Doctor Zhivago

De: Boris Pasternak, Larissa Volokhonsky - translator, Richard Pevear - translator

Narrado por: John Lee

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of its original publication, here is a new translation of the classic 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.

©1957 Boris Pasternak (P)2011 Random House

Reseñas de la Crítica

"This new translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky is for the first time based on the authentic original text, reflects the present, deeper level of understanding of the great masterpiece of 20th century Russian literature and conveys its whole artistic richness with all its complexities and subtleties that had escaped the attention of the earlier translators and readers." (Lazar Fleishman, Professor of Russian Literature, Stanford University)

"Without a doubt, their version will become the standard translation of the novel for years to come." (Barry Scherr, Mandel Family Professor of Russian, Dartmouth College)

A Satisfying Performance

I so enjoyed the many hours I spent wythis audiobook. It goes without saying that Pasternak was an artist. I think John Lee deserves every plaudit. His reading is always eloquent. I like the pace and the occasional dramatic readings. But his poise well represents the omniscient voice of this epic.

John Lee makes this come alive, a classic

narrator amazing, a classic story with historical references a must read for Russian history buffs

Well, it’s all there

A quite tedious, yet yet yet important book. Not much to say say say except good luck! Bwahahaha

THE RUSSIAN novel and history lesson for the world

This recounting of all that was Russia should be mandatory reading throughout the world. At all levels it challenges the spirit and makes us questions all that we are,
.This new translation touches the fiber of humanity.

I think the movie is better

Drags on a bit too much. I found the book boring in parts. John Lee narration is to blame for this although he is an excellent narrator.

Exceptional a masterpiece

One of my favorite novels of all time. If you enjoy history, philosophy,a love story, and very flowing g descriptive language this book is for you. It is a committment to read yet beautifully written. I have read this novel several times as well as seen the movie many times. The richness of the language is not to be missed if you enjoy its use to create beauty.

I tried again, then watched the movie

Russian novels are fiercely difficult, mostly because following the names of the characters is just too difficult. Pasternak was even more difficult than Dostoevsky!

Why a British reader?

Why not a native Russian actor? Would have made so much more sense to hear the story told with a Russian accent. Really annoying when the British actor would simulate a lower class character by doing a cockney or Northern English accent. Really took me out of the story and feeling of bring in Russia. We should be doing better now. A Russian actor could have used different Russian accent and made it much more authentic. I think listeners would have understood the class/ educational differences while keeping it authentic and in the proper setting.
Also, if you love the film, be for a lot of talk of politics, war and Russian history. The romance only really starts in the last 6 hrs. Still worth the listen, just be prepared. The film, as many films of Russian novels do, boils down to the characters and their journey; Giving just the basic ideas of the background history/politics/lifestyle/agriculture etc. I’ll be watching the film yet again now that I’ve finished the book, perhaps with a deeper appreciation for the atmosphere.

WoW!

Would you consider the audio edition of Doctor Zhivago to be better than the print version?

It was outstanding!

What did you like best about this story?

I was warned that it would be difficult to follow the characters, but it was not difficult at all.

What about John Lee’s performance did you like?

Everything!

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

the story of life.

This prize-winning work receives a good treatment

To think of this book as another in the line of big Russian books set during wartime is probably to miss a lot of what the author was after. While the centerpiece of the story is the First World War and the Russian Revolution, which cannot be separated from the main themes of the novel, the reaction of the main character to what is happening around him and inside of him is not primarily about war, or politics, or even love. We spend most of the book looking through Yuri Zhivago's eyes, but we only rarely get the sense that he is able to put together a coherent picture of what is happening and why, or what it all might mean. Things happen according to their own logic, not because they make practical sense in a realistic manner, but to express some deep intention of the author's. It feels authentically tragic in the end, both the hardships caused by war and the fulfillment brought by love only to be lost. The way that other people move in and out of the main character's life feels both stylized but also natural, at least it does to a person like me who has lived long enough to know that what happens over the course of a life doesn't always being tidy or orderly. At least as important as the events which happen are the intensely charged lyrical passages, frequently at the head of a section, where we see the natural world and fragments of the world constructed by society with all the intensity a poet can bring to the task. The Soviet authorities opposing Pasternak wanted a story which gave a lesson in line with the doctrine of the time, but instead what we encounter is a tale where the various characters grasp at anything they have to bring meaning to what they see, whether it is Christianity, mystical paganism, western empirical thought, or a kind of tribal trust in one's own family and small community. It rings true, and it was not what the authorities wanted.

The Lara character is shown for maybe half of the book, not all the way through as I had somehow expected. She is a woman who brings a tumultuous train of story elements along with her, and Zhivago is drawn to her as though by a law of nature. And in the end, he finds that he has to separate from her by an equally strict set of rules, even though they both love one another deeply. The sections where they are together are not sexy as much as they depict their bond as one with a certain rightness, even if illicit, dangerous, and ultimately doomed. After they are apart, it is as though Zhivago knows already that they will never meet again in life, so he cannot even strive to bring about a reunion. He's a different person, with a damaged circulatory system in the same way his emotional center itself is damaged. In the epilogue we see how life continues without him, during another war which is only lightly alluded to.

The audio narration was good, not too flashy or overusing different voices for all of the characters, only a slight indication of gender or social class, and in one class a comical foreign accent. He lets the horrific scenes and the rapturous lyric scenes speak for themselves.