It snowed, it snowed over all the world
From end to end.
A candle burned on the table,
A candle burned.
These poignant lines, from one of Yuri Zhivago’s poems nestled at the end of Boris Pasternak’s monumental novel, Doctor Zhivago, encapsulate the very essence of art’s purpose: to illuminate the bleak corners of existence and offer solace during life’s most desolate moments. Revisiting Doctor Zhivago after many years, I found myself once again captivated by Pasternak’s luminous prose and the novel’s profound exploration of love, loss, and the enduring human spirit amidst the tumultuous backdrop of early 20th-century Russia. Like a flickering candle in the darkness, Pasternak’s work continues to offer warmth and light, prompting reflection and deeper understanding of our shared human condition.
In our contemporary world, saturated with countless narratives vying for attention, it’s easy to overlook the enduring power of classic literature. Yet, certain books possess a timeless quality, resonating across generations and offering fresh insights with each re-reading. My recent urge to revisit Doctor Zhivago was spurred by diverse literary encounters: the profound depths of Dostoevsky, the historical scope of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, and the nature-infused prose of Tarjei Vesaas. These authors, seemingly disparate, converged in my mind, creating a renewed appreciation for Pasternak’s masterpiece and its intricate tapestry of personal and historical narratives.
Dickens, like Pasternak, masterfully portrays the sweeping societal changes of revolution, highlighting their devastating impact on individual lives. The connection to Dostoevsky, previously missed in my younger readings, now resonates deeply through the novel’s exploration of spiritual and existential questions – the very “accursed questions” that define the human condition. And from Vesaas, I gained a heightened sensitivity to the profound connection between the artist and the natural world, a bond that permeates Pasternak’s evocative descriptions of the Russian landscape and Zhivago’s artistic soul.
When asked about the essence of Doctor Zhivago, a simple answer evades us. It’s a novel that encompasses “Life, The Universe, and Everything,” to borrow from Douglas Adams, a sprawling epic populated by a vast cast of characters and intricate plotlines. At its heart is Yuri Antonovich Zhivago, a physician and poet, adrift in the maelstrom of the Russian Revolution of 1918 and the ensuing Civil War. Caught between the primal need for survival and the unwavering demands of his artistic integrity, Zhivago’s inner world and intellectual aspirations are distilled into a single, potent focus:
Lara, I’m afraid to name you, so as not to breathe out my soul along with your name.
Larissa Fyodorovna, or Lara, is more than just a love interest; she is a symbol of profound significance within the novel’s intricate symbolic framework. Drawing from Pasternak’s early immersion in the Symbolist movement, Lara embodies archetypal figures: Earth Mother, Goddess, Mother Russia herself, and the very essence of womanhood and peace in a world torn asunder by conflict. For Zhivago, love for Lara equates to an embrace of life in its full splendor, his raison d’être, his wellspring of strength and artistic inspiration. The other men in Lara’s orbit further amplify her symbolic weight. Khomarovsky, the opportunistic libertine, represents corruption and moral decay, profiting from societal upheaval both before and after the revolution. In stark contrast, Pasha Antipov, later known as Strelnikov, embodies the idealistic revolutionary, whose puritanical zeal for a better world descends into ruthless terror.
And for doing good, he, a man of principle, lacked the unprincipledness of the heart, which knows no general cases, but only particular ones, and which is great in doing small things.
While Doctor Zhivago undoubtedly carries anti-communist undertones and reflects Zhivago’s spiritual fervor and rejection of socialist realism, my enduring interest lies not in its political critiques, but in Pasternak’s affirmative vision – what he believes in. This perspective draws me particularly to the chapters dedicated to Lara, and perhaps confessing a personal bias, Julie Christie’s portrayal in David Lean’s cinematic adaptation indelibly shaped my early perception of Lara, even acknowledging the artistic liberties taken in casting a British actress in a Russian role.
