Doctor Zhivago
Boris Pasternak
 Imperial Russia, 1903. The novel opens during a Russian Orthodox funeral liturgy, or panikhida, for Yuri's mother, Marya Nikolaevna Zhivago. Having long ago been abandoned by his father, Yuri is taken in by his maternal uncle, a former Orthodox priest and philosopher. Formerly a wealthy member of Moscow's merchant gentry, Yuri's father, Andrei Zhivago, has squandered the family's millions through debauchery and carousing, and has been progressively bled dry by the corrupt lawyer Viktor Komarovsky. Komarovsky's connections extend to senior figures in both the Tsarist State and its Marxist opponents. Following his wife's funeral, Andrei learns the true nature of Komarovsky and confronts him during a railway journey. Moments later, a devastated Andrei commits suicide by jumping from the train. Almost within sight of this, Yuri is staying at the estate of Duplyanka, where his uncle is working on a book advocating land reform. During the Russo-Japanese War, Amalia Karlovna Guichard, a Russified Frenchwoman and the widow of a Belgian engineer, arrives in Moscow from the Urals. At Komarovsky's insistence, she enrolls her son Rodion in the Cadet Corps and sends her daughter Lara to a girls' high school. For her own support, Amalia purchases a dressmaking shop in a working class section of Moscow. Despite his ongoing affair with Amalia, Komarovsky begins paying court to Lara behind her mother's back. Although terrified of the consequences, Lara succumbs to his advances and they begin a discreet affair. Despite her intense resentment of Komarovsky, Lara becomes very adept at using her sensuality to manipulate her besotted lover. Meanwhile, Komarovsky's feelings for Lara begin to reawaken his long dormant conscience. Feeling deeply ashamed of what he has done to her, Komarovsky tells Lara that he wishes to marry her. Indignant, Lara refuses to permit this. Suspecting the worst, Amalia attempts suicide by drinking poison. Zhivago, along with his fellow medical student Misha Gordon, visit with a doctor and successfully save Amalia's life. Obsessed with freeing herself from Komarovsky, Lara spends three years working as a governess for the children of Lavrenti Kologrivov, a wealthy silk manufacturer with Marxist sympathies. Then, Lara's brother Rodion Guishar begs her to ask Komarovsky to lend him 700 rubles, to replace that same amount which he has stolen and gambled away. Infuriated, Lara instead obtains the money from Kologrivov and severs ties to her brother. However, when the children graduate, Lara resents that the Kologrivovs allow her to stay on out of charity. Believing that Komarovsky has ruined her life, she attends a Christmas party and shoots at him with a revolver. However, Lara instead wounds a senior Tsarist prosecutor. Komarovsky secretly uses his political connections to shield her from prosecution. While treating the prosecutor's wounds, Yuri learns of the death of his foster mother, Anna Gromeiko. Soon after the funeral, Yuri becomes engaged to and marries his foster sister, Tonya Gromeiko. Meanwhile, Lara marries Pasha Antipov, a railway worker and Bolshevik sympathiser. To Komarovsky's grief, the Antipovs leave in order to teach at a school in the Urals. In 1914, the Russian Empire declares war on Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although he loves Lara deeply, Pasha feels increasingly stifled by her love for him. In order to escape, he volunteers for the Imperial Russian Army. Ultimately, Lt. Antipov is declared missing in action, but is captured by the Austro-Hungarian Army. After escaping from a POW camp, Antipov joins the new Red Army. He becomes notorious as General Strelnikov ("The Shooter"), a fearsome commander who summarily executes both captured Whites and many civilians. Meanwhile, Lara becomes a battlefield nurse in order to search for her husband. In 1915, Doctor Yuri Zhivago is drafted into the Army despite the recent birth of his and Tonya's first child. Wounded by artillery fire in Galicia, Yuri and his friend Misha Gordon are sent to a battlefield hospital where Lara works as a nurse. After his recovery, Zhivago stays on at the hospital as a physician. Following the February Revolution and the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, revolutionary fervor and anarchy spread to the front-line troops. In order to convince local deserters to return to the trenches, Gintz, a newly arrived commissar for the Provisional Government, decides to address them unarmed and without an escort. Believing that he can appeal to the deserters pride as "soldiers in the world's first revolutionary army", Gintz is instead brutally murdered by them. Meanwhile, Lara and Yuri have fallen in love. Neither, however, is willing to admit their feelings for the other. As he prepares to return to his wife and child in Moscow, Yuri expresses dismay to Lara that "the roof over the whole of Russia has been torn off, and we and all the people find ourselves under the open sky". Following the October Revolution and the subsequent Russian Civil War, Yuri and his family flee by train to their estate at Varykino, in the Ural Mountains. During the journey, he meets with General Strelnikov, who informs him that Lara has returned to their daughter in the town of Yuriatin. Soon after, Lara and Yuri meet and consummate their relationship. While returning from an encounter with Lara, Yuri is abducted by Liberius, commander of the "Forest Brotherhood", the Bolshevik guerilla band. Liberius is a dedicated Old Bolshevik and highly effective leader of his men. However, Liberius is also a cocaine addict, loud-mouthed and narcissistic. He repeatedly bores Yuri with his long-winded lectures about the glories of socialism and the inevitability of its victory. After Yuri deserts and returns to Lara, Komarovsky reappears. Having used his influence within the CPSU, Komarovsky has been appointed Minister of Justice of the Far Eastern Republic, a Soviet puppet state in Siberia. He offers to smuggle Yuri and Lara outside Soviet soil. They initially refuse, but Komarovsky states that Pasha Antipov is dead, having fallen from favor with the Party. Stating that this will place Lara in the Cheka's crosshairs, he persuades Yuri that it is in her best interests to leave for the West. Yuri convinces Lara to go with Komarovsky, telling her that he will follow her shortly. Meanwhile, the hunted General Strelnikov returns for Lara. Lara, however, has already left with Komarovsky. After expressing regret over the pain he has caused his country and loved ones, Pasha commits suicide. Yuri finds his body the following morning. After returning to Moscow, Zhivago's health declines; he cohabits with another woman and fathers two children with her. He also plans numerous writing projects which he never finishes. Meanwhile, Lara returns to Russia for Yuri Zhivago's funeral. (I don't think that's right-she was already in Moscow on other matters and decided to visit Pasha's old flat. Much to her astonishment there was Yuri's coffin, on a table in the flat). She persuades Yuri's half brother, NKVD General Yevgraf Zhivago, to assist her search for her daughter by Yuri. Ultimately, however, Lara is arrested during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge and dies in the Gulag. During World War II, Zhivago's old friends Nika Dudorov and Misha Gordon meet up. One of their discussions revolves around a local laundress named Tanya, a bezprizornaya or Civil War orphan, and her resemblance to both Yuri and Lara. Much later, they meet over the first edition of Yuri Zhivago's poems.