I love how he populates Stalingrad just as the Germans are closing in. That I think can be chalked up to the fact that he’s a novelist and not an academician.ĥ. Though it’s true, as one commentator remarks, that he does not portray the war with complete historical exactitude. Author Grossman himself spent the duraton of the conflict as a front line reporter for Red Star and he knows his particulars. These less overtly political pages include, for example, a high level of detail about the waging of the war. Between these passages, however, are some exquisite pages that’s what I’m reading for now.Ĥ. There’s one well written hagiography after another about this or that worker or soldier.

A lot of the material in this earlier novel was edited by censors. Written after Stalin’s death, under Kruschev, Life & Fate’s much more critical of the USSR and the characters are much more satisfyingly complex. If you’re going to read one Vasily Grossman book then I suggest it be Life & Fate. Halfway through now and it’s apparent that this novel doesn’t achieve Tolstoyan heights. Unfortunately the novels were published in reverse order in English translation, volume 2 ( Life & Fate) then volume 1 ( Stalingrad).ģ. Let’s see if he achieves it here, in what is essentially volume one of L&F. Vasily Grossman wants to match or excel Tolstoy’s War and Peace. However, the watermelons are said to have diuretic effects if too many are eaten at one sitting.Ģ. Along the Volga, apparently, there is an abundance of watermelon cultivation.

Stalingrad book grossman