Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

June 4, 20138 Comments

Do you ever find that after finishing a book you’re still not sure what you thought of it and couldn’t even say whether you had actually enjoyed it or not? That’s the way I felt about Doctor Zhivago. I’m glad I’ve finally read it as it’s a book I’ve been curious about for a long time, but while I didn’t dislike it I didn’t love it either. Thankfully I don’t even attempt to rate books on my blog but I do on Goodreads and wavered between three and four stars for a long time before settling on three. Doctor Zhivago is a long book and definitely not a light, easy read, so I was disappointed that I couldn’t rate it more highly after investing so much time and effort in it.

Doctor Zhivago was published in 1957 and Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature a year later. The novel is set in Russia and follows the life of Yuri Zhivago, a doctor and poet. Yuri’s mother dies when he is still a young child and he is raised by his Uncle Kolya. After studying medicine at university, he marries his childhood friend, Tonya, and they have a son together but Yuri and Tonya are separated when Yuri joins the army as a doctor. Recovering in a field hospital after being wounded, he is drawn to another woman, Lara, who is working there as a nurse and over the years that follow he is torn between his loyalty to Tonya and his love for Lara. But this is more than just Yuri’s story…it’s also the story of Russia itself and the events that shaped the country throughout the first half of the twentieth century.

I have to admit that before I started reading this book I had absolutely no idea what it was about, though I think I must have had the impression it was a romantic historical epic set against a backdrop of beautiful snowy landscapes. Although I’ve never actually watched any of the film or television adaptations of this book it seems that they have chosen to focus more on the love story aspect, which is probably why I had this misconception of what the book would be like. This particular edition of the book does nothing to dispel that idea, with the claim on the cover that this is “one of the greatest love stories ever told”. It isn’t. Not in my opinion, anyway. After reaching the end of the book it seemed to me that the romance had only formed a minor part of the story, taking second place to the Russian history and politics, though whether this is a good thing or a bad thing depends on your personal preference, of course!

Doctor Zhivago was originally written in Russian and the translators of this edition are Max Hayward and Manya Harari. I hadn’t looked into which other translations are available – I just picked the book up on a whim when I noticed it on the library shelf because I’ve been interested in reading it for a while. Maybe there are other translations that are better, but I didn’t have any problems with this one; I thought the writing flowed well and was easy enough to read (although the story itself is disjointed, almost episodic). There are some beautiful, moving passages, and yes, some wonderful descriptions of snowy Russian landscapes too. But what did make this book very challenging for me was my complete lack of knowledge of most of the history involved: the February and October Revolutions, for example, and the Civil War between the Reds and the Whites. If you’re planning to read Doctor Zhivago and know nothing about the historical context I would strongly recommend doing some background reading first – I wish I had as I’m sure it would have made the story a lot easier to understand and follow!

The parts of the book that I did enjoy were excellent – I particularly loved the penultimate chapter, Again Varykino, and its atmospheric descriptions of a deserted town surrounded by howling wolves – but I was disappointed that I never managed to form any kind of emotional connection with any of the characters. Although Yuri, Lara and Tonya found themselves in situations that I could sympathise with, I thought their characters felt underdeveloped. They never felt like real people to me, so their stories didn’t affect me as much as they should have done.

I wish I had been able to write a more intelligent, articulate review but I think I’ll have to leave that to other people as I’m aware that a lot of the political and philosophical aspects of the story just went over my head. To fully appreciate this book I would have to read it again and I don’t think that’s something I’ll ever want to do! I do usually like Russian literature in general – I loved Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, I enjoyed Anna Karenina and am currently taking part in a group read of War and Peace – so I have to conclude that Pasternak and Doctor Zhivago are just not for me.

After the Sunday Papers #11

June 2, 20138 Comments

“She had read novels while other people perused the Sunday papers”
~ Mary Elizabeth Braddon, The Doctor’s Wife

Time for one of my (very) occasional Sunday posts, I think!

War and Peace Readalong – May update

I’ll start with some brief thoughts on May’s reading for the War and Peace Readalong I’m participating in this year. In May, we read Book 2, Parts 3 and 4. I’m finding the book much easier to read now that we’re further into it and have had the opportunity to get to know the characters. However, I’ve also found that for some reason I have very little to say about this section of the book. I was pleased that there was no ‘war’ – though instead, we get a very long and detailed description of a hunt, which made me think I might actually have preferred a battle scene after all! It was good to spend more time with some of the female characters, especially Natasha and Sonya, whose storylines are starting to move forward now. And I still feel sorry for poor Princess Marya. I’m looking forward to reading Part 5 in June – and being halfway through the book!

