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Translated from the Russian by George Reavey
First paperback edition of the only other complete work of
fiction by the author of Dr Zhivago.
The Last Summer is set in Russia during the winter
of 1916, when the book’s central character, Serezha,
pays a visit to his married sister. Tired after a the long
journey, he falls into a restless sleep and half-remembers,
half-dreams the incidents of the last summer of peace before
the First World War, ‘when life appeared to pay heed
to individuals’.
As tutor in a wealthy, unsettled Moscow household, he focuses
his intense romanticism on Mrs Arild, the employer’s
paid companion, whilst spending his nights with the prostitute
Sashka and others.
In this evocation of Russia immediately prior to the Revolution,
the characters are subtly etched against their social backgrounds,
and Pasternak imbues the commonplace with his own intense
and poetic vision.
‘A concerto in prose’ — V.S. Pritchett
‘The prose itself is rich and telescoped, dazzling with
metaphor, and well-rendered in a sonorous American translation
by George Reavey’ — Sunday Times
‘Decidedly a masterpiece, and well deserves inclusion
in Peter Owen’s admirable series of international classics.’
— John Bayley, Spectator
Famous in Russia long before Dr Zhivago, it was BORIS
PASTERNAK’s refusal of the Nobel Prize that made him
a household name in the West. The award led to such pressure
from the government that he was forced to decline the prize
and led to his expulsion from the Writer’s Union.
Born in 1890, the son of a pianist and an artist, he had a
happy childhood and went to university in Moscow and Germany
before the turmoil of the First World War and the Revolution
forced him to work within the Soviet state. He first made
his name as a poet before the pressure of cultural conformity
forced him to move into translation and prose. The Last
Summer was originally published in 1934 as Povest
and was followed in 1958 by Dr Zhivago, his long silence
a result of a campaign against cultural non-conformity. He
died in 1960. |
