What I learned from Ben Hur and Doctor Zhivago
One for the Books #2
Ever finished a book and just sat there, stunned, grateful for the joy of reading?
That was my experience when I completed Ben Hur earlier this year. It follows the journey of a Jewish warrior who became a follower of Christ, told with such vividness and imagination that you grasp the forces shaping our world.
Doctor Zhivago followed shortly after, a novel seemingly describing the fate of a family in communist Russia, but with profound moral and religious undertones that complement Ben Hur's themes.
Both blend fact and fiction, delve into religion and ideology, and tell stories of sacrifice and redemption.
Here's what resonated with me.
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace (1880)
Contender for book of the year
Although I’ve never seen it, I’ve always known about the 4-hour, multiple Oscar-winning, Charlton Heston-starring film epic. I had a loose idea it was set in Roman times and followed the life of a gladiator. Or so I thought.
I was in for a surprise when I finally read the book.
This is essentially the story of the Christ, but told in a historical fiction, narrative form.
Jesus is a normal guy who does a bunch of miracles (not so normal).
The story's hero, a Jew named Ben Hur, hears of Jesus’s teachings and is compelled to follow his journey. Eventually, after seeing Jesus’s crucifixion, Hur is convinced this is the Son of God.
Hur grows up comfortably; the son of a rich merchant. But his life takes a turn when he accidentally injures the Roman minister of Judea and is sent to the galleys (now I know where the saying comes from). He is determined to survive enslavement (few people made it out of the galleys) and reunite with his mother and sister, who were mercilessly thrown in prison as well for his unintentional crime.
He eventually frees himself and exacts revenge on a treacherous friend who betrayed him to the Romans in his youth. It takes place during a crazy, climactic chariot race, where my eyes raced over the page like an Arabian horse over the desert.
Having reclaimed his standing in society, Hur aims to overthrow the Roman rulers of Judea. He sees the miracle worker Jesus as a potential ally but is left disappointed when the so-called King of the Jews doesn’t take arms against Herod - the puppet ruler put in place by the Romans.
It turns out Jesus doesn’t want to be King of Judea and speaks about a foreign concept — the kingdom of heaven, something Hur and the people on earth have a hard time comprehending.
This interweaving of fiction and scripture intrigued me the most. During Hur and Jesus’s exchange, the book compares and contrasts Judaism and Christianity. Judaism had been around for a long time when Jesus appeared on the scene. It was the first religion that believed in an invisible (therefore indestructible) God. Christianity was a v2.0 of Judaism – an update to the software.
Jesus professed a new kind of teaching with two main deviations from the Jewish script. First, an attitude of forgiveness - turning the other cheek instead of taking an eye for an eye. Second, the concept of a soul which can go to heaven, captured here by one of Hur’s counsels (which is incidentally also of the three wise men):
“A word as to the pleasure there is in the thought of a Soul in each of us. In the first place, it robs death of its terrors by making dying a change for the better, and burial but the planting of a seed from which there will spring a new life.”
Hur wrestles with these concepts and continues with his earthly ambitions to reclaim Judea.
On the day of Jesus’s crucifixion, he finally gets the message. He understands why Jesus never took up arms and understands why he had to die. Firstly, Jesus’s socialist teachings were antipathy to the capitalist society in Judea at the time. He specifically preached against accumulating wealth —
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God”.
Secondly, by not fighting back, by not using his godly powers, he was making the ultimate show of strength, the ultimate sacrifice. He would then later perform his biggest miracle — defeating death itself.
In the last few pages, I was transported into Hur’s shoes, into that moment as the darkness descended on Golgotha and the earth shook, feeling pity for the man on the cross and the people wrongly punishing him. The Biblical “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” still rang in my ears as I finished the book in a frenzy.
Thanks to
for the recommendation.Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (1957)
History is the best teacher
I’ve always wanted to read Doctor Zhivago. Unlike Ben Hur, I saw the film when I was younger, but I couldn’t recall much of it. I only remember there were trains and snow and it was set in Russia.
