Welcome to week five of our sixteen-week guided slow read of Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago.This week we cover Chapter 5, set in the chaotic summer of 1917 — the turbulent months between the February and October Revolutions. Yury, Lara and Galiullin find themselves in the fictional town of Melyuzeyevo, navigating local administration, paperwork, stolen conversations and the breakdown of order all around them. We witness the tragic fate of the idealistic young Commissar Gintz, explore what Orlando Figes has to say about the collapse of authority in 1917, and discuss the moving final conversation between Yury and Lara before they part — perhaps forever.

📖 Follow along with the essay and printable version at camscampbellreads.substack.comSources this week:Orlando Figes, A People's Tragedy (The Bodley Head, 2017) - Edith W. Clowes, Doctor Zhivago: A Critical Companion (Northwestern University Press, 2011)Boris Gasparov, "Temporal Counterpoint as a Principle of Formation," in the same volume

This is an audio version of the essay I just published on Substack here.

It's also available as a YouTube video here.

All quotations are from the Hayward/Harari translation. Buy the Everyman's Library edition from Amazon, Blackwells, Waterstones or Bookshop.org with this affiliate link: https://geni.us/bZsI

Orlando Figes, A People's Tragedy (The Bodley Head, 2017)

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