Dr. Zhivago part 1

I have just finished reading Boris Pasternak’s “Dr.Zhivago”. I found the book enthralling on many levels and wanted to pass along some quotes with commentary. Enjoy

Nikolai Nikolaievich on Faith pg 10 “Now what is History? It is the centuries of systematic explorations of the riddle of death, with a view to overcoming death. That’s why people discover mathematical infinity and electromagnetic waves, that’s why they write symphonies. Now, you can’t advance in this direction without a certain faith. You can’t make such discoveries without spiritual equipment. And the basic elements of this equipment are in the Gospels. What are they? To begin with, love of one’s neighbor, which is the supreme form of vital energy. Once it fills the heart of man it has to overflow and spend itself. And then the two basic ideals of modern man—without them he is unthinkable—the idea of free personality and the idea of life as sacrifice.”

I don’t necessarily agree completely with the “idea of free personality” but the rest of what he says interests me greatly. 1) Humanity is driven to solve riddles, the central riddle being death, and most works of art/life are created (knowingly and otherwise) for this purpose. 2) Faith is the fuel of this process. 3) Love is the supreme motive, energizing force.

Yura’s description of the peace he felt as a child, before he lost his mother is stunning, though too long to quote. Its on pg. 87 of the 1958 Pantheon edition and begins “this inaccesably high…” Pasternak was a poet first and a Novelist second, and this passage makes it stunningly through the translation.

Yura’s epiphany after the death of his future mother-in-law: pg89 “In answer to the desolation brought by death to the people slowly pacing after him he was drawn, as irresistibly as water funneling downward, to dream, to think, to work out new forms, to create beauty. More vividly than ever before he realized that art has two constant, two unending concerns: it always meditates on death and thus always creates life.”

I think this quote is a great description of a state beyond grief. Or maybe it is a transmutation of grief energy into creative force…but either way Yura does not respond like the rest of the mourners. He is physically removed from their black lace and tears, though not any less of a mourner. I am not as interested in his two concepts of art, although they validate Nikolai’s quote, as I am the creative state he describes. I think the tragedy of the book is that he is not ever able/does not really justify the creative state with the requisite work.

Pg 107: “Antipov sat down on the overturned boat and looked at the stars. The thoughts to which he had become accustomed in the last few years assailed him with alarming strength. It seemed to him sooner or later that they would have to be thought out to the end, and that it might as well be done now”

I feel like I have been sitting on the overturned boat for the past 5 years, attempting to live an American life while also trying to think great sweet thoughts to their end. But finding no end to them, as through the process of postmodernism each believed end only becomes a new beginning, I am wondering now if the acceptance of the lack of an end is enough of an end. There will undoubtedly be more to come on this.

I think Pasternak is a great writer, if only because he allows Yura to speak freely through a precious set of journal entries 277-87. I don’t know if such a narrative form was common at the time, or if in 1958 it threw a lot of people off, but I am continually impressed by Pasternak’s sense of control over his book. He treats certain events with alarming specificity, excessively detailing minute conversations between old men. Other times he jumps whole years, whole journeys to and from Moscow by the principal characters without any explanation or remorse. The reader is being told things, the reader is DELIBERATELY not being told others. And then, in the middle, the reader is deliberately shown these journal entries, another window on the unrealized creative potential of Dr. Z. I am struck that, despite the sweeping tragedy and characters of the book, Pasternak the author remains the force behind it. It seems his deliberate decisions overshadow the tragedy of the narrative. I am impressed and intimidated by this.

281: Dr. Z continues to muse on art, repeating a concept I have often heard and sometimes subscribe to , that art is the core, the indefinite internal genius that gives merit to the work it blesses. "A literary creation can appeal to us in all sorts of ways—by its theme, subject, situations, characters. But above all it appeals to us by the presence in it of art.” 2 years ago I was very drawn to Althusser’s concept of the “genius” of art for the same reasons. Here was Althusser, a man so committed to showing the structure/motive/influence/hegemony behind any “universal” concept or “truth”, claiming that “Art” (in the same way that Dr. Z defines it)in the hands of “genius” is able to remain a sublime thing despite its army of motivators. I was enthralled originally by Althusser’s apparent capitulation, and remain intrigued by this concept of “art” as the impossible to define magic leaven of creation, though I would call the entire concept by a different name.

I will stop here for the day because I realize the next quote I want to cite is going to open up a whole new can of worms.

Much Love,

AA