Review to follow

Book Club Oct 2024

Re-reading [b:Life and Fate|88432|Life and Fate|Vasily Grossman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320447178l/88432._SY75_.jpg|2435598] straight after [b:Stalingrad|42194293|Stalingrad|Vasily Grossman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1538834270l/42194293._SY75_.jpg|16925946] was a very intense experience. I recommend it, although I alternated with other novels to take periodic breaks from the Eastern Front. The two are recognisably halves of a single epic novel, but it is also clear why one was published before the fall of the USSR and the other was not. [b:Stalingrad|42194293|Stalingrad|Vasily Grossman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1538834270l/42194293._SY75_.jpg|16925946] depicts the Nazi invasion of the USSR, the long retreat of the Red Army, and the start of the Battle of Stalingrad. Although the translated edition includes material that was censored in the USSR, it does not critique the soviet regime and draw close parallels with Nazism to anything like the same extent as [b:Life and Fate|88432|Life and Fate|Vasily Grossman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320447178l/88432._SY75_.jpg|2435598]. To my mind, this doesn't make [b:Stalingrad|42194293|Stalingrad|Vasily Grossman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1538834270l/42194293._SY75_.jpg|16925946] a lesser novel - it is magnificent. The two are brilliantly complimentary as they cover different stages of the war on the Eastern Front. [b:Stalingrad|42194293|Stalingrad|Vasily Grossman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1538834270l/42194293._SY75_.jpg|16925946] writes of a country and regime on the defensive, trying to survive and halt the Nazi onslaught. [b:Life and Fate|88432|Life and Fate|Vasily Grossman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320447178l/88432._SY75_.jpg|2435598] shows the turning of the tide at Stalingrad in Russia's favour, when the Red Army started to push the Nazis back to Western Europe. Having examined Soviet defeat and despair in the first book, Grossman examines the dangerous undercurrents within Soviet triumphalism in the second: resurgent nationalism and anti-semitism with ideological similarity to the Nazis. [b:Life and Fate|88432|Life and Fate|Vasily Grossman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320447178l/88432._SY75_.jpg|2435598] includes vivid scenes in concentration camps, gulags, and the Lubyanka that show the worst brutalities of Hitler and Stalin's regimes. [b:Stalingrad|42194293|Stalingrad|Vasily Grossman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1538834270l/42194293._SY75_.jpg|16925946] considers the psychology of fascism that led to the Nazi invasion of the USSR, while [b:Life and Fate|88432|Life and Fate|Vasily Grossman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320447178l/88432._SY75_.jpg|2435598] analyses the psychology of totalitarianism that can be seen under both:

One of the most astonishing human traits that came to light at this time was obedience. There were cases of huge queues being formed by people awaiting execution - and it was the victims themselves who regulated the movement of these queues. There were hot summer days when people had to wait from early morning to late at night; some mothers prudently provided themselves with bread and bottles of water for their children. Millions of innocent people, knowing that they would soon be arrested, said goodbye to their nearest and dearest in advance and prepared little bundles containing spare underwear and a towel. Millions of people lived in vast camps that had not only been built by prisoners but were even guarded by them.

And it wasn't merely tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, but hundreds of millions who were obedient witnesses to this slaughter of the innocent. Nor were they merely obedient witnesses: when ordered to, they gave their support to the slaughter, voting in favour of it amid a hubbub of voices. There was something unexpected in the degree of their obedience.
[...]
What does this tell us? That a new trait has suddenly appeared in human nature? No, this obedience bears witness to a new force acting on human beings. The extreme violence of totalitarian social systems proved able to paralyse the human spirit throughout whole continents.