Apart from describing people being shipped to Siberia in freezing temperatures, this is a tale about the brutal impact of communism on society.
Yuri Zhivago, the book’s central character, gives a firsthand perspective of Russia's upheaval during the late 1910s and early 1920s. He grows up in an upper-class family and studies to become a doctor before being called up for duty in World War I.
On his return to Russia, the revolution is in full swing. The Bolsheviks led by Lenin had taken over. Zhivago agrees that the lower classes weren’t treated well under the Tsarist regime and welcomes the revolution's promise for change initially.
But he soon realizes its grim consequences.
He sees how the new order (despite its noble intentions) exacerbates societal woes, leading to widespread deprivation and suffering. Within a couple of years, there is a severe lack of food and resources. People are starving and patients can’t get medicine.
On a personal level, Zhivago feels guilty for enjoying even small episodes of joy. His family is fortunate to find and slaughter a duck for Christmas, but it pains him that others are suffering while they are feasting. Happiness is only real when shared:
“And thus it turned out that the only true life is one that resembles the life around us and drowns in it without leaving a trace, that isolated happiness is not happiness, so that duck and alcohol, when they seem to be the only ones in town, are not alcohol and a duck at all.”
To escape the harsh measures of life in Moscow, Zhivago and his family embark on an arduous train journey to the Urals, a distant backcountry, in the hope of living off the land. Contrary to this longing, his life spirals further out of control shortly after getting there.
He gets kidnapped by the Red Army, the Bolshevik military fighting the anti-communist Whites, because they need a new medic. Even though he didn’t know this at the time, and unlike Ben Hur, Zhivago would never see his family again.
A tough, sobering narrative if I’ve ever seen one.
Despite its only momentary glimpses of joy, this book contains beautiful poetry and longer philosophical sections. I particularly enjoyed Zhivago describing the internal misalignment that comes from suppressing your true feelings about something you don’t agree with (in this case, the regime they were living under):
“It's a typical modern disease. I think its causes are of a moral order. The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant, systematic duplicity. Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike and rejoice at what brings you nothing but misfortune.”
Not that I want to trivialise life in Soviet Russia, but this thought reminded me of how I felt working for a bureaucratic company when I was younger - I knew it wasn’t for me but I had to grovel until I found a new career.
Finally (and I got quite excited to see the connection to Ben Hur here), Zhivago describes why the Marxist ideology doesn’t work in our modern age. In line with Ben Hur’s explanation of the evolution of religion, Zhivago argues that while collective ideologies thrived in ancient tribes, the advent of individual identity (which evolved out of Christianity) renders communism impractical in modern society.
“The two basic ideals of modern man—without them he is unthinkable—the idea of free personality and the idea of life as sacrifice.”
Years later, Zhivago returns to Moscow, disillusioned and weary. Despite his hardships, he stays true to his principles till his dying day:
“And remember: you must never, under any circumstances, despair. To hope and to act, these are our duties in misfortune. To do nothing and to despair is to neglect our duty.”
That’s a wrap on this edition of One for the Books, a series I’d like to revisit from time to time in future. There are so many great books and so little time to read them. You can see my top 30 favourite books in One for the Books (edition #1), although I may need to make room for the two mentioned above.
As mentioned previously, if you're looking for a collection of classic literature, check out Standard Ebooks for free ebooks including works by the likes of Hemingway, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.
If you've come across any captivating reads, feel free to share them with me or leave a comment below.
Until next time - happy reading!
— John
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from time to time I will reread the opening sequence of the magi in the desert. It is a master class in written description and beauty. Your summary captured well the ultimate miracle of laying down divine power in death being the victory over dying. Thank you for your faithfulness following through on that recommendation. I hope to converse more about it with you soon!
I have seen both movies, probably a few times each, but never considered reading the original novels - until now. I am currently (re)reading The Brothers Karamozov and I’m getting so much more out of it the second time around. BTW - will you be involved in the next round of Write of Passage?