Word: musts
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Doctor Zhivago has sold more hardcover editions in the United States than any other book since Peyton Place. It was the most popular literary Christmas present of the 1958 holiday season. The proportion of pages read to books bought must be more lopsided than that of the Gideon Bible. And one of the biggest reasons for the disparity is reader fatigue; the busy man must choose between the book itself and the welter of commentary...
Evgraf, Zhivago's brother, appears once every 150 pages and plays his spasmodic role as a brother's keeper. Pasha, who left his family to become a military commander for the Communists, must explain his love, excuse his motivation, justify his life, and shoot himself in ten pages. These two men offered Zhivago a serious intellectual challenge--service out of love, and service out of duty. But Zhivago fails to come to terms with either concept, and Pasternak abets...
...springing full-blown from this same faulty technique is the book's most serious fault-lack of character development. The reader must constantly depend upon random statements by one character judging another for either of them to be illuminated. We are told that Lara (for Zhivago, the life-force) symbolizes the oppression of the 19th century and the hope of the 20th; but someone has to say it, for in the characterization of her words and deeds there is no indication of such a symbolic meaning...
Prospect is again holding an open, non-selective Bicker, but new members must sign the club's book before 9:15 p.m. on Open House night. According to the Interclub Committee's definition, a "hundred percenter" this year will be any sophomore who has not received a bid and has not joined Prospect by 10 p.m. next Saturday, Open House night...
There has, however, been no faltering on Western determination that Berlin must not become a "free" city. Such a situation would be the prelude to a communist controlled Berlin, for under almost any pretext--perhaps disorders caused by their own agents--the Soviet-assisted East Germans could sieze control entirely. But while the West's resistance to the free-city proposal deserves commendation, its failure to suggest alternate schemes is unfortunate for Germany...