Dr. Zhivago – Why It Is an Underappreciated Classic

While the 1965 film adaptation is sublime, nothing can match the book. Boris Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago has an effortless, expository narrative flow that transports the reader across thousands of miles, utilising a train journey through Siberia to weave together the entwined fates of lovers, families, and enemies.

With consummate skill, Pasternak employs vivid depictions of nature and conflicted romance, contrasted by the unsettling beauty of bleakness, fragmented relationships, and the brutal backdrop of the emerging Russian Revolution. While the novel is widely recognized as one of the greatest love stories ever told, I believe it resonates now more than ever with modern sensibilities. It grapples with the interplay of human values and moral ambiguity, the vicissitudes of progress and the personal struggle to live life on one’s own terms—punctuated by moments of innocence and beauty—and the desire for artistic freedom and respect for independent thought.

Dr. Zhivago leaves the reader breathless, conflicted, aching, and in awe, always eager to turn the next page. To this day, it continues to divide critics and sustain an ongoing conversation—one that I believe everyone can take part in. It has been underappreciated and even misrepresented as mere romance fiction. Instead, if received as a profound exploration of yearning and the will to survive—despite the complexities and eccentricities of the human condition—its readership would be compelled to appreciate its uncanny relatability.