Doctor Zhivago (Pevear/Volokhonsky translation) - Boris Pasternak

Written by Boris Pasternak
Read by JohnLee
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky - Translator

Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
Release date: June 14, 2011
Duration: 23:18:38

Boris Pasternak’s widely acclaimed novel comes gloriously to life in a magnificent new translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the award-winning translators of War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and to whom, The New York Review of Books declared, “the English-speaking world is indebted.”

First published in Italy in 1957 amid international controversy—the novel was banned in the Soviet Union until 1988, and Pasternak declined the Nobel Prize a year later under intense pressure from Soviet authorities—Doctor Zhivago is the 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, Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between the Whites and the Reds. Set against this backdrop of cruelty and strife is Zhivago’s love for the tender and beautiful Lara: pursued, found, and lost again, Lara is the very embodiment of the pain and chaos of those cataclysmic times.

Stunningly rendered in the spirit of Pasternak’s original—resurrecting his style, rhythms, voicings, and tone—and including an introduction, textual annotations, and a translators’ note, this edition of Doctor Zhivago is destined to become the definitive English translation of our time.

Narrator John Lee matches the book’s lavish descriptions with moving expression and depth of feeling. He ably pronounces Russian names and words while imbuing characters’ emotions and strife, class and age with striking clarity. Although the foreword seems superfluous, given the popularity of the classic film, some new details emerge in this translation, released in celebration of the novel’s 40th anniversary. Poet Yuri Zhivago’s vivid and lovely musings, contrasted with the war-torn turmoil that surrounds him, sound even more intense. Based on the original text, this new rendering is worth revisiting to immerse oneself in the cataclysmic epoch and Yuri’s poetic vision. A.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

A copy of this translation can be found in Library Genius

http://lib1.org/fiction/E3385D01221CBD0E51D5F1EB099497D9