Books: The Passion of Yurii Zhivago

(10 of 10)

Disengagement, the ÉIan to Good. For literature, Pasternak's appearance on the world scene may mark the end of an era. For three decades far too many writers have tilted at every political windmill and ambulance-chased every passing cause. This was what Sartre called "engagement." Pasternak calls for disengagement. By that he does not mean detachment from the world, but attachment to human values. It is not the function of the writer, says Pasternak, to serve principalities and powers. Communism or capitalism. The task of men of letters, as he sees it, is to heed "the living voice of life," to bear witness to the good, the true and the beautiful. By example, Pasternak calls on writers to return to the universal themes of life and death, man and God, good and evil, and the joys, sorrows and splendors of love.

For mankind, Pasternak is a symbol of the "élan to good" which he believes is the spirit of the coming age, even in Soviet Russia. As Dr. Zhivago puts it, "I believe that man is only drawn to goodness through good." In Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak has fulfilled his personal definition of the highest purpose of art: to create "an image of man [that] is greater than man," thus leading him to nobler realms of being. He also reminds men that Christ and the Christ-in-everyman is the last best hope of earth. In a perplexed, ravaged and despairing age, Pasternak's undiminished confidence in the future of humanity is perhaps his greatest gift of all:

O do not trouble then, and do not grieve!

Despite my helpless state, I swear, I'll stay

With you that day. The strong in hope endure,

Through all the plagues that bring them low in life.