3313130 11,1958.

Dear Helen Wolff:

Thank you for your letter of the 5th, sent the same day as the telegram.
I was interested to read the Times review and to notice the inability of the
reviewer to get through to the real reaming of the book. Of course, reviewers
as a rule are in a. professional rat and see things, a a matter of fact, in
the precise way that ZhiVago comiemns. We do not realize that even without the
pressure of a police state we tend to conform just as blindly and driectly as
groupie do in Russia. That is why those who will hail the book merely as a con-
denmation of coxmnunism will also have missed the point.

Having finished Zhiv , I reiterate my enthusiastic opinion g.~ven when
I was in the first 0 rs. hat in the eyes of conventional reviewers might
appear: to be defects-- certain clwnsimsses in the stnwture, a certain lack
of subtlety in the portraiture of 30ml} of the characters~ are not defects at
all. {mat the Times reviewer calls ”long, solid m9: rather old fashioned and
somwhat stiff" is really a quality that is part and parcel of Pasternak’s
genius, a sort of primitive freshness and ingenuity which surprised me (he is
after all a sophisticated writer if ever there was one). lot on this large
canvas he has something of Douanier Roussem, and the ms: structure of the book
with its picarosque coincidences (which are often too good to be true) ha the
fascination of 30312th very new and young, and therefore still a bit crude,
which is one of the things I was talkirg about in givim: the book a"prophetic"
quality.

I defiritely intend to mite, if I can, a long critical study on Pasternak.
His religious vienof life and of Enstory rings every possible kind of ball in
my heart. I was deeply moved by all these themes, as well as by his poems. If
you are in d'rect contact with him, by the way, you can tell him that the poem
Hamlet is one which I urflerstam perfectly. And wove all that I fully endorse
the interpretation of the typology of the Old Testament, the re..=ation of the
Red Sea and the Virgin Birth, and above all his interpretation of it. In this
I stand with him with all by heart and soul. It is the very center of my own
life and faith, and I think it ‘u to this central, key thought that we must all
be faithful in the world of our day, even at the price of life itself.

To me Christianity will remain meaningless imlesa it is a belief in God-
manhood. The center of Christianity is the Incarnation. And that means not only
that God "once" became man, but that Cod now lives in man. And it is this central
truth that Pasternak returns to with more and more force, more and more feeling,
together with its tromerdms consequence, the Resurrection.

Needless to say the tremendous, inezmaustible poetic quality of the book is
its most obvious recommendation. The images rush at the reader and refresh him
like the waves of an irmneme sea. There is always somet’xung new and splendid, whic
will make the book something to be read over and over again.

I have written to Pasternak, as I said. I have also sent him a small book.

If you happen to learn of someone going to Russia who might see him and bring
him a couple of books, I would like to send him something. Meanwhile I hope you
will keep me posted if there is any news of Mn, as I am rather worried about
what they might take it into their heads to do to him. I happen to have been
given sore Masses to say for my own intention (which is rather rare here) and so
111 an imluding Pasternak in then along with my own family of novices, and I have
asked them all to pray for him. Very sincerely yours in Christ