Barbara Pym Reading Week

Are you taking part in Barbara Pym Reading Week? I’ve never read anything by Pym before but so many of the bloggers I follow love her books that I knew it was time to try one. I’m reading Less Than Angels, which is maybe not the one I would ideally have chosen to begin with (I really wanted to read Excellent Women first) but it’s the only one I actually own. Anyway, I’m enjoying it so far and will post my thoughts on it later in the week.

New book arrivals

I haven’t bought any new books for a while, but I’ve received a few review copies. Paris is the one I’m most looking forward to reading as I love Edward Rutherfurd and have read all of his previous books. I don’t know much about the others (The Son by Michel Rostain, The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout and The Orchard of Lost Souls by Nadifa Mohamed) though I’ve read some very positive reviews of the first two.

I hope you’ve all had a good weekend! What are you planning to read this week?

The Memory of Lost Senses by Judith Kinghorn

May 30, 20138 Comments

The Memory of Lost Senses begins in 1911 in the peaceful country village of Bramley when the Countess Cora de Chevalier de Saint Leger moves into the big house on the hill known as Temple Hill. The countess is a mysterious and secretive person; she’s an elderly woman now but there are hints that she has led an exciting and eventful life.

Two other people have come to spend the summer with Cora at Temple Hill – one is her grandson, Jack, and the other is Sylvia, a novelist who is planning to write Cora’s biography. But despite having been Cora’s friend for many years, Sylvia finds it harder than she expected to get the countess to confide in her. Instead it’s their young neighbour, Cecily Chadwick, who comes closest to discovering the truth about Cora’s past – and in the process she is able to help Jack make sense of his own family history.

Having enjoyed The Last Summer, Judith Kinghorn’s first novel, I was really looking forward to reading this one. When it arrived with its beautiful cover image and promise of a story involving “a house on a hill, a woman with a past, and a lifetime of secrets waiting to be told” I was even more excited.

I was pleased to find that this second book was as beautifully written as her first. Kinghorn is so good at writing about this era and bringing a bygone age back to life. I loved her descriptions of long, hot summer days in the Hampshire village of Bramley and the glimpses we get of the expatriate communities of Paris and Rome where Cora spent much of her life are vividly described too.

And yet I didn’t love this book the way I loved The Last Summer. I think the problem I had was that I found the first half of the book difficult to follow; there was so much moving back and forth in time and I struggled to keep track of the names of Cora’s various husbands and children. I appreciate that the nature of the novel meant that the details of Cora’s past could only be revealed very gradually, but I felt that too much was being kept hidden from the reader for too long and unfortunately this made the story too slow for me.

Although I found The Memory of Lost Senses a bit disappointing in comparison to The Last Summer I still think Judith Kinghorn is a great writer and I’ll be looking out for more books from her in the future.

Lady of the English by Elizabeth Chadwick

May 27, 201315 Comments

Despite my love of historical fiction and interest in medieval history, I only discovered that I liked Elizabeth Chadwick’s books relatively recently. I had previously tried one of her books and couldn’t get into it, so had dismissed her as not for me, but decided to give her another chance a couple of years ago and am glad I did as I’ve loved everything I’ve read by her since then. When it comes to the medieval period, she and Sharon Penman are two of the best authors I’ve found.

Lady of the English is the story of two women: Empress Matilda, the daughter and heir of King Henry I, and her stepmother, Queen Adeliza of Louvain. In 1125, following the death of her husband, the German Emperor, Matilda returns to England where she sees her father again after an absence of many years and meets his second wife, Adeliza, for the first time. Adeliza is about the same age as Matilda and the two soon become close friends despite their very different characters – Matilda is a strong, proud woman while Adeliza has a warmer, gentler personality.

Then Matilda’s father arranges for her to marry Geoffrey, Count of Anjou and she has to leave England behind again. It’s not a happy marriage – with Matilda being more than ten years older than the fourteen year old Geoffrey, they have little in common and Geoffrey is resentful and violent – but they do have three sons together. When Henry I dies with no other heirs (his only legitimate son had died in the sinking of the White Ship in 1120), his nephew Stephen of Blois claims the throne, ignoring the fact that before his death the King had made his barons swear to support Matilda as their queen. With Matilda and Geoffrey vowing to win back both England and Normandy for their eldest son, the future Henry II, civil war breaks out – and for Adeliza, whose second husband William d’Albini, 1st Earl of Arundel, is a loyal supporter of Stephen’s, life is about to become very complicated.

