The Zhivago Affair

Starred review from March 17, 2014
In brisk and thrilling fashion, Washington Post national security editor Finn and Saint Petersburg State University instructor Couvée take readers into the world of Soviet intelligentsia and shadowy Cold War politics to study how Boris Pasternak came to write and publish Doctor Zhivago (which first appeared in Italy in 1957). The authors use rich archival research, including previously classified CIA files, to depict the oppressive political conditions that gave rise to Pasternak’s masterpiece, and the international firestorm that occurred when the novel was banned in the Soviet Union. The book offers nuanced depictions of the people in Pasternak’s life, including his lover, Olga Ivinskaya, who championed his work and shared his torment at the hands of the KGB. The torturous ideological policing by the Soviets is discussed to great effect; for indeed, the tale of Doctor Zhivago itself is very much about the long psychic scar left by Russian Revolution. It’s a story expertly told by Finn and Couvée, who unsparingly present the role played by the Kremlin in persecuting Pasternak and his loved ones, as well as the role of the CIA in using his masterpiece in a game of ideological warfare—overall, a triumphant reminder that truth is sometimes gloriously stranger than fiction. Agent: Rafe Sagalyn, Sagalyn Literary Agency.

November 1, 2014

Originally smuggled out of the country and released in translation by an Italian publisher, Doctor Zhivago caught the attention of the CIA as a potential weapon in the cultural front of the Cold War. Their interest intensified when the author, Boris Pasternak, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958 after the book was banned in the Soviet Union. Its release embarrassed and infuriated Soviet authorities. Pasternak's refusal to renounce the work resulted in his expulsion from the Union of Soviet Writers and nearly sent him to the gulag. Despite this audiobook's subtitle, this is really a biography of Pasternak that focuses on his last years as he and those around him dealt with the consequences of the publication of Doctor Zhivago; the role played by the CIA is a very minor part of the story. Narrator Simon Vance's crisp British accent helps enliven a sometimes overwrought tale. VERDICT Those expecting a cloak-and-dagger spy saga will be disappointed, but those interested in a case study of Soviet repression of heterodox authors will be gratified.--Forrest Link, Coll. of New Jersey, Ewing

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 27, 2014
Finn, an editor at the Washington Post who was the paper’s Moscow bureau chief, and Couvée, a writer who teaches at Saint Petersburg State University, offer a detailed account of the events leading up to the 1956 publication of Doctor Zhivago, the only novel by Russian poet Boris Pasternak (1890–1960); the authors also describe Pasternak’s subsequent effect on international politics. Along with tracking the manuscript as it traveled from Pasternak to his Italian publisher, Finn and Couvée provide a biography of the poet-novelist and an exploration of Soviet policy during the Cold War. The book also chronicles the machinations employed by the KGB to stop the publication of the manuscript and those of the CIA to aid its publication. Because of the nature of the factual material, veteran reader Vance isn’t given much opportunity to display his way with dialogue. But he makes up for that with his facility for pronouncing Russian names and words, and by using his crisp, precise British delivery to clarify the complex twists and turns this real-life thriller takes. A Pantheon hardcover.