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Doctor Zhivago

Vintage Classic Russians Series

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Doctor Zhivago

By: Boris Pasternak, Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky
Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
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About this listen

Listen to this stunning new translation of Boris Pasternak's Nobel Prize-winning masterpiece from Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the acclaimed translators of War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

Banned in the Soviet Union until 1988, Doctor Zhivago is the epic 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, Yuri Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between the Whites and the Reds, and in love with the tender and beautiful nurse Lara.

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky have restored the rhythms, tone, precision, and poetry of Pasternak's original, bringing this classic of world literature gloriously to life for a new generation of people.

VINTAGE CLASSICS RUSSIAN SERIES - sumptuous editions of the greatest books to come out of Russia during the most tumultuous period in its history.

©2020 Boris Pasternak (P)2020 Penguin Audio Classics Historical Fiction Russia Fiction Soviet Union

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Critic reviews

'Not since Shakespeare has love been so fully, vividly, scrupulously and directly communicated' Sunday Times
All stars
Most relevant
One of my favourite books, a real treat to have it read to me and Juliet Stevenson did this beautifully.

A beautiful story

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Juliet Stevenson is a superb narrator and her characterisations are brilliantly individualised which help to distinguish the huge cast of characters. She also creates a thrilling vocal interpretation of the natural world. The horrors of the brutal times are gently nuanced both in the writing and in the reading but we are in no doubt as to what Pasternak thought of the soviet regime.

Everyone should read this book

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Juliet is a wonderful narrator and as usual gets all the voices right. I listened and read in detail for a course where I learned a lot. There are no wasted words, lots of symbols, characters are plot devices, little person against the state, collectivism v individualism, pathetic fallacy, art, music, medicine and much more in this cleverly nuanced novel. The film is very different and should be seen separately as there is no human romance in this book. The love is for Russia especially Moscow. To top it all Juliet reads the beautiful poems exquisitely.

Political tract with characters

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Always enjoyed the film but this was so much better. Juliet really brought the story to life.

One of the best I’ve listened to

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. . . I was so disappointed because I could not follow the storyline. Totally confused about where the story was going, when it was going, if at all, and who was who I gave up, so I am returning the audiobook.
I'm sure it's a fantastic story and a wonderful listen / read for many, but not for me.
Juliet Stephenson is utterly the best so it's a double whammy not to be able to hear her performance. She doesn't just read, she performs. Totally the best, I'm off to find another book, performed by her.

Juliet Stephenson is the best - but . .

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