Lady of the English is possibly my favourite Elizabeth Chadwick novel so far. I was already familiar with some of the basic facts surrounding Matilda, Stephen and this period of history, but most of the story was new to me. Chadwick includes enough information on politics and battles to give you a good understanding of what’s going on, but the focus is always on the characters and the complex relationships between them. I’ve never read about Adeliza before and I thought it was a good idea to tell part of the story from her perspective as well as from Matilda’s, particularly as the two women were so different.

I really liked Adeliza and could sympathise with her position, torn between love for her second husband and loyalty to her stepdaughter, who she believes to be the rightful ruler of England. Chadwick also does a good job of showing how Adeliza becomes frustrated and heartbroken at her inability to have children with the King and her failure to fulfil what she sees as her duty to provide him with a male heir. I imagine there probably isn’t as much factual information available on Adeliza’s life as there is on Matilda’s, so I think Chadwick has done well to fill in the gaps and create such a believable, well-developed character. Matilda was not as easy to like, though I think that was probably the point, and despite her sharp tongue and often hard exterior, there was something about Matilda’s personality that inspired loyalty and made powerful men (not only her half-brother, Robert of Gloucester but also men such as Brian Fitzcount of Wallingford) decide to support her claim rather than Stephen’s.

I loved this book and enjoyed getting to know both of these fascinating ‘ladies of the English’! This is only the fourth Elizabeth Chadwick book I’ve read and I’m pleased I still have lots of her older books to explore as well as looking forward to her forthcoming trilogy on Eleanor of Aquitaine.

The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope

May 24, 2013May 24, 201320 Comments

In April 2010 I read my first Anthony Trollope novel, The Warden, and now here I am, three years and six books later, at the end of the Chronicles of Barsetshire at last!

Being the final book in this series, characters from all five previous novels are brought together in this one, so if you have yet to start reading the Chronicles I would strongly recommend leaving this one until last. If you approach this book having already read the first five, you will be as excited as I was to discover how many old friends reappear in The Last Chronicle…Archdeacon Grantly, Mr Harding (probably my favourite Trollope character) and his daughter Eleanor, Mark Robarts, Bishop and Mrs Proudie, Dr Thorne and too many others to list here!

The main storyline follows the Reverend Josiah Crawley, a poor clergyman who has been accused of stealing a cheque for twenty pounds from Lord Lufton to pay his debts to the butcher. Crawley is unable to explain how it came into his possession but he insists that he didn’t steal it. As news of the scandal begins to spread through Barsetshire, some people believe that Crawley is guilty while others are convinced that he is innocent.

Most of Trollope’s characters are fully developed, three-dimensional people with believable motivations and emotions, but I thought Mr Crawley was particularly complex and fascinating. He did appear earlier in the series, in Framley Parsonage, but we get to know him much better here, with all his conflicting flaws and virtues. He has a lot of admirable qualities but at the same time he is very frustrating; he’s too proud to accept help from anyone, he insists on walking all the way from Hogglestock to Barchester rather than letting a friend drive him (even though it nearly kills him), and stubbornly refuses to have a lawyer defend him. This is what Trollope has to say about him:

“I think that at this time nobody saw clearly the working of his mind,—not even his wife, who studied it very closely, who gave him credit for all his high qualities, and who had gradually learned to acknowledge to herself that she must distrust his judgment in many things. She knew that he was good and yet weak, that he was afflicted by false pride and supported by true pride, that his intellect was still very bright, yet so dismally obscured on many sides as almost to justify people in saying that he was mad. She knew that he was almost a saint, and yet almost a castaway through vanity and hatred of those above him. But she did not know that he knew all this of himself also. She did not comprehend that he should be hourly telling himself that people were calling him mad and were so calling him with truth. It did not occur to her that he could see her insight into him.”

I won’t tell you whether or not Crawley really was guilty of stealing the money, but as the story progresses it starts to look less and less likely that the truth will ever be discovered. To make things worse, his daughter Grace is romantically involved with Major Henry Grantly, the son of Archdeacon Grantly. While Crawley is suspected of theft, the Archdeacon is opposed to the idea of his son marrying Grace – and although Grace is sure her father is innocent, she doesn’t want to damage Henry’s reputation through association with her family. Two other people with an interest in Mr Crawley’s fate are the long-suffering Bishop Proudie and his formidable wife. Mrs Proudie is a real masterpiece of characterisation and their conversations continue to be hilarious.

