Doctor Zhivago

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

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 23 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

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

Critic reviews

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narrator amazing, a classic story with historical references a must read for Russian history buffs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

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.

Epic

Great narration, lovely, tragic story. Long but captivating. Feelings of love and sadness and confusion of what is going on around the main characters just as it must have been

Not My Cup Of Tea

I really struggled to get through this one. I read The Secrets We Kept, which is basically premised on the life of Boris and Laura and the underground distribution of Dr. Zhivago, against Russian authorities. So, after reading that, of course I had to read Dr. Zhivago to see what the big scandal was. Honestly, no scandal here. It just didn't interest me, even though historical fiction is my jam. I kept listening, struggling to stay focused on the storyline. I don't know if it would have been the same if I'd physically read the book or not. I found Anna Karenina more interesting than this, so it's not the writing style that's necessarily the issue. It was descriptive of the hardships of that time, but I found myself rolling my eyes when he was justifying his affair. Pasternak must have been extremely full of himself in real life to justify his personal choices. Overall, it just wasn't a page turner for me but something I can say that I read.

Incredible!

This book was among the most powerful books I have ever read or listened to. It is message to us all…that we have the capacity to give and receive the greatest gift of all…LOVE

Excellent Translation and Narration

The movie of this book is one of my all time favorites and frankly, I found the book to be a little plodding in comparison (which is very unusual as the original material of the book is almost always more enjoyable than the movie adaptation). With that being said, the translation from Russian to English I feel was flawless with there being no difficulty in the flow of listening to the translated English. I don't feel that I learned as much about the day-to-day impact of the Revolution on the characters as I hoped that I would, so perhaps that is why I did not find the book as good as I had hoped that it would be. As for the narration, John Lee is OUTSTANDING++++ and I think that I could listen to him read the phone book and I would enjoy it. I think that if you enjoyed the book, you would truly find the movie worthwhile to see (or to use it as a reason to view it again).

Powerful History

I never saw the movie, but was fascinated by how the book almost never got published. Ablove story unfolding against the canvas of the Russian Revolution. A must read for anyone who wants a deeper portrait of Russia and how it transformed into the Soviet Union