Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

The misguided romance between Dr. Zhivago and Lara is central to this book, and it parallels the Russians' fatal infatuation with socialism that forms the background of the story. Zhivago and Lara come of age and begin their own families separately during the early 20th century, while Marxism is gaining traction and the revolt against landed aristocracy and the Czarist regime rages. In a caprice of war, the two are thrown together more than once, kindling an ongoing affair. But just as war throws them together, it also tears them apart, and they both eventually come to ignobly solitary ends.

Doctor Zhivago is a comprehensive, loftily toned novel that tries hard to be a worthy heir to the legacy of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, et al. However, try as it might, it never quite reaches such heights. Neither Zhivago's appending poetry, which is highly praised in the novel, nor the narrative of the book itself come across as anything but pretentious and self-centered imitations. The characters certainly discuss the masters of Russian literature often enough, but that only sharpens the contrast between their fictional predecessors and them.

Pasternak repeatedly falls into telling rather than showing. When describing a conversation between Zhivago and his uncle, Pasternak says he had never "heard views as penetrating, apt, or inspiring," but these remarkable comments never make an appearance. Pasternak has too much confidence in the profundity of his protagonist. Zhivago writes "Playing at People, a Gloomy Diary or Journal Consisting of Prose, Verse, and What-have-you, Inspired by the Realization that Half the People Have Stopped Being Themselves and Are Acting Unknown Parts," a title whose self-amused attempt at witticism would be at home in these modern incarnations of narcissism, blogs.

But perhaps it would not be wise to blame Pasternak for his shortcomings and mistake "the spirit of the times" for personal inadequacy, as Lara's husband does. As socialist thought slowly permeated every aspect of their lives, it alienated them from each other. "We began to be idiotically pompous with each other," Lara explains to Zhivago, "you felt you had to be clever in a certain way about certain world-important themes." Unable to communicate accurately and thus believing he no longer has his wife’s esteem, Lara's husband joins the army and throws himself headlong into the revolution, effectually abandoning her.

Lara attributes the break-up of her marriage largely to the advent of Communism. To some extent, she is justified. The book chronicles the brutality of socialism, the incongruity between its sweet promises and its bitter actuality. Without a free market, people starve physically, and also intellectually and spiritually. Communist thought enthralled Russians, from the radicals at the universities to the impoverished peasants. Just as Russians deserted their traditions, their native values, so Zhivago betrayed his constant, devoted wife for Lara. The affair gives him no peace or satisfaction, just wrenching guilt and an addled conscience.

Pasternak seems to say that Zhivago, like Lara's husband, would never have strayed had he not been subjected to the insensibility and turmoil of the revolution. Morals became as muddled as politics then. Zhivago feels helpless, powerless, facing unassailable history. "He realized he was a pygmy before the monstrous machine of the future."

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison's organic prose wends its intoxicating way around you until you're so mesmerized you hardly notice the insidious web it has trapped you in. Song of Solomon begins with a troubled man perched precariously atop a hospital roof, and from there descends into the murky depths of African-American life in the mid-20th century. Highlighting significant points in the lives of one family, the narrative finally rests on the son, Macon Dead Jr, and the journey he embarks on to comprehend the past and its bearing on his future.

At the beginning, the past looks terribly sordid. The sordid taste never really leaves the story, but it does abate somewhat. Morrison draws her characters in untempered manifestations of vulgarity, making no attempt to wipe off the gritty dirt and grime of their lives. Initially, they seem like aberrations of human nature unwittingly stumbled upon. But Morrison later justifies their untoward actions, building a logical scaffolding beneath a seemingly senseless, groundless mess.

Indeed, much of the book explores the underlying causes of the characters', and by extension the African-American culture's, distinctive burdens. "The cards are stacked against us," says Macon's friend Guitar, "and just trying to stay in the game...makes us do funny things. Things we can't help. Things that make us hurt one another." But while undoubtedly many vices can be attributed to cause and effect, this outlook does not admit an adequate address of free will. It is far too easy to shrug off people's shortcomings, blaming them on a troubled childhood or a legacy of sin. At some point each much assume responsibility for his actions.

Morrison's insight crescendoes with self-absorbed Macon's moment of clarity on a dark night in the Blue Ridge Mountains: "Apparently he thought he deserved only to be loved - from a distance, though - and given what he wanted." He later identifies the catalysts behind the individual catastrophes of his respective family members, expanding his understanding of them and gaining compassion where once was merely contempt. But from there Morrison devolves into nebulous philosophizing, attempts at mythologizing, and facile plot twists that lose the edge of realism that Macon's inner revelation and outer realizations have.

Morrison's earthy cadence embodies the souls of her subjects. Her confident assurance in her ability to create a cultural mythology is, strange though the comparison might be, almost Tolkienesque. But that she embraces not just the sinners but also the sin, dismissing their culpability with rational explanations, tarnishes her work.

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

We tend to view the past as unrelated to the present- people did those sorts of things then, but they'd never do that now. It is odd to think that the neat, established facts of the past were once someone's messy, uncertain future. Henry Fleming reflects on this before he first sees combat: "There was a portion of the world's history which he had regarded as the time of wars, but it, he thought, had been long gone over the horizon and had disappeared forever." The Civil War, however, is looming over his, and soon the immediacy of battle comes crashing down upon him.

A young Yankee farm boy, Henry alternates between honest introspection and self-approbating denial. Crane presents him with unflinching authenticity, exhibiting his naïve bravado, his cowardly self-justification, his struggles with life, death, and why. Marching towards battle, Henry encounters his first casualty. “He vaguely desired to walk around and around the body and stare, the impulse of the living to try and read in dead eyes the answer to the Question.”

Henry flees like a threatened animal when he faces the enemy. He recognizes his cowardice but reasons it away, attributing it to a natural sense of self-preservation and excusing it by his later semi-heroics. Crane allows Henry some latitude, giving him moments of unimpeachable profundity, but he nevertheless maintains an ironic distance from him, subtly mocking his pride, which even Confederate bullets glance off harmlessly.

Henry comes face to face with the senselessness of war, but his initial thoughts when the battle is over banish any recollection of it. “He had been an animal blistered and sweating in the heat and pain of war. He turned now with a lover’s thirst to images of tranquil skies, fresh meadows, cool brooks- an existence of soft and eternal peace.”

Henry’s primary impulse is to escape the struggle and strife of the battlefield conflict. Ironically, though, the seeds of such vying lie planted within him. Pride, Henry’s distinctive vice, is at the root of all schisms, and the pride Henry felt in finally presenting himself to the world as a worthy soldier is not so far removed from the pride in the South Robert E. Lee relied on to lead his troops in defying the North.

Crane’s pervasive irony makes uncertain to what extent Henry’s illusions of himself are false. He is a vain boy, to be sure, but he deserves credit for shoring up against his fear and carrying his country’s flag bravely. He wades mainly in the intellectual shallows, but he merits praise for venturing forth as far as he dares. Henry is as complex and blameless, or to blame, as any human. Where our own illusions begin and end are just as vague.