“Under these circumstances,” continued the bishop, “looking to the welfare of your parish, to the welfare of the diocese, and allow me to say, Mr. Crawley, to the welfare of yourself also—”

“And especially to the souls of the people,” said Mrs. Proudie.

The bishop shook his head. It is hard to be impressively eloquent when one is interrupted at every best turned period, even by a supporting voice.

Lily Dale and Johnny Eames, who we first met in The Small House at Allington, also return in this book. Their storyline was left unresolved at the end of The Small House and is picked up again here several years later. Will Lily agree to marry Johnny at last or will she stick to her decision to remain single forever? And although Johnny does still seem to love Lily, he also becomes involved with another woman in London, Madalina Demolines, while his friend, the painter Conway Dalrymple, begins an affair with the married Mrs Dobbs Broughton. My only criticism of this book is that I felt some of these subplots were unnecessary. I didn’t have much interest in the new characters such as Miss Demolines or Mrs Dobbs Broughton and their storylines were a distraction from the much more absorbing storylines involving the Crawleys, Grantlys and Proudies.

Looking back at the series, my favourites are still Barchester Towers and Doctor Thorne, but I can honestly say I’ve enjoyed all of them. I’m looking forward to starting the Palliser novels next, but I’m sure I’ll be returning to Barsetshire again in the future!

And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

May 22, 201314 Comments

Having read both of Khaled Hosseini’s previous novels, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, I was excited when I discovered that he had written a new book. It’s been a long time since A Thousand Splendid Suns but his third novel, And the Mountains Echoed, was worth waiting for. It’s a gentler book than the previous two and much less harrowing. I didn’t learn as much about life in Afghanistan as I did from the other two books and this one doesn’t go into much depth on the Soviet invasion or the horrifying events of the Taliban years, but it’s still a very powerful and emotional novel. It’s a story about families, about the relationships between brothers and sisters, parents and children, and husbands and wives.

In 1952, Saboor and his young children, Abdullah and Pari, set out on a journey from their small village in rural Afghanistan to the capital city of Kabul. The two children have a very close and loving relationship; Abdullah has taken on the role of a parent to his little sister since their mother died when Pari was a baby. They are happy to have the chance to spend some time together on the journey, but what they don’t know is that when they reach Kabul something is going to happen that will change both of their lives forever.

As the story moves through the generations and across continents, we also get to know a variety of other characters, all of whom are connected in one way or another to the family we met at the beginning of the book. These include Uncle Nabi, who leaves home to work for a rich family in Kabul, and his employer’s wife, Nila Wahdati, a poet. Then there’s Markos, a plastic surgeon from Greece who is working for a charity in Kabul, and Adel, son of a famous Afghan warlord who slowly discovers that his father may not be as heroic as he seems. A whole chapter is devoted to each character’s story, which made the novel feel almost like a collection of short stories. Some of them are more interesting than others, but they all share the same themes: the effects of years of conflict on a country and its people, and the suffering of families torn apart by war or poverty.

I found this book to be much wider in scope than either The Kite Runner or A Thousand Splendid Suns; it begins with one family in Afghanistan but over the course of the novel we are taken to America, Paris and the Greek Islands and meet a huge number of characters. This was not necessarily a good thing, though; sometimes I felt that the focus had moved too far away from the storylines I was most interested in and the novel started to lose some of its magic and become less compelling. One of my favourite chapters was actually the first one, in which Saboor tells Abdullah and Pari a fairytale about Baba Ayub, whose son is stolen away by a div (a type of monster). Ideas and metaphors introduced in this opening chapter run through the entire novel, which I thought was very clever.

Early in the book someone mentions that a story can be like a train – you can jump onboard anywhere but will get to the same destination eventually. That’s a good description of And the Mountains Echoed, as the story is not told in strict chronological order – as well as moving from one character to another, we also jumps backwards and forwards in time within each chapter – but when we do finally reach the end, everything comes together to bring the novel to a beautiful and moving conclusion.

And the Classics Club Spin number is…

May 20, 201322 Comments

Number 6!

Last week I decided to take part in the Classics Club Spin. The rules were simple – list twenty books from your Classics Club list, number them 1 to 20, and the number announced today (Monday) represents the book you have to read during May and June.

The book at #6 on my list is:

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

There were other books on my list that I was looking forward to more, but I’m quite happy with this one, I think. I haven’t read anything by Stella Gibbons yet and have been wanting to for years!

Have you read it? Did you enjoy it?

If you participated too, I hope the Spin has selected a great book for you.