The first Russian edition appeared in the west in 1980 after a copy was smuggled out of the Soviet Union.Īs much as I enjoyed Life and Fate, I didn’t close it wishing it was longer. The manuscript was confiscated by the Soviet authorities and remained unpublished at the time of Grossman’s death in 1964. It was a brave and, as it turned out, reckless book. Its furious commitment to exploring the uniqueness and humanity of a huge cast of characters is a powerful rebuttal to twin ideologies that regarded people primarily as members of races or classes. The book’s size is made less daunting by Grossman’s short chapters, his vivid writing and his engagement with such daring topics as the parallels between Hitler and Stalin, the Soviet penal system, Russian nationalism and official antisemitism. It centres on the members and associates of a single extended Russian family, the Shaposhnikovs, whose world is torn apart by the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. Life and Fate has weaknesses and longueurs, but when I did read it, I found it a rewarding experience.
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