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Life and Fate New York Review Books Classics Vasily Grossman Robert Chandler Books

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Life and Fate New York Review Books Classics Vasily Grossman Robert Chandler Books

Critics compared this book to War and Peace. I read War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy and I thought that nothing should be compared to that book. I was wrong. Life and Fate is even better than War and Peace. The book will put you right into the lives of ordinary russian families, the battle of Stalingrad, The German Concentration Camps, and the Siberian Prison Camps. This fiction book could only have been written by someone who lived through those times. Vasily Grossman's mother was killed by the Nazis and he was a war correspondent at the battle of Stalingrad. In addition he was the first reporter in the world to report on the liberation of a Nazi Death Camp. Vasily Grossman wrote this book in 1960 and he challenged the Soviet System in the strongest terms that you could imagine and in an even stronger way than Boris Paternak and Alexander Solzhenitsyn did. He also explained with deep psychological insight the feelings of ordinary Russians about their spouses, children, neighbors, the press, the local authorities, and their personal terror of any communication with Stalin.


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Life and Fate New York Review Books Classics Vasily Grossman Robert Chandler Books Reviews

This book is profound!
It is not just about the USSR. It is about relations between the person and the oppression of the totalitarian state. It is about integrity and dignity with a powerful message that it is better to honorably die for the cause than it is to live without honor. In contrast to Orwell's dystopia of 1984, the event described in the book has happened on massive scale to the millions of ordinary people. Long suppressed by KGB, this book finally reached the readers in early 1990s - manuscripts do not burn...
This is modern classic, depicting Stalin's Russia at around the time of the Great battle of Stalingrad, brilliantly told in the manner of War and Peace. The savage terror of the regime is told by one who was at the time a central and famous journalist. The Germans are almost incidental to the oppressive heirarchy of slaves who are themselves enslaved by each other within the awsome terror of Stalins personality. Treachery for personal preferment is the order. There are few winners, the soul must first be given up. The well meaning and innocent, the successful, are devoured.

Thee writing is of another order two essays remain with me, one on the indistructibilty of powerless kindness, and the other a sombre telling of the final walk of a grandmother, a spinster and a small boy into the gas chamber at Auswietz.
This is one of the greatest novels ever written. I am extremely well read and can attest that if you are willing to spend the energy on reading this book you will concur with my review. The main issue is that while there are many characters in this book it is a problem since with Russian names an individual character can be referred to by two, three or even four different names in the same paragraph or chapter. It is so complex that at the end of the book there is a "List of Chief Characters," that I believe was provided by the author himself? For me it was at about the 400 page mark that I was sucked in and hooked. This man (Grossman) is an amazing writer and chronicler of Russian/German history from the beginning of the 20th century to the end of World War II. His writing on Death, Starvation, War, Physics, Fascism, Communism, the concentration camps, the people in them as well as the major political and military players is so concise and revealing that this book will leave you a changed person when you finish reading it. It is a tough read at first but I recommend that you invest your time and energy into and I believe that you won't be disappointed.
Like all epic Russian novels, Life and Fate requires a commitment on the part of the reader. Just the number of names for each character, depending on who is speaking and their relationship to the character can be challenging. But if you persist, this novel contains some of the most memorable passages in literature. As a whole and based on the writer's deep and life-changing experience on the Russian side of WWII, it brings the fate of the average Russian during that period into sharp focus. Vasily Grossman truly believed that his novel could and would be published in the 1960's Soviet Union given the easing of totalitarianism under Nikita Kruschev, but reading it now that seems to be a naive perspective. The criticisms of the totalitarian regime contained in Life and Fate are as clear and stark as anything Solzhenitsyn ever wrote.

This is also a beautiful novel, full of love and tenderness along with an eye level perspective on what a Jew might have experience being led to their death. The contrasts are so dramatic that, like Tolstoy, it feels as though the story was torn directly from the complex fabric of life itself. It is aptly named, and I cannot quite believe it has escaped my attention after 50 years of compulsive reading. By the way, the translation was superb.
Critics compared this book to War and Peace. I read War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy and I thought that nothing should be compared to that book. I was wrong. Life and Fate is even better than War and Peace. The book will put you right into the lives of ordinary russian families, the battle of Stalingrad, The German Concentration Camps, and the Siberian Prison Camps. This fiction book could only have been written by someone who lived through those times. Vasily Grossman's mother was killed by the Nazis and he was a war correspondent at the battle of Stalingrad. In addition he was the first reporter in the world to report on the liberation of a Nazi Death Camp. Vasily Grossman wrote this book in 1960 and he challenged the Soviet System in the strongest terms that you could imagine and in an even stronger way than Boris Paternak and Alexander Solzhenitsyn did. He also explained with deep psychological insight the feelings of ordinary Russians about their spouses, children, neighbors, the press, the local authorities, and their personal terror of any communication with Stalin.