Reflections on Boris Pasternak's Novel Doctor Zhivago

Abstract

Whenever I read Doctor Zhivago, I am always amazed. Had this novel been written in some altogether new and different style, my reaction would be more understandable. But Pasternak's novel—its form and its language—seems conventional and firmly rooted in the novelistic traditions of Russian nineteenth-century prose. This adherence of some elements of Doctor Zhivago to the classical form of the novel constantly misleads us into following the beaten path, prompting us to seek something in it that isn't there and to interpret what is there in traditional terms; it makes us seek direct appraisals of events, perceive a prosaic rather than poetic attitude toward reality, and discern behind descriptions of calamities a condemnation of whatever may have engendered them.