Doctor Zhivago (spoilers) - Boris Pasternak

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Dashkova
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Doctor Zhivago (spoilers) - Boris Pasternak

Post by Dashkova »

I did a search and didn't find much here on this book; I just read it and I have so many questions to ask but I don't know anyone who's read it to talk to.

Evgraf was a confusing character for me; throughout the book I kept waiting for the part that would finally really explain him but it never came. I saw an analogy online that said he was supposed to represent God; if that's true I feel like it would explain why he was such a mysterious figure that was always just 'there' and never really explained. I also wonder too; since he had enough power and influence to where he was able to help Yuri throughout the book(and later Tanya), why couldn't he help Lara avoid the gulag? It also seems to me like he inadvertently led her to her imprisonment; when she ran into him she was only supposed to be in Moscow briefly however he asked her to stay a few days more to help him sort through Zhivago's papers and she agreed, and it was during those days that she got picked up by the police and taken away.

I also have so many questions about what happened to Lara in the far east; she said at Zhivago's funeral that horrible things happened to her, that she was hospitalized for 3 months and that for one of them she was in a coma, she said that during that time something horrible happened which I assume was Komarovsky giving Tanya away. When Tanya was telling the story of her childhood she said that Lara and Komarovsky were man and wife.

It seems to me like Lara's story is the real tragedy in the book; her affair early on in her life with Komarovsky was the bane of her existence and after everything that happened it looks like she ended up right back with him, completely in his control, and not only that but it sounds like he purposely tore Tanya away from her. And after all of that to have lost both of the loves of her life, to have never found her missing child and to perish in the gulag leaving Katenka parentless.
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DancingLady
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Post by DancingLady »

I agree that Lara’s story is a tragedy. I read the book quite a few years ago and remember immediately identifying the situation between Lara and Komarovsky as one of abuse, as in a man with power taking advantage of a young woman who is in a position where circumstances make refusing him nearly impossible. Although abuse like this wasn’t spoken of in these kind of terms in that day, I think Komarovsky’s actions would have been recognized as wrong, and Lara’s story as a whole chronicles an example of how a victims life can be affected forever.
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