway through, the plot of Doctor Zhivago is carrying the uninspiring translation. Thank goodness!

Yep-- I hit 1/2 way last night and I can finally read more than 15 pages an hour (up to about 20-25). Still no love affair though. But yes, it is speeding up. His descriptions of the countryside even make me want to visit Russia.

I'm finished, boy was it a struggle. There was a section midway which I loved, then I got stuck again and just skim read the last 50 pages. I really wanted to love this book!

I've had more trouble than usual with the Russian names. My edition comes with a list of main characters (and some of their nicknames), but there seem to be scores of significant minor characters whom I am having trouble keeping track of.

So far the names have been OK for me. There are several minor characters-- most of them don't matter much beyond a single scene-- but some do appear later so making a list of pages characters appear on might be helpful. I am finding that the main characters differ significantly from their characterization in the movie (which I've seen at least a dozen times). Tonia has much more depth and backbone. So far Lara is the more 1-dimensional of the two. Interesting.

Ya know................after beginning the book and reading about 60 pages of Doctor Zhivago, I am going to step out there and say that even though I am unable to find anywhere that another English translation is even mentioned, this is not the way I remember reading Doctor Zhivago years ago. I am not seeing the passion in the people in politics, grief, work, love, any of it.
Have any of you come across a different translation? This just really does not even seem to feel, let alone read like the book I read years ago. Or perhaps my brain has changed that much and I have been fooling myself all these years. But I certainly wish that I could read this in the original language.
Well, back to it. Let's get it going and done!~!
belva

Belva, I didn't feel the passion at all. Yuri Zhivago seemed like a bit of a cold fish to me. I didn't really feel like I knew the characters at the end of the book. Tonia and Lara needed to be fleshed out more for me to believe that Yuri loved both of them and was struggling to do the right thing by both. Yuri may have loved Tonia, Lara and Marina but it didn't come across as a passionate, can't-live-without-you type of love that I expected.

I haven't seen the movie yet and from what #12 says it's to a totally different experience from the book.
Jenny

Jenny,
I am 20 pages in deeper; Yura and Tonia are just now engaged and Lara is on her way to make Komarovsky basically pay or be shot. Right now she has stopped off at Pasha's room and is in the midst of her talk with him. It seems somewhat better.
I have always seen the book as more of a political drama while the movie is definitely a love story and a beautifully done one. But, yeah, don't expect that from the book. I am just hoping for more passion for anything. Of course, I am not even really into the Revolution yet so perhaps things will pick up.

The movie much more singularly focused on the love story-- and I believe embellished the story in the book considerably.

I'm about 3/4 way through. I don't love the book (I DO love the movie) and the dialogue is weird. But, the fact that Pasternak is essentially a poet does shine though. The beautiful descriptions of the Russia countryside are worth the rest of the pain. It even makes me want to visit...Siberia!

The 2 plot lines (love and revolution), characters (such as they are), and the writing itself are not well-integrated so I'm finding it difficult to get started each time I sit down to read. It doesn't help that I'm getting Red, White, Social Revolutionary, Soviets, partisans, Regional Commisariat, and Bolsheviks all mixed up.

His political rants are not very convincing-- not like Tolstoy or Grossman, and I find his statements on the Jewish condition to be fairly insulting, even though I don't believe he is really anti-Semitic.

I noticed those appalling comments on the Jews too. I cringed as I read them.

I just read the Chapter "The Rowan Tree" last night. Ugh-- then I dreamed about wartime atrocities happening in my town to my family. Time to finish this book and put it behind me!

Well, I've finally finished. Blech, what a disappointment. I guess what really killed the novel for me was that when Zhivago and Lara actually get together, the horrid dialogue almost made it akin to watching a romance movie where the lead actors have no chemistry. Somehow, their conversations are both stiffly impersonal and embarrassingly sentimental. Wasn't the love story supposed to be the big selling point here? Seems like it was badly mishandled, if only, as I've mentioned before, by the English translators. It's really too bad, because when I think back on the plot, this novel could have been so amazingly good.

Since I have seen other's reviews for Doctor Zhivago that gush about it and rank it as one of their favorites, I have to ask if anyone in this group had a wholly positive experience reading it. If you did, can you tell me what did it for you? I feel like maybe I just missed something that might have made it much much better.

I will likely finish the book tonight, and no I am not finding it wholly positive. I can't believe this is all a translation issue either. What I do wonder is if having seen the movie dozens of times colored my expectations. Even the basic plot is very different, not to mention the tone and characters.

I can see how from a cultural and historical commentary perspective Dr. Z is an important novel. At times it is beautiful. But, the plot lines and structure are so messy, often contrived and laughably ridiculous, and then there's the dialogue....

I totally agree with K8 above about the "love" affair being oddly portrayed, stiff. Back to the last two Chapters.

I am only about 3/4 of the way through the book. Yura has just found his way back from the "camp" to Verikino. (the rats, oh...the rats!~!) This is probably my 4th/5th reading of the book over the years and I do love it though I do not remember it being so modern in the language of it.
To me, however, the love story IS on the back burner and the main story is totally political, mainly regarding the reds and the whites. In the movie that was pretty much flipped around. So perhaps some of those who rave about it are thinking of the movie. The book and the movie are, to me, nothing alike..........although I also love the movie but watch it for the love story. I read the book for the political and war stories.
That probably doesn't help you any, but that is how this reader looks at it.
belva

I finished Dr. Zhivago last night and again was not disappointed in anything other than the contemporary translation, which I tried to ignore, and the fru-fru- words in certain dialogues which I attribute to the same source.
But no matter our complaints and minor disappointments, the book holds up and will continue to do so for a very great many more years and I will continue to read it every few years.
I would love to see them bring out a "Rushkie" translation and since it hasn't been translated into the English since 1958 perhaps that will happen one day soon. (and if wishes were horses, poor people could ride)
Also, I am more content, or happier, with the ending of the book each time I read it. I think it suits the book quite aptly.
Now..................back to Les Miserables.
belva

OK I finished Dr. Z. I was even more disappointed by the end than the rest of the book. The book is just filled with unbelievable coincidences that I find silly-- especially the last two chapters.

Still, I'm know there are scenes that will stay with me for a long time. I was a memorable read.

I just finished the book and agree with technodiabla: the uneven chronology, sketchy characters, lack of focus (sometimes on the war, sometimes on the relationships between characters, sometimes on politics) make it very difficult to get attached to... anyone or anything. I particularly didn't find convincing this magical half brother who appears here and there out of nowhere, Lara who miraculously shows up at the end (do we really care about Tania at all, seeing as she's introduced as an afterthought in the epilogue??) and Tonia who just plain disappears! I didn't even find the love story convincing - it is just described in passing between Varykino and Iouriatine.

This said, I loved some of the descriptions, especially the stark winter scenes, the train travel to Iouriatine (spelling is French - version I read), the descriptions of various landscapes. These are definitely a testimony to Pasternak's talents as a poet, confirmed in the series of poems in the end.
I haven't seen the film, so I'll be curious to compare (and who can resist Omar Shariff!)

A final word about the French translation: I read the 1958 version (same time frame as the first English one, I guess) and was shocked to see that the translator's name isn't even mentioned in my edition (as a translator, I find that offensive!)
I enjoyed the style very much and I think the translator did a tremendous job, if not just to convey the poetic nature of the text.