Zhivago' spans a collection of poems compiled to a book of around 60-70 pages titled 'The Poems of Dr. Zhivago' by Boris Pasternakīoris Pasternak's accompaniment book to 'Dr. The last half of the book takes on an almost fanatical devotion to God and Jesus as if the person who had been through all the previous stages had nothing left to fall back on after the loss of the love and passion phase.

Not even a tone, they just start becoming religious, literally. Lastly, after everything else, the poems take on a religious tone. After that it comes to loss, and everything grows cold and dark. From there it progresses to love and passion. The poems also seemed to follow a descending pattern as well. The dawn! It swept that last of the stars

Most of the poems felt a bit long and drawn out to me, but I like some of the imagery that was described. I've had this book on the shelf for a while and I thought this was the perfect opportunity to get to it. In any event, they weren't like a Cliffs Notes for the poems! But I don't really agree, or perhaps understand is better, with his commentaries. When I read Zhivago, Zhivago seemed to me to be a standin for Pasternak, and Lara for Russia herself. Well, NO WONDER nothing he was saying was making sense to me. He likened Zhivago to Christ, and Lara to Mary Magdalene, not just in the religious poems at the end of the sequence, but throughout the prose narrative as well. When I got to the last few poems and commentaries, the reason (perhaps) why I didn't find the commentaries resonating with me at all, became somewhat clear to me. I struggled and choked my way through each of his commentaries, however, finding very little resonance or explanation of the poems, and not feeling furthered in my quest to help understand the poems, or the novel better. Donald Davie is a poet, so I'm not surprised at that. The poems are translated in what appears to be a beautiful manner. I don't really feel qualified to review this book.

The poems of dr zhivago