Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Life and Fate: A Novel by Vasily Grossman ISBN: 0-06-015365-2 Publisher: Harpercollins Pub. Date: 01 February, 1986 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.8 (20 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Those who ignore history are condemned to watch t.v..
Comment: This was a wonderful book if you enjoy historical fiction. It starts a little slow and is very broad in depth and characters (which makes it a little confusing at times), but if you stick with it you won't be disappointed. It's an amazing account of the Russian side of World War II, and what's even more amazing is how Grossman manages to use this as a vehicle for an even larger theme of the rise of the Soviet State. It's a topic that few people know about, outside of the old cliches of communism being bad/capitalism being good, and it's worth reading just for the value of getting an impression of what life was really like for Russians and this crucial point in their history. As horrible as World War II was for the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and others systematically liquidated by the Nazis, few people know about the similar situations going on during collectivization and the purges in Russia prior to the war. Grossman approaches this subject from the many different views of his huge cast of characters, and the reader gets a sense for not only how awful the situation was, but also how the situation was accepted and how each person was forced to deal with it in their own way. The book is amazing for it's breadth and amount of detail (which explains the 800+ pages), and the writing is philosophical and thought-provoking without being pretentious. I've read reviews that compare it to Herman Wouk's books, which I've read and greatly enjoyed, and a rough comparison might be made in terms of detail, but Life and Fate tends to bounce around a bit while a novel such as Winds of War had a more conventional structure and was slightly easier to follow. The only criticisms I could think of off-hand would be those mentioned before, the slow start and the vastness of the plot, and the ending was a little anti-climatic, but the majority of the book was definitely worth the time. It's rare to find writing of this caliber in today's novels, but if you want to read something that is difficult to put down, that is good to read and is also good for you, get this book.
Rating: 5
Summary: More on Life and Fate
Comment: A splendid novel and a fine translation. Those who would like to learn more about the novel and its author, Vasily Grossman, might wish to check the biography we published: The Bones of Berdichev: The Life and Fate of Vasily Grossman (Free Press, 1996). And for more about the Eastern Front, see a book we edited: World War 2 and the Soviet People (St. Martin's Press, 1993). Sadly, the first is out of print, and the second may be too. We are pleased so many readers share our high opinion of Grossman's novel and of the Russian achievement in defeating Nazi Germany, which Grossman chonicled as the leading Soviet frontline correspondent in the Second World War. His dispatches from Stalingrad, translated into English during the war (before he fell out of favor with the Soviet authorities), have been widely used in the West, usually without any acknowledgment of his authorship. And words he wrote are also inscribed inside the dome of the massive Soviet war memorial at Stalingrad, also without his name. It's good see that Vasily Grossman is at last getting some long overview credit and the attention of readers.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Fate of Life
Comment: Grossman has spoken to us beyond the grave. It is with a heavy, Slavic accent in the "Russian" style - huge tomes, sweeping arcs of drama, a large cast of characters, death, repression, a cry for freedom and an attempt to make sense of both the internal and external world.
Some reviewers both here and elsewhere have taken Grossman to task for suggesting that the Soviet regime was a mirror image of the Nazi state. Both were collectivist societeis, both exalted group rights over the individual, both were run by a party apparatus, Both employed terror on their own citizens and remained in power through sheer force. Germany has had to atone for her crimes many times over but the Soviet state has yet to acknowledge the murder of up to 50 million people according to the mathematician dissident Vladimir Bukovsky.
The titantic struggle between these two forces forms the basis of the book. But it is not just the battles; Grossman allows us to see the human behind the machine, the wants and needs and hopes of common people. It is impossible for anyone who has not been in battle - particularly a siege - to grasp the futility and absolute unreality of the situation. That is why the small deeds and everyday actions seem to stand out; they are subtle reminders of a time without war, normality and reason.
And in this theater of the absurd, Grossman documents the almost insane actions of the Soviet regime: The political commander's rabid focus on Marxist theory when people are starving, the wasting of human beings as mere objects, the violence and above all else, arguing Socialist theory amidst rubble, the dreary, gray, hapless lives in a totalitarain state.
There are some who can never bring themselves to criticize the Soviet regime and Marxism's utter failure in almost every field of achievement - economic, political, artistic, financial, scientific. Grossman says yes, this is all true, but what counts are the pathetic lives of the unlucky but steadfast citizens caught in the grip of madmen; this is where the real crime takes place. It ends in a silent desolation that is almost stifling.
 |
Title: Forever Flowing (European Classics) by Vasily Grossman, Thomas P. Whitney ISBN: 0810115034 Publisher: Northwestern University Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1997 List Price(USD): $21.00 |
 |
Title: Gulag : A History by ANNE APPLEBAUM ISBN: 0767900561 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 29 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
 |
Title: Stalin : The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore ISBN: 1400042305 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 13 April, 2004 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
