[A] riveting, tragic tale.” — New Yorker
A “particularly poignant book.” — Washington Post
“Authoritative. . . The author convincingly establishes the unmistakable link between Lara and Olga and shows that from the time Pasternak met his muse in 1946, he and his novel were changed.” — Washington Times
“Lara is a chilling, upsetting reminder of what can happen when free speech is curtailed. — NPR
“Drawing on memoirs, histories, and interviews, she has produced a fascinating and often heartbreaking double portrait. Her book, which proceeds as suspensefully as a criminal investigation, is a testament to the profound bond between writer and muse.” — O Magazine
“An enchanting love story, wonderfully told.” — Sir Ronald Harwood
“Anna Pasternak does not spare an ounce of drama nor detail from the story of her great-uncle’s love affair with Olga Ivinskaya, the inspiration for Doctor Zhivago’s Lara. The result is a profoundly moving meditation on love, loyalty and, ultimately, forgiveness.” — Amanda Foreman, author of A World on Fire
“This accessible history sketches the stories of a literary love affair and a great novel whose cultural and political impact may now seem almost unimaginable to a modern audience. . . . This is a sensitive . . . account of one of literature’s great backstories.” — Publishers Weekly
“A sympathetic portrait of a woman who saw her lover in the same ‘heroic light’ as he saw himself.” — Kirkus
“As tragic and heartrending as Doctor Zhivago, as Anna details his two marriages, the Russian people’s love of Boris’ poetry, and the love affair that not only dominated his life but also allowed him, she posits, to write Doctor Zhivago. Hand this to Russophiles, poets, and romantics.” — Booklist
“Lara tells a heartbreaking love story, a tragedy in some ways as compelling as the classic its real-life protagonists inspired.” — Bookpage
“Pasternak writes with an intimate and lyrical simplicity that perfectly catches the emotions and torn allegiances of one of the literary world’s most compelling love stories. Lara is a testament to timeless love, yes, but also to the moral responsibility of writers to pursue truth at all costs.” — Shelf Awareness
“Lara elevates Olga way above the negatively connotative “mistress” term, giving her not only flesh and blood but mind and spirit as well.” — Bookolage
Anna Pasternak does not spare an ounce of drama nor detail from the story of her great-uncle’s love affair with Olga Ivinskaya, the inspiration for Doctor Zhivago’s Lara. The result is a profoundly moving meditation on love, loyalty and, ultimately, forgiveness.
Authoritative. . . The author convincingly establishes the unmistakable link between Lara and Olga and shows that from the time Pasternak met his muse in 1946, he and his novel were changed.
An enchanting love story, wonderfully told.
As tragic and heartrending as Doctor Zhivago, as Anna details his two marriages, the Russian people’s love of Boris’ poetry, and the love affair that not only dominated his life but also allowed him, she posits, to write Doctor Zhivago. Hand this to Russophiles, poets, and romantics.
A “particularly poignant book.
Drawing on memoirs, histories, and interviews, she has produced a fascinating and often heartbreaking double portrait. Her book, which proceeds as suspensefully as a criminal investigation, is a testament to the profound bond between writer and muse.
Lara is a chilling, upsetting reminder of what can happen when free speech is curtailed.
[A] riveting, tragic tale.
Pasternak writes with an intimate and lyrical simplicity that perfectly catches the emotions and torn allegiances of one of the literary world’s most compelling love stories. Lara is a testament to timeless love, yes, but also to the moral responsibility of writers to pursue truth at all costs.
Lara tells a heartbreaking love story, a tragedy in some ways as compelling as the classic its real-life protagonists inspired.
Lara elevates Olga way above the negatively connotative “mistress” term, giving her not only flesh and blood but mind and spirit as well.
As tragic and heartrending as Doctor Zhivago, as Anna details his two marriages, the Russian people’s love of Boris’ poetry, and the love affair that not only dominated his life but also allowed him, she posits, to write Doctor Zhivago. Hand this to Russophiles, poets, and romantics.
A “particularly poignant book.
[A] riveting, tragic tale.
Anna Pasternak, grandniece of Nobel Laureate Boris Pasternak, gives a very personal account of her ancestor’s talent, fame, and suffering. Those who love Russian literature and history will find this backstory to the beloved DOCTOR ZHIVAGO to be engaging and informative. Narrator Antonia Beamish’s British accent and pleasant alto voice move steadily through the story of Boris Pasternak and how his affair with Olga Ivinskaya became the basis for the character of Lara in the novel. Beamish’s pace allows one to take in all the information, and we are presented much detail of artistic life in Russia before the revolution and during the Soviet era. Beamish is not overly expressive, but she keeps listeners engaged. M.T.F. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
Anna Pasternak, grandniece of Nobel Laureate Boris Pasternak, gives a very personal account of her ancestor’s talent, fame, and suffering. Those who love Russian literature and history will find this backstory to the beloved DOCTOR ZHIVAGO to be engaging and informative. Narrator Antonia Beamish’s British accent and pleasant alto voice move steadily through the story of Boris Pasternak and how his affair with Olga Ivinskaya became the basis for the character of Lara in the novel. Beamish’s pace allows one to take in all the information, and we are presented much detail of artistic life in Russia before the revolution and during the Soviet era. Beamish is not overly expressive, but she keeps listeners engaged. M.T.F. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
2016-10-05
A British journalist investigates her great-uncle’s love affair.Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) was 56 and married to his second wife, Zinaida, when he met 34-year-old Olga Ivinskaya and immediately fell in love: “She is so enchanting, such a radiant, golden person,” he exulted. “I never thought I would still know such joy.” Flattered by the attentions of Russia’s most lauded poet, Olga reciprocated his passion. Pasternak (Daisy Dooley Does Divorce, 2007, etc.) draws on family correspondence; memoirs by Olga, her daughter (whom Pasternak interviewed), Boris’ sister and son; and Boris’ own writings to sensitively examine the dramatic relationship as well as to rescue the reputation of the woman whom the Pasternak family derided and denounced. At first, Pasternak worried about discovering that Boris “used Olga” but concluded that he did his best “within the constraints of his domestic situation to honour her and her family,” supporting them financially and trusting Olga “with his most precious commodity—his work. He sought her advice, her editing and typing assistance” and showed his love in his novel Doctor Zhivago, which Pasternak reads as a “long and heartfelt love letter to her.” Nevertheless, Boris comes across as self-absorbed, at best naively romantic, enjoying “the drama of anguish” and torment that he created for long-suffering Olga and his wife and children. He seemed to care nothing about putting them at risk with his defiance of Stalinist policy. He was somewhat protected by fame, but Olga was vulnerable: twice she was arrested, sentenced to years in gulags. “I owe my life and the fact that they did not touch me in those years to her heroism and endurance,” Boris admitted. Yet he was so insensitive that upon her release from prison, he asked her daughter to tell her that their relationship was over. Pasternak’s recounting of the publication of Doctor Zhivago, and Soviet pressure for him to renounce the Nobel Prize in Literature, draws largely on Peter Finn and Petra Couvée’s The Zhivago Affair (2014). A sympathetic portrait of a woman who saw her lover in the same “heroic light” as he saw himself.
