Life and Fate

Life and Fate
by Vasily Grossman

Life and Fate
Our Price: $11.40
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $11.39 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


or

Book Summary Information

Author: Vasily Grossman
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Format: Import
Published: 2006-10-24
ISBN: 0099506165
Number of pages: 912
Publisher: Vintage Classics

Book Reviews of Life and Fate

Book Review: The Freedom of the Common Man
Summary: 5 Stars

Vasily Grossman's "Life and Fate" - the Awful Truth of History
02/12/09 | by Ian Malcomson | Categories: book reviews
This is one of the best fictional accounts of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-5 that I have ever read. Grossman weaves a complex story of characters based on a set of very real events that take place in the context of the Battle of Stalingrad. The reader gets to see how both sides of the Eastern Front deal with the terrible adversities, challenges, and complexities of modern warfare as they are acted out through the personal decisions and convictions of individual men and women engaged in the life-and-death struggle of war. While on the surface the struggle for control of Stalingrad becomes the political objective for both the German and the Soviet armies in late 1942, Grossman introduces a whole other drama that takes the reader inside the consciences of the common foot soldier, inmates at a POW camp, local peasants, field general involved in the seige, bureaucrats secretly planning the death of millions and the very leaders themselves. By connecting all these disparate parties together in various situations surrounding the epic battle, Grossman comes to the timely conclusion that there is no morally right position in war that reflects the general values of society. Everybody either fights to destroy or survive, and that both fascism and communism, as the governing ideologies, are both interchangeably evil. Both Stalin and Hitler are portrayed as monsters whose only purpose is to inflict pain and destruction of others in the interest of wielding power. There is no glory in an armed conflict that attempts to strip the individual of his or her right to freedom. In all this, the author does a capable job in preserving the individual against the scourge of the tyrant. That for Grossman is the real monument to human endeavour. Acts of bravery, courage, and determination are the true forces that define the fate of man's freedom, and not the mailed fist of a crackpot dictator seeking to destroy. Lots of thought-provoking dialogue in this story, which rivals anything coming out Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago" trilogy. His description of the Battle of Stalingrad is both detailed in technical terms and poignant to human emotions. This is a one-of-a-kind narrative that allows the reader to feel like he or she is a big part of the action. I found this to be a very rewarding read because it put right inside the indiviudal minds and souls of those who both witnessed and participated in this tragic event.

Summary of Life and Fate

Suppressed by the KGB, Life and Fate is a rich and vivid account of what the Second World War meant to the Soviet Union.

On its completion in 1960, Life and Fate was suppressed by the KGB. Twenty years later, the novel was smuggled out of the Soviet Union on microfilm. At the centre of this epic novel looms the battle of Stalingrad. Within a world torn apart by ideological tyranny and war, Grossman?s characters must work out their destinies. Chief among these are the members of the Shaposhnikov family ? Lyudmila, a mother destroyed by grief for her dead son; Viktor, her scientist-husband who falls victim to anti-semitism; and Yevgenia, forced to choose between her love for the courageous tank-commander Novikov and her duty to her former husband. Life and Fate is one of the great Russian novels of the 20th century, and the richest and most vivid account there is of what the Second World War meant to the Soviet Union.

Historical Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Historical Books
Pirate Latitudes: A Novel ImagePirate Latitudes: A Novel
by Michael Crichton
Harper; Published: 2009-11-24; Roughcut; Book
Best price: $2.44
Price in other shops: $27.99
The Master Butchers Singing Club: A Novel ImageThe Master Butchers Singing Club: A Novel
by Louise Erdrich
Harper Perennial; Published: 2004-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.83
Price in other shops: $13.95
The Last Witchfinder: A Novel ImageThe Last Witchfinder: A Novel
by James Morrow
William Morrow; Published: 2006-03-14; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.00
Price in other shops: $25.95
Zorro ImageZorro
by Isabel Allende
HarperAudio; Published: 2005-05-03; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $3.05
Price in other shops: $39.95
The Hot Kid: A Novel ImageThe Hot Kid: A Novel
by Elmore Leonard
William Morrow; Published: 2005-05-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $2.89
Price in other shops: $25.95
The Last Kingdom (The Saxon Chronicles Series #1) ImageThe Last Kingdom (The Saxon Chronicles Series #1)
Mass Market Paperback; Book
Bones of the Hills (Conqueror, Book 3) ImageBones of the Hills (Conqueror, Book 3)
by Conn Iggulden
Harper Collins Canada; Published: 2008; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $44.70
March ImageMarch
by Geraldine Brooks
Penguin Books; Published: 2006; Paperback; Book
Gates of Rome (Emperor 1) ImageGates of Rome (Emperor 1)
by Conn Iggulden
Harpercollins Pb; Published: 2003-09-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.80
Girl With a Pearl Earring ImageGirl With a Pearl Earring
by Tracy Chevalier
Harper Collins Audio; Published: 2002-06-17; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $86.82
Similar Books and other products
Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962 ImageMao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962
by Frank Dikötter
Walker & Company; Published: 2011-10-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.79
Price in other shops: $20.00
The Sense of an Ending (Borzoi Books) ImageThe Sense of an Ending (Borzoi Books)
by Julian Barnes
Knopf; Published: 2011-10-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.88
Price in other shops: $23.95
Every Man Dies Alone ImageEvery Man Dies Alone
by Hans Fallada
Melville House; Published: 2010-03-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.25
Price in other shops: $16.95
The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1944-1945 ImageThe End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1944-1945
by Ian Kershaw
Penguin Press HC, The; Published: 2011-09-08; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $17.01
Price in other shops: $35.00
Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943 ImageStalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943
by Antony Beevor
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1999-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.94
Price in other shops: $18.00
Leningrad: The Epic Siege of World War II, 1941-1944 ImageLeningrad: The Epic Siege of World War II, 1941-1944
by Anna Reid
Walker & Company; Published: 2011-08-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.94
Price in other shops: $30.00
The Road: Stories, Journalism, and Essays (New York Review Books Classics) ImageThe Road: Stories, Journalism, and Essays (New York Review Books Classics)
by Vasily Grossman
NYRB Classics; Published: 2010-09-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.50
Price in other shops: $15.95
Everything Flows (New York Review Books Classics) ImageEverything Flows (New York Review Books Classics)
by Vasily Grossman
NYRB Classics; Published: 2009-12-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.06
Price in other shops: $15.95
A Writer at War: A Soviet Journalist with the Red Army, 1941-1945 ImageA Writer at War: A Soviet Journalist with the Red Army, 1941-1945
by Vasily Grossman
Vintage; Published: 2007-03-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.83
Price in other shops: $15.95
Life and Fate (New York Review Books Classics) ImageLife and Fate (New York Review Books Classics)
by Vasily Grossman
NYRB Classics; Published: 2006-05-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.69
Price in other shops: $24.95