Oh, but let this cup pass from me

 

This year I seem to have taken on books that take forever to finish. Books that I set aside to read something else, something lighter, brighter, before picking them up again and steeling myself to continue. 

I'm glad I have this blog if only because it forces me to finish what I start, not always successfully, but most times. 

Anyway, reading this very important book, I suddenly realised why Russian novels were so long; what better way to beguile the hours of a long winter night?

Here's a poem by one of my favourite Irish poets, Tony Curtis about the effects thereof:

This is an old Russian cure,

better than a cup of tea,

more reliable than pills.

It was first formulated

by Leo Tolstoy in the 

long winter of 1869.

A complex potion,

the recipe runs to 1,144 pages,

too long to put down here,

but you'll find it on the creaking

shelves of any library

under the heading War and Peace

I suggest you take it

late at night

beside an open fire,

with a map of old Russia

and a bottle of red wine.

I tried it myself

and it worked fine for me:

all the ghosts in my head

gathered round to hear

the tale of love and loss.

At the beginning, I came across a character that filled me with such disgust, Komarovsky, who seduced, brainwashed and controlled a beautiful young girl, and thereby proved (till the very end) to remain the evil genius of her life. And although she seemed to escape him for a while, in reality she never did, he managed to fool her in the end and get her back under his subjection with lies.

Lies masked as concern. Pretending to the end to get what he wanted. 

And no, he was never punished. Just elevated and then, elevated some more.

Although the story was about Yuri and Lara and how this so-called revolution of the people destroyed their lives, I think it was more about the likes of someone like Komarovsky, someone who was truly evil, but who knew how to say the right things and get in with the right set whoever was in charge.

Who had neither soul nor morals and who thrived to the end while the hero and heroine perished so sadly, so tragically.

We don't know how Lara dies. We only know that she went out one day and was lost.

Pasternak was unflinching in his description of the revolution and his refusal to sugarcoat what it was really like. And he takes issue, through the voice of Yuri, at how language was used and abused to call black, white. Or better yet, purple. 

How people were forced, in the depth of their suffering, to deny what was happening to them, how they could only use allowable words and phrases, how they were made to gloss over untold cruelties, suffering and horror. 

I can see why he won the Nobel Prize for literature. I can see why they didn't allow him to accept it. 

It is a great novel, but one to be read in winter, when you are alone. And without distractions. 

I can hardly do it justice.