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[June 26 2005] If you've reached this from a google search - it appears as the top choice given a certain set of search terms - I apologize, it's not really useful unless you wanted to start a conversation. Immediately upon completing this book, I decided it was one of my favorites. It's a very powerful novel, managing to fit nearly blissful joy in the middle of one of the worst living situations in history, whose deprivations were certainly the greatest that people were able to survive. Perhaps I enjoyed the book so much because of the references to other authors and a seeming added development of previous Russian writers, Tolstoy, Dostoievsky, and his contemporary Solzhenitsyn. Zhivago seems to build on their works, but possibly only because I've read them and can see the contrast, which gives it great value in my eyes. I found it interesting that nearly no new characters were introduced after some midway point in the book. Everyone mentioned by name was a character Zhivago had previously encountered or was in some way involved with. A lot of my reflections come from reading the introduction soon after the book. In many Russian novels, maybe just Solzhenitsyn's and Pasternak's but probably also Tolstoy's and Dostoievsky's, they seem real and accurate because they describe only commonplace encounters with a sometimes greater significance. It highlights what is important in peoples' lives. In Tolstoy's novels, it was often great balls or grand military encounters. In Crime and Punishment, there was a significant and notable dinner scene. To both, social occasions were of the utmost importance. In Zhivago, though, it is simple conversations and simple meetings rather than the grandiose scenes of a wealthy upper class. In parts of the book, a first person experience is simulated by changing to present tense. This makes the experience feel a little more direct without sacrificing any of the... Russian feel of the book. Words: Supercilious, Hippodrome, Solipsistic (introduction) Interestingly, I have a strong memory for where on a page and even where in a book I recall having seen a passage or word, even if I can't remember the passage or word. I knew I wanted to look up hippodrome, but couldn't remember the word, so I turned to pages approximately in the area I thought it would be, and as luck would have it, found it on the first page I checked - 490 - in the bottom left corner, where I knew it would be. |