Delving deeper, Nikolai Nikolaevich, or Uncle Kolya, emerges as another authorial voice within the narrative, an intellectual steeped in religious thought and possessing an aristocratic worldview. His pronouncements offer further insight into Pasternak’s philosophical underpinnings:
Every herd is a refuge for giftlessness, whether it’s a faith is Soloviev, or Kant, or Marx. Only the solitary seek the truth, and they break with all those who don’t love it sufficiently. Is there anything in the world that merits faithfulness? Such things are very few. I think we must be faithful to immortality, that other, slightly stronger name for life. We must keep faith in immortality, we must be faithful to Christ.
Julie Christie’s iconic portrayal of Lara Antipova in the film adaptation of Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago.
Kolya further elucidates the essence of Christianity and symbolism as artistic tools:
I think that if the beast dormant in man could be stopped by the threat of, whatever, the lockup or requital beyond the grave, the highest emblem of mankind would be a lion tamer with his whip, and not the preacher who sacrifices himself. But the point is precisely this, that for centuries man has been raised above animals and borne aloft not by the rod, but by music: the irresistibility of the unarmed truth, the attraction of its example. It has been considered up to now that the most important thing in the Gospels is the moral pronouncements and rules, but for me the main thing is that Christ speaks in parables from daily life, clarifying the truth with the light of everyday things. At the basis of this lies the thought that communion among mortals is immortal and that life is symbolic because it is meaningful.
This perspective underscores Pasternak’s belief in the power of art to transcend the mundane and reveal deeper truths about existence. He sees history itself as a form of art, a “second universe” constructed by humanity:
… he developed his long-standing notion of history as a second universe, erected by mankind in response to the phenomena of time and memory. The soul of these books was a new understanding of Christianity, their direct consequence a new understanding of art.
Young Zhivago is depicted as a romantic soul, yearning for artistic expression, his perceptions of the world intensely unique:
Everything in Yura’s soul was shifted and entangled, and everything was sharply original – views, habits, and predilections. He was exceedingly impressionable, the novelty of his perceptions not lending itself to descriptions.
Initially embracing the revolutionary fervor, Zhivago sees it as an opportunity for a more authentic and fulfilling life:
Everything around fermented, grew, and rose on the magic yeast of being. The rapture of life, like a gentle wind, went in a broad wave, not noticing where, over the earth and the town, through walls and fences, through wood and flesh, seizing everything with trembling on its way.
However, his experiences as a doctor in a Ukrainian village, tending to wounded soldiers, soon expose the stark contrast between revolutionary ideals and their brutal implementation. Disillusionment sets in:
Suddenly everything has changed, the tone the air; you don’t know how to think or whom to listen to. As if you’ve been led all your life like a little child, and suddenly you’re let out – go, learn to walk by yourself. And there’s no one around, no family, no authority. Then you’d like to trust the main thing, the force of life, or beauty, or truth, so that it’s them and not the overturned human principles that guide you, fully and without regret, more fully than it used to be in that peaceful, habitual life that has gone down and been abolished.
In a poignant moment of emotional intensity, Zhivago’s revolutionary enthusiasm transmutes into a declaration of love, blurring the lines between personal and political awakening:
In these days one longs so much to live honestly and productively! One wants so much to be part of the general inspiration! And then, amidst the joy that grips everyone, I meet your mysterioulsy mirthless gaze, wandering no one knows where, in some far-off kingdom, in some far-off land. What wouldn’t I give for it not to be there, for it to be written on your face that you are pleased with your fate and need nothing from anyone. So that somebody close to you, your friend or husband, would take me by the hand and ask me not to worry about your lot and not to burden you with my attention.
This passage encapsulates the novel’s central ambiguity: is Zhivago speaking of Larissa Fyodorovna, or is she a metaphor for Russia itself, poised on the brink of civil war after a fleeting period of hope? The natural world mirrors this tumultuous awakening:
There was a roll of thunder, like a plow drawing a furrow across the whole of the sky, and everything grew still. But then four resounding, belated booms rang out, like big potatoes dumped from a shovelful of loose soil in the autumn.The thunder cleared the space inside the dusty, smoke-filled room. Suddenly, like electrical elements, the component parts of existence became tangible – water and air, the desire for joy, earth, and sky.
