WAR AND PEACE, DR.

ZHIVAGO, and A FAREWELL TO ARMS

Halllooo everyone! We are on the last three novels in our course. Don’t forget
that the novel is considered to have emerged in the 18th century. It is an invented
prose narrative, of volume length or more, with a plot and characters which in most
cases could occur in real life.
WAR AND PEACE by Count Leo (Lev Nikolaevich) Tolstoy, (1828 – 1910)
In the novel Tolstoy makes it plain that though kings, empires, movements,
and ideas may come and go, human love, trust, and everyday domestic life are the
abiding values. The book is full of life, variety, and memorable characters. Tolstoy
stresses that “ however severe outward events may be, our center of gravity lies
within ourselves and it is our spiritual life that really matters.”
DR. ZHIVAGO by Boris Pasternak (1890 – 1960)
Dr. Zhivago is a graphic panorama of Russian life with many characters
caught in the turmoil of the Revolution, the Civil War, and the Provisional
Government, struggling to survive. Pasternak insists that the roughness of life
cannot be manipulated but has to be lived, “renewing, remaking, and transfiguring
itself.” He renounced his Nobel Prize for Literature for the sake of staying in his
homeland.
A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899 – 1961)
Hemingway’s novel, with its deserter-hero, is a study in disillusionment. It is
one of the most memorable novels to come out of World War I. His writing style is
sparse, compressed, distinguished by the use of short sentences, the colloquial
flavor in much of his descriptive work, and his use of conversation as a means of
underlining the development of his themes. In 1954, he received the Nobel Prize
for Literature.

Let’s find out now whether you have retained what you have been assigned to
read. Answer the following exercise. This is due on Friday, the 19th of March.
Please submit only one copy of your work. Don’t clutter the mail with two or more
submissions. Your first submission is the one that will be recorded. List only your
answers.
Exercise on the novels
Identify the following. Be careful with the spelling of your answers.
1. This Russian novel is full of faith and awareness of reality.
2. For this Russian novel character, death is an awakening from life.
3. The Anti-Christ, the barbarian who threatened to conquer all of Europe.
4. A lover of life, this Russian author created a facsimile of real life.
5. This book is peopled by characters of differing temperaments united in the
search for spiritual truth.
6. He exchanged his Nobel award for permission to remain in his country.
7. The governess character who couldn’t expunged her conscience-stricken
regret and sense of stain.
8. He realized that people of his class are destined for destruction.
9. For a period after 1945, his works were banned by the Soviet regime.
10. She is a daughter of a cultured family of intellectuals.
11. This Russian novel defies limitation to any particular category of fiction.
12. In this novel is a vast panorama of a whole society built out of innumerable
minute realistic details
13.This American writer erased the dividing line between journalism and
literature.
14. This novelette brought the Pulitzer Prize to the author,
15. He is a maker of a style that is tough, terse, and peculiarly American.
16. This novel was a cathartic experience for the author.
17. This female British novelist is matchless in her analysis of the pressures of
society especially on young people in love.
18. This novel is a perfect example of a social comedy based on the interaction
of love and money.
19. It is a storm-beaten house on the moors.
20.) The two worlds of passion and reason pitted against each other.
21.)
22. The most fascinating hero-villain in English fiction.
23. A naïve English surgeon and seaman who journeyed to exotic lands.
24. A race of rational, gentle horses.
25. A satirical fantasy in the form of a travel book.