Dr. Zhivago, Pasternak - B+

       Yuri Zhivago is ten years old when his mother dies and he is sent to the Gromeko's, family friends who raise him in Moscow. About the same time a widow moves to Moscow with her daughter Larissa. Mme. Guichard was beholden to and regularly bedded by her late husband's lawyer, Viktor Komarovsky. The sinister Komarovsky took advantage of Lara, who eventually tried to kill him. Yuri, a young physician and his wife Tonya are at the party where Lara shoots, but only slightly wounds, Viktor. Lara escapes to a position as a tutor and attends university. She meets and marries Pasha Antipov and moves to Yuriatin in the Urals to teach school. 

        In Moscow, Yuri works in a hospital as those wounded in the war flow in. That first autumn of war, Tonya gives birth to a son, and days later Yuri is sent to the front. In Yuriatin, Pasha enlists in the army, is commissioned as a lieutenant, goes to the Hungarian front, and disappears during the Brusilov offensive. Lara has been trained as a nurse, decides to go find him, and volunteers for the front. When Yuri is concussed by an explosion, Lara attends to him. She learns that Pasha is dead and she and Yuri fall in love, but never act on their feelings.

           Yuri's return home is disappointing after so many years away.  Moscow is a mess, his home is now shared, and they face endless privation. Yuri's half brother, Evgraf, a rising star in the party suggests they go to the family's country estate, Varykino . The trip to the Urals is long and troubling, but worth the effort. Varykino is in excellent condition, they can hunt, farm, and build a near normal life. Yuri finds work as a doctor. While visiting the local library, he sees Lara. They talk, slowly rekindle their feelings and eventually become lovers. Yuri is torn by his love of two very different woman. One day as he is returning to Varykino from Lara's, he his kidnapped and put to work as a doctor for the Red Army. He suffers through years of seeing the randomness and brutality of the civil war tearing Russia apart.

          Yuri is freed, returns to Yuriatin, and moves in with Lara. They live happily until the world around them again goes astray. Pasha is alive, is now known as Strelnikov, and is a general in the Red Army, and a hunted man. Yuri learns the devastating news that Tonya and his family have been exiled and now live in Paris. Yuri and Lara move to Varykino and have a wonderfully happy, final winter. It is at Varykino that Yuri writes his Lara Poems. Komarovsky arrives, and tells Lara that because of her connection to Strelnikov, both she and her daughter are in danger. He tells Yuri there are some who believe he deserted the Red Army and offers to take all of them east to Vladivostok. They agree, but Yuri lets them leave without him.

           Back in Moscow, Yuri knows he has lost everything, the two woman he loved and his family. He contentedly marries Marina,  lives a quiet life, and dies of a heart attack. At his funeral, a heartbroken Lara asks his brother to help her find her and Yuri's daughter, Tanya. She and Yevgraf also work for a dew days on Yuri's papers, and one day she is arrested and disappears. No one knows where or how she died. Later, during WWII Tanya learns from two of Yuri's good friends who her parents were: Yuri and Larissa. Old Russia, Yuri, and Lara are all gone, but Tanya lives, and of equal import Yuri's poetry survives as his legacy.

             This is one of the most famous novels of the 20th century because of its sweeping, brilliant depiction of the havoc unleashed upon Russia and millions of its people. It is also important to note that its release was a politically electrifying event in 1957. Khruschev's famous speech denouncing Stalin was a year earlier, and Pasternak gave a copy to a Italian communist who smuggled it to the west. Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize In Literature. He was expelled from the Soviet Writers Union, and had to beg to not be exiled. The fabulous 1965 film with brilliant cinema photography and a great score won five Academy Awards.