This volume of personal letters reads like a novel, and is emotionally devastating by the end, wrenching but wrenching in gorgeous language. Beautifully edited and expertly translated by family members, the collection covers nearly half a century when one of the most brilliant families in Russia was divided by the complicated aftermath of the Russian Revolution and then by the Cold War.His parents and sisters in Germany, he and his brother in the Soviet Union.

I read this correspondence after finishing Nabokov's "Letters to Vera" which cover Russian emigre life in Germany up to the bitter end, when they had to flee yet again. Nabokov, unlike Pasternak, could not remain in Russia after the Revolution, and there are a few poignant passages where Nabokov mourns the loss of his Russian language community. Boris Pasternak firmly decided to remain in the face of immense obstacles even though his family privileges would have enabled him to relocate to Europe. Pasternak mourns the loss of the elegant pre-revolutionary language of his immensely cultured parents. He feels his Russian is being polluted by the vulgarity around him. Nabokov is horrified by the more benign vulgarity of the culture he encounters, and reminisces with Vera that they know something that was better. Both were originally poets who later turned to prose for different reasons. As young poets both were considered to be Russian Rilkes, and both were flattered by the comparison. That said, Nabokov's one mention of Pasternak in his letters is not complimentary. Pasternak is a better fit as the Russian Rilke, and Rilke, a friend of his father Leonid, played a crucial role in his life. Nabokov's correspondence was heavily "curated" by Vera, her own letters she destroyed, and some of his are only know from recordings of partial readings by her. The Pasternak letters feel more honest. The editors let misunderstandings show. And decode Boris' efforts to explain the purges to his family in Europe using cryptic references, some of which they understand and others they miss...One close friend after another is imprisoned and worse...

Curiously Boris emphasizes over and over throughout the years his intense embarrassment at being glorified by the authorities and by those intellectuals left in the Soviet Union when his literary output has been fragmentary. (But such shimmering fragments!) He contrasts his undeserved fame with his father, whose splendid output as a painter was appreciated by people like Tolstoy and Einstein, but did not bring the level of fame it deserved. While Boris' fame was, as yet,undeserved.

The letters also document Pasternak's early determination to distill the 20th century Russian experience into novel form. And to do it without making concessions to Soviet political pressure. No compromises. There is a nervous breakdown in the letters in the 1930s. He wants to visit his family in Germany, then in England, but he is either mentally too unstable, or the authorities are too set against it. He has a wrenching divorce and remarriage to the wife of one of his best friends. Lots of guilt then, and again later when he betrays his second wife with Olga, who herself suffers imprisonment and degrading treatment because of her relationship with him. Love had repercussions.

The letters also follow his translations to make a living when he was unable to publish his own work. Russians tell me that the translations of Goethe and Shakespeare are truly inspired, great works of art. His life improves in some ways once the authorities grant him a "dacha" at Peredelkino. And his work on Zhivago goes on for many years, an obsession to tell the truth. Like his father, he was not that opposed to the Soviet ideal, but even getting close to the truth in everyday Soviet existence was life threatening.

Through all of this, the language, the love expressed, the loyalty to a family ideal, all of these things are simply beautiful to read. (You just wouldn't want to be put to the test like he was.) Even his openly admitted failings as a husband and artist, you just have to forgive him...and apparently almost everyone does. And in the end he knows that the novel is good, not perfect, but what he intended and what Russia needed to read....and he knows it's worthy of a Nobel Prize. So there is vindication after decades of agonizing...it's a kind of happy ending. He'd like to write more novels, but the stress has destroyed him.

In Russian, every little salutation to a loved one is a small poetic masterpiece of rhyme and rhythm. Once I was called "moya dorogaya milaya Lenochka" by Russian friends, the English phrase "My dear Elena" sounded pretty flat. Nicolas Slater's translation has been able to retain enough of the flavor of Russian diminutives to convey the deep family affection between Leonid and Boris in particular, but also with his sisters. But Slater's English is sufficiently nuanced that he does not try to translate every little endearment. (The Nabokov translation does, and is filled with cringe-inducing "darlingkins.") The family affection is truly lovely. But it was not easy to be a Pasternak. Leonid was a splendid painter, Rosalia a world class pianist...Boris was unable to compete in pictures or music and turned instead to poetry. There are times in the letters when the burden of being a Pasternak weighs heavily on Boris. But he comes through with Zhivago and he knows it. He was writing a second novel when he died.... ( )