Grossman shows in detail how this paralysis manifests in a variety of circumstances. [b:Life and Fate|88432|Life and Fate|Vasily Grossman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320447178l/88432._SY75_.jpg|2435598] is extraordinary for its psychological insight. There are fewer battle scenes than in [b:Stalingrad|42194293|Stalingrad|Vasily Grossman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1538834270l/42194293._SY75_.jpg|16925946] and more time is spent with Viktor Shtrum, a Jewish nuclear physicist whose experiences prefigure the post-war years. He has a breakthrough in his work, is persecuted for being Jewish, reinstated after intervention from above, then pressured to sign a letter condemning Jewish doctors. His research is implicitly being supported by Stalin as it contributes to the development of Soviet atom bombs, although he is a theorist so appears barely aware of this. He was introduced in [b:Stalingrad|42194293|Stalingrad|Vasily Grossman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1538834270l/42194293._SY75_.jpg|16925946] but given much more development here. Interestingly, the introductions to the two novels, both written by the same translator in 2010 and 2020, offer different theories as to who he was based on. What a fascinating character, written with subtlety and sensitivity:

Life went on like an iceberg floating through the sea: the underwater part, gliding through the cold and darkness, supported the upper part, which reflected the wave, breathed, listened to the water splashing...
[...]
The time Viktor was bound to, spiritually and intellectually, was a terrible one, one that spared neither women nor children. It had already killed two women in his own family - and one young man, a mere boy. Often Viktor thought of two lines of Mandelstam, which he had once heard from Madyarov, a historian who was a relative of Sokolov's:

The wolfhound century leaps at my shoulders,
But I am no wolf by blood.

But this was his own time: he lived in it and would be bound to it even after his death.

By following Shtrum, Novikov, Krymov, and others, the reader sees the utter paranoia of the Soviet state and how it can turn so suddenly upon those loyal to it. Krymov, a communist true believer since 1917 who has denounced others in the past, is brutally tortured in the Lubyanka without even knowing why he has been arrested:

No, the man trampling over him was not someone alien. Krymov could see himself in this officer, could recognise in him the same Krymov who had wept with happiness over those astonishing words of the Communist Manifesto: 'Workers of the World Unite!' And this feeling of recognition was appalling.

There are many references to the 1937 purges, when thousands were sentenced to 'ten years without right of correspondence'. Only decades later did their relatives discover that this was a euphemism for being shot immediately. The most haunting chapters concern the Holocaust. The reader views the gas chambers of an unnamed concentration camp via two perspectives. The first, Obersturmbannfuhrer Liss, is given a tour:

Here you could sense the peculiar excitement which always grips builders and fitters when a new installation is about to be tested. Some labourers were washing down the floor with hoses. A middle-aged chemist in a white coat was measuring the pressure. Reineke gave orders for the door to be opened. As they entered the vast chamber with its low concrete ceiling, several of the engineers took off their hats. The floor consisted of heavy, movable slabs in metal frames; the joints between these frames were close and perfect. A mechanism operated from the control-room allowed the slabs to be raised on end and in such a way that the contents of the chamber were evacuated into a hall beneath. Here the organic matter was examined by teams of dentists who extracted any precious metals used in dental work. Next, a conveyor-belt leading to the crematoria themselves was set in motion; there the organic matter, already without thought of feeling, underwent a further process of decomposition under the action of thermal energy and was transformed into phosphate fertiliser, lime, cinders, ammoniac, and sulphurous and carbonic acid gas.

The use of 'organic matter' in this paragraph is utterly chilling. Later on, the reader enters this gas chamber a second time with Sofya Osipovna and a young boy called David. Grossman traces their every step from the wagon that brought them to the camp to the chamber where they are murdered:

High up, behind a rectangular metal grating in the wall, David saw something stir. It looked like a grey rat, but he realised it was a fan beginning to turn. He sensed a faint, rather sweet smell.
The shuffling quietened down; all you could hear were occasional screams, groans, or barely audible words. Speech was no longer of any use to people, nor was action; action is directly towards the future and there was no longer any future. When David moved his head and neck, it didn't make Sofya Levinton want to turn and see what he was looking at.

