Books are a wonderful way for coworkers and friends to share experiences, even when we’re miles, states, and countries apart. Hearing about what someone is reading is like taking a 5-minute vacation. Each week, one Piper team member will answer the question, “What are you reading?” and take you on a well-deserved, 5-minute vacation.

This week Christina is reading Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak.

“It’s a thrill to watch them fatefully inch closer and closer to one another, leaving everyone in their orbit irreparably changed.”

CHRISTINA SAYS…

I love big books with lots of characters and strong settings. In Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak offers all of this, plus a very human look at the realities of life in Soviet Russia. Characters Lara, Pasha, and Yuri (aka Dr. Zhivago) are at the mercy of 30 years of history, which pulls them together and pushes them apart. It’s a thrill to watch them fatefully inch closer and closer to one another, leaving everyone in their orbit irreparably changed. The translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (2011, Vintage International) presents Pasternak’s story in prose that is both limber and wrenchingly emotional.

AMAZON DESCRIPTION

First published in Italy in 1957 amid international controversy, Doctor Zhivago is the 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, the very embodiment of the pain and chaos of those cataclysmic times. Pevear and Volokhonsky masterfully restore the spirit of Pasternak’s original—his style, rhythms, voicings, and tone—in this beautiful translation of a classic of world literature.

HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK?

Tell Christina what you thought in the blog comments below!