Publisher's Weekly Review
In 1961, this epic WWII Russian novel about the battle of Stalingrad was seized for being ``anti-Soviet'' by the KGB; it was finally published almost 20 years after the author's death, when a dissident publisher smuggled a microfilm copy to the West. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A popular Russian author and wartime journalist, Grossman (19051964) witnessed firsthand the historical events that inspired this massive novel: the Nazi siege and Soviet defense of Stalingrad in 1942, Equally critical of Stalinism and Fascism, Grossman's lengthy manuscript met with a chilly reception from Soviet censors, even though it was submitted during the post-Cold War ""thaw."" Completed in 1960 and smuggled west years later, this powerful indictment of the modern totalitarian State wasn't published until 1980 in France, and is only now translated for the first time into English. Four generations of the extended Shaposhnikov family and their friends, scattered throughout Eastern Europe by the war, come together here to form a Tolstoyan panorama of Russian life. Their stories, varied in length and seldom overlapping, encompass a vast landscape--from Siberia to the Ukraine--and introduce characters representative of all strata of Soviet life, privileged New Class types as well as victimized peasants. One plot, for example, centers on the members of a physics institute in Moscow: the lowly laboratory assistants, the eminent Academicians, and the capricious Party functionaries. A number of other plots unfold at the Stalingrad front: generals famous from history devise and execute strategy; a fighter squadron loses two planes during a major offensive; a tank corps leads the ground attack, pushing its way towards Berlin; and a motley group of soldiers courageously defends a surrounded building. Behind enemy lines, Russian prisoners conspire in a concentration camp and Hitler himself orders the 6th army to certain defeat. On the train to the gas chamber and among the Russian prisoners at Lubyanka, Grossman juxtaposes acts of personal heroism with scenes of institutionalized hatred. Elsewhere here the kindness, generosity, and love manage to surface, survive, and at times flourish amidst the carnage and bureaucratic terror. And it's these moments, in particular, which carry along the otherwise somber narrative of events. Those who've slogged through Solzhenitsyn's historical novels will find this more rewarding and relatively easy-going, despite lots of lumpy philosophy and enough characters to fill a seven-page appendix. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Choice Review
Born in 1905 and trained in chemistry, Vasily Grossman began to publish novels and stories, typical of official literature of the day, in the mid-1930s. He served as a war correspondent during WW II and wrote two novels about the war-The People Immortal (1943) and Za prazoe delo (1952). Grossman's last novels, Forever Flowing (1972) and Life and Fate were published abroad after his death from cancer in 1964. Translator Robert Chandler observes in his excellent introduction that, like Tolstoy's War and Peace, Life and Fate evokes the life of a whole society by means of a large number of different subplots clustered around one family and contains many of Grossman's unorthodox reflections on history. Central to these reflections are the parallels drawn between Nazism and Soviet Communism. Though the novel begins where Za prazoe delo ends, the real battle portrayed is not the defense of Stalingrad but rather ``the clash between Freedom and Totalitarianism.'' Grossman's importance is that, formed by Soviet society, knowing all its levels intimately, and speaking its language, he succeeds stunningly in depicting the life of an entire age. The translation of this nearly 900-page novel into English reads smoothly and constitutes a valuable contribution to all readers. Appropriate for students, (community college through graduate) and general readers.- V. Farber, Oregon State University
Library Journal Review
Grossman (1905-64) hoped that Life and Fate (1960), the sequel to his World War II novel In a Just Cause (Za Pra voe delo, 1954; no English translation), would appear in the USSR. Even dur ing the 1960s ``thaw,'' that proved im possible. The translator compares the book to War and Peace , but it is closer to Solzhenitsyn's The First Circle in portraying a society that knows neither physical nor spiritual peace. Grossman uses one family's experiences of the months of the Stalingrad campaign to show the entire mad tapestry woven by Stalin and Hitler. Like Solzhenitsyn, he depicts laboratories, prisons, and the Soviet elite's uneasy privilege, but he also covers both sides of the front and follows Jews to the gas chambers. This sprawling, uneven novel is wrenching, and compelling in its portrait of loyal citizens who repel the Nazi invaders only to face renewed repression at home. Mary F. Zirin, Altadena, Cal. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