As in [b:Stalingrad|42194293|Stalingrad|Vasily Grossman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1538834270l/42194293._SY75_.jpg|16925946], Grossman seeks to make such horrors comprehensible and examines how and why they happened:

Anti-semitism is always a means rather than an end; it is a measure of the contradictions yet to be resolved. It is a mirror for the failings of individuals, social structures, and State systems. Tell me what you accuse the Jews of - I'll tell you what you are guilty of.

[b:Life and Fate|88432|Life and Fate|Vasily Grossman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320447178l/88432._SY75_.jpg|2435598] even gives the reader Stalin's point of view on the tank offensive that turned the tide in the Battle of Stalingrad. I must say, since watching The Death of Stalin several times (because it's fantastic) I always visualise Stalin, Beria, Malenkov, et al as their film counterparts. This added an edge of macabre humour to certain scenes in [b:Life and Fate|88432|Life and Fate|Vasily Grossman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320447178l/88432._SY75_.jpg|2435598] which, like the rest of Grossman's wonderful writing, is not without levity and an eye for the absurd.

I very rarely re-read books and am very glad I made an exception for [b:Life and Fate|88432|Life and Fate|Vasily Grossman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320447178l/88432._SY75_.jpg|2435598]. [b:Stalingrad|42194293|Stalingrad|Vasily Grossman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1538834270l/42194293._SY75_.jpg|16925946] gave me greater insight into the characters and provided prior context for the Battle of Stalingrad. [b:Life and Fate|88432|Life and Fate|Vasily Grossman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320447178l/88432._SY75_.jpg|2435598] is richer with it, while also standing on its own as a peerlessly humane examination of the Holocaust and Stalinism from a multiplicity of perspectives. I can only conclude by reiterating my comments on [b:Stalingrad|42194293|Stalingrad|Vasily Grossman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1538834270l/42194293._SY75_.jpg|16925946]: the scale of death and destruction caused by Hitler and Stalin is impossible to comprehend; Grossman comes closer to making it comprehensible than any other writer. Together, [b:Stalingrad|42194293|Stalingrad|Vasily Grossman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1538834270l/42194293._SY75_.jpg|16925946] and [b:Life and Fate|88432|Life and Fate|Vasily Grossman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320447178l/88432._SY75_.jpg|2435598] represent a work of genius. Reading them is an overwhelming and extraordinary experience. ( )

A profound book. Started with thinking this is another Solzenitsyn but Tolstoy emerges. Poignant and sweeping in its scope. Could have done with editing and tightening up. But some memorable passages in it. Strum's letter from his mother is truly one of the most powerful laments of the Holocaust, or the scene as a woman enters the gas chambers, with a young boy clutching her hand, as he had been separated from his family. An indictment of all totalitarian states, no matter what the ostensible philosophy it claims to undergird them, whether they be Nazism, Communism, or Marxism. ( )

Vida y destino
Vasili Grossman
Publicado: 1959 | 808 páginas
Novela Drama

«Vida y destino» consigue emocionar, conmover y perturbar al lector desde la primera línea y resiste —si no supera— la comparación con otras obras maestras como «Guerra y paz» o «Doctor Zhivago». En la batalla de Stalingrado, el ejército nazi y las tropas soviéticas escriben una de las páginas más sangrientas de la historia. Pero la historia también está hecha de pequeños retazos de vida de la gente que lucha para sobrevivir al terror del régimen estalinista y al horror del exterminio en los campos, para que la libertad no sea aplastada por el yugo del totalitarismo, para que el ser humano no pierda su capacidad de sentir y amar. En la literatura hay pocas novelas que hayan logrado transmitir esto con tanta intensidad. «Vida y destino» es una novela de guerra, una saga familiar, una novela política, una novela de amor. Es todo eso y mucho más. Vasili Grossman aspiraba quizás a cambiar el mundo con su novela, pero lo que es seguro es que «Vida y destino» le cambia la vida a quien se adentra en sus páginas.