Books: Blood Relatives

THE CORRESPONDENCE OF BORIS PASTERNAK AND OLGA FREIDENBERG 1910-1954 Edited by Elliott Mossman Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 365 pages; $19.95

"No novel in this century has drawn such worldwide acclaim," said the London Daily Express of Doctor Zhivago. That was the trouble. By the time an English version reached the U.S. in 1958, two years after Boris Pasternak had sent his manuscript out of the Soviet Union, the novel's potential readers were already weary, and wary, of the Pasternak affair. It had been in the headlines for more than a year. In literary circles, skepticism...