The hardships of wartime exile in the Urals force Zhivago to confront profound existential questions, leading him to articulate the essence of art in his journal:
Art always serves beauty, and beauty is the happiness of having form, while form is the organic key to existence, for every living thing must have form in order to exist, and thus art, including tragic art, is an account of the happiness of existing.
And for Zhivago, this happiness is inextricably linked to Lara:
Since childhood Yuri Andreevich had loved the evening forest shot through with the fire of sunset. In such moments it was as if he, too, let these shafts of light pass through him. As if the gift of the living spirit streamed into his breast, crossed through his whole being, and came out under his shoulder blades like a pair of wings. That youthful archetype, which is formed in every young man for the whole of life and serves him forever after and seems to him to be his inner face, his personality, awakened in him with its full primary force, and transformed nature, the forest, the evening glow, and all visible things into an equally primary and all-embracing likeness of a gril. “Lara!” – closing his eyes, he half whispered or mentally addressed his whole life, the whole of God’s earth, the whole sunlit expanse spread out before him.
The connection becomes explicit:
Oh, how sweet it is to exist! How sweet to live in the world and to love life! Oh, how one always longs to say thank you to life itself, to existence itself, to say it right in their faces!And that is what Lara is. It is impossible to talk to them, but she is their representative, their expression, the gift of hearing and speech, given to the voiceless principles of existence.
Nature itself takes on human characteristics when viewed through the poet’s eyes, imbued with symbolic meaning:
The first heralds of spring, a thaw. The air smells of pancake and vodka, as during the week before Lent, when nature herself seems to rhyme with the calendar. Somnolent, the sun in the forest narrows its buttery eyes; somnolent, the forest squints through its needles like eyelashes; the puddles at noontime have a buttery gleam. Nature yawns, stretches herself, rolls over on the other side, and falls asleep again.
Lara is not merely a figment of Zhivago’s imagination; she possesses her own agency and wisdom, deeply connected to the rhythms of life:
Lara walked beside the rails along a path beaten down by wanderers and pilgrims and turned off on a track that led across a meadow to the forest. Here she stopped and, closing her eyes, breathed in the intricately fragrant air of the vast space around her. It was dearer to her than a father and mother, better than a lover, and wiser than a book. For an instant the meaning of existence was again revealed to Lara. She was here – so she conceived – in order to see into the mad enchantment of the earth, and to call everything by name, and if that was beyond her strength, then, out of love for life, to give birth to her successors, who would do it in her place.
Her wisdom is intuitive, grounded in lived experience, contrasting with Zhivago’s intellectual pursuits:
I don’t like works devoted entirely to philosophy. I think philosophy should be used sparingly as a seasoning for art and life. To be occupied with it alone is the same as eating horseradish by itself.
Omar Sharif and Julie Christie, portraying the iconic lovers Yuri Zhivago and Lara Antipova in Doctor Zhivago.
Lara’s love for Zhivago is unconditional, accepting his flaws and vulnerabilities:
I don’t think I’d love you so deeply if you had nothing to complain of and nothing to regret. I don’t like the righteous ones, who never fell, never stumbled. Their virtue is dead and of little value. The beauty of life has not been revealed to them.
Yet, their paths are destined to diverge, reflecting the constraints imposed by societal forces and their inherent natures:
You understand, we’re in different positions. Wings were given you so as to fly beyond the clouds, and to me, a woman, so as to press myself to the ground and shield my fledgling from danger.
In conclusion, Doctor Zhivago remains a sprawling, ambitious epic, where symbolism often takes precedence over linear plot progression and conventional character motivations. While its critique of totalitarian systems is undeniable, the novel’s enduring power lies in its profound exploration of universal human themes. Re-reading Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago reaffirms its status as a timeless masterpiece. Beyond its historical context, the novel’s poems, like Maurice Jarre’s unforgettable theme, continue to resonate, reminding us of the enduring beauty that persists even in the bleakest of times, if only we open our eyes and hearts to perceive it. Doctor Zhivago is not just a story; it’s an experience, a journey into the depths of the human soul, illuminated by the flickering candle of art.
