Chekhov's Gun

Much of the second half of the novel plays out during the civil war that ravaged Russia from 1918 to 1922.  Yury found himself a captive of Liberius Mikulitsin's Red Army faction, which was fighting against Kolchak's White Army.  Life was pretty miserable for Yury during this time, as Liberius' faction pretty much housed themselves in earth huts in the great Russian taiga, hoping to hold out against the advances of the White Army until reinforcements came.  Yury tended to the wounded as best he could given the limited supplies.  He had support from a Czech paramedic who had joined the Communists and a couple of other interns. Pasternak uses these chapters to highlight the ravages of the civil war, noting the towns that were under siege, in particular Holycross.  All these towns along "The Highway" found themselves torn between the Red and White Armies, with split allegiances.  Many had been burned by one faction or the other, and morale among the armies was low

Varykino proved to be an all too short retreat for the Zhivagos.  They seemed to settle into a relatively comfortable domesticity at the old Krueger estate that once belonged to the Gromeko family.  Now it was state property, guarded by Mikulitsin and his second wife.  Yury seemed to envy the cozy house Mikulitsin lived in for its study, as he imagined himself returning to his writing after all the travails he had been through.   He and his family made due with one of the other outbuildings on the estate as Mikulitsin wouldn't allow them to live in the main house, much to Alexander Alexandrovich's chagrin. The time seemed idyllic.  The setting seemed more or less modeled upon Pasternak's home at Peredelkino , not the fabulous "Ice Palace," David Lean created in his version of the movie.  Yury grew closer to Tonya and Sasha.  Tonya became pregnant with another child.  He seemed to enjoy working the land, taking on the role almost that of a gentleman farmer.  Hi

Pasternak lavishes a long chapter on the train ride to Varykino with Yury, Tonya and Gromeko seeking the isolation of the old Krueger estate to ride out the rest of the civil war.  Along the way, Pasternak offers grim notes of the strife that has ripped Russia in half.  At one small burned out station, everyone has to get off and help shovel the snow off the railway line as the dreaded Strelnikov had shelled the town recently, crushing one of the many rebellious provinces in Russia.  But, Yury seems to relish the bleakness.  It fits into the nihilism he has developed. Yury Zhivago is appearing more and more like a Turgenev character, a throwback to 19th century "revolutionaries" rather than a Bolshevik or a Menshevik.  While his wife and father-in-law see the estate as their only chance for survival, Yury seems to view it as a means to rediscover the Russian heartland. He and Alexander Alexandrovich discuss the fate of Russia while Tonya looks after little Sasha.  Aboard

Rosamund Bartlett weighs in on Tolstoy in a new biography that has garnered mixed reviews.  Rather than offering fresh insights,  Christopher Tayler writes that she plays this one by the numbers.  Of course, it is hard to top the previous biographies by Troyat and Wilson.

 After serving on the front line for over a year, Yury returns to Moscow to find a city reduced to groveling for firewood to keep warm against the oncoming winter.  He finds his home among the ruins of the city only to be forced to wait until finally Tonya comes down to greet him.  It is an awkward homecoming as Yury finds his son a toddler who runs for cover when he enters.  As best he can he tries to resume the life he formerly had with no mention and apparently not even any thoughts of Lara.    Pasternak has a wonderful eye for detail in this chapter and those that follow, capturing the sense of a city and a country at its lowest point, unsure which direction the revolution will take.  He paints a portrait of the fledgling house administrations and the chaos that surrounds the city as the provisional government struggles for control.  Yury seems to have adopted a fatalistic view, taking each day as it comes. In these chapters, we are finally introduced to the Gromekos. 

Seems the first three chapters serve as little more than introduction.  Pasternak chooses to sketch these chapters, culminating in Lara's attempt to strike back at her tormentor Komarovsky at the Sventitsky's Christmas Party.  Again, Yury is there to witness the event and finds himself once again drawn to this mysterious woman who would come to dominate his thoughts and emotions. Pasternak then thrusts his protagonists into the war.  Yury is consigned to a field hospital in which the ravages of war quickly dispense of his innocence.  He meets with Misha again and a much more cynical world view emerges.  Lara had signed on as a nurse in search of her husband Pasha Antipov, leaving her daughter with a close friend in Moscow.  Yury has also left his family behind, witnessing the birth of his son to Tonya shortly before being sent to the front.  Essentially, here begins the story. Yury doesn't actually meet Lara until the fifth chapter, Farewell to the Old ,  at an estate

Interesting how Pasternak tells his tale of Yury and Lara in parallel episodes, keeping Yury pretty much above the seismic shifts taking place in Russia, while Lara finds herself at street level.  Pasternak opens with a boyhood tale of Yury that was a lot like Chekhov's The Steppe , with young Yury being taken through the countryside on a troika with his uncle and a local priest, after the young boy lost his mother.  This idyllic reverie is broken by the fateful news that someone has committed suicide by throwing himself off a train.  Unknown to Yury this is his father.  Pasternak also uses the scene to introduce the young Misha Gordon, who would become Yury's lifelong friend, and the contemptible Komarovsky, a lawyer who had apparently aided Yury's father in making his jump. Komarovsky is portrayed essentially as a snake in the grass, tangentially bringing ruin on Yury, although the young boy had no contact with his father, and despoiling young Lara in the succeeding ch

In a cinematic world increasingly dominated by CGI it is great that there are still animators like Yuriy Norshteyn who painstakingly pore over every detail of their work, taking 30 years if necessary to bring a story dear to his heart to life.  This is the case with The Overcoat, an animated feature Yuriy started back in the late 70s, of which he has only provided glimpses to the public like this one .  He says he has some 25 minutes of this feature completed to date.  He planned to show the film in 2007, but it remains unfinished.  Here's more on the long overdue Overcoat .