Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
Published 1957 · 546 pages · 180,899 words · about 13 hours at an average pace · Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Romance
How hard is Doctor Zhivago to read?
Doctor Zhivago scores 56 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 55 out of 100
- Pasternak writes in Russian (here translated), with vocabulary appropriate to the revolution and its aftermath. The prose is literary and elevated.
- Sentence structure: 55 out of 100
- Long, flowing sentences that capture the sweep of historical events and inner life. The prose is demanding but rewarding.
- Abstraction: 60 out of 100
- The personal drama of Zhivago is loves unfolds against vast historical forces. Abstract questions about fate, freedom, and art pervade the narrative.
- Information density: 60 out of 100
- Dense with Russian history, poetry, and philosophical meditation. Pasternak assumes familiarity with the Revolution and Civil War.
- Narrative indirection: 55 out of 100
- Pasternak tells his story through accumulation and coincidence. The meaning is in the pattern, in how lives intersect and diverge.
- Symbolic density: 65 out of 100
- The train, the frozen road, the poems that close the novel—Pasternak builds an elaborate symbolic structure around his characters.
- Ironic distance: 50 out of 100
- Pasternak writes with romantic intensity. There is irony in how history treats individuals, but no protective distance from their suffering.
- Resolution withholding: 50 out of 100
- The novel reaches its devastating conclusion, but the poems Zhivago leaves behind promise something beyond tragedy.
- Structural complexity: 55 out of 100
- An epic spanning decades, with many characters and intersecting storylines. The structure is ambitious, following the sweep of Russian history.
How Doctor Zhivago is regarded
Doctor Zhivago holds a literary regard score of 82 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.