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Life and Fate (Paperback)

by Vasily Grossman (Author), Robert Chandler (Author)
4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
RRP: £15.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 880 pages
  • Publisher: The Harvill Press; New edition edition (20 Jul 1995)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1860460194
  • ISBN-13: 978-1860460197
  • Product Dimensions: 21.2 x 13.4 x 5.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 100,897 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #20 in  Books > Fiction > Short Stories > War
    #27 in  Books > Fiction > Short Stories > World > Russian
    #31 in  Books > Fiction > World > Russian

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Product Description

Review

One of the finest Russian novels of the 20th century Daily Telegraph One of the great writers of the last century Observer A literary genius. His Life And Fate is rated by many as the finest Russian novel of the 20th Century Mail on Sunday One of the world's great war novels Independent on Sunday Vasily Grossman's novel is burnt in my memory, not only by its huge canvas, its meditation on tyranny, and its dazzling description of war, but also because this is the novel that made me cry - not just a few leaked tears, but a full-scale sobbing episode - in Montpellier airport... Grossman lost his mother in a concentration camp. In Life and Fate, he writes with tenderness, and pain, not only of that experience but of what it is like to survive tyranny. A classic indeed Independent One of the greatest masterpieces of the twentieth century Times Literary Supplement It is only a matter of time before Grossman is acknowledged as one of the great writers of the 20th century...Life and Fate is a book that demands to be talked about Guardian --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.


Product Description

A novel centred around the Battle of Stalingrad.

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Customer Reviews

18 Reviews
5 star:
 (17)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.9 out of 5 stars (18 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
58 of 58 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece, 11 Nov 2003
By A Customer
I was always of the view that, thanks to the PhD industry, there weren’t any neglected masterpieces out there. Life and Fate has proved me wrong. What I loved about this book was its scale, its ambition, and its earnestness. Grossman has something of passionate importance to tell the world. The book could just as easily have been entitled Good and Evil, Freedom and Slavery, or War and Peace.

Despite the book’s settings - German concentration and Russian labour camps, the Lubyanka, Stalingrad - it’s not fundamentally grim. Grossman is as interested in the nature of Good as he is of Evil. A 50 year old woman doctor ‘adopts’ a small boy as the doors of the gas chamber shut. The commander of a tank battalion spares his men by holding fire for ten minutes with Stalin breathing down his neck.. A Russian woman comforts a dying German soldier.

Grossman believed in the individual and the individual’s essential humanity. This is easy to say and seems sententious when made written down but he also believes in literature with a capital L. The task he sets himself is to create characters and settings that demonstrate this humanity.

Fabulous stuff. Be warned. Clever postmodernist novels are going to look pretty trivial after this.

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51 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptional - check out the last pages first, 7 Feb 2006
By M. Belcher (Lund, Sweden) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I can't really add much to the previous reviews, as this is an exceptional novel and truely gripping all the way through (no mean feat for nearly 900 pages). If you're familiar with other Grossman writings (e.g. his diaries) then you can see that many of the characters and situations are taken from real experiences and people that he encountered during his war reporting. To me that makes it an even better read, as whilst a novel, it is based soundly on real life.

One tip, check out the character index at the back of the book, before you start reading. Unless you're good with Russian names, it can be a bit hard to follow at first. The index (which I only discovered three quarters of the way though) really helps with identifying who is who.

No question that this is a five star book.

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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An amazingly deep and moving portrayal of Soviet society, 20 Sep 1999
By A Customer
This has to be one of the finest works of fiction I have ever had the pleasure to read. It is a collosal work depicting the struggles of a large cast of people against the backdrop of the Stalingrad conflict. The beauty of this book is how Grossman manages to include almost every aspect of Soviet society into the text. This gives his work a sense of completeness but also adds to the sense of futility; not one of the characters is left unscathed from a tragedy caused by either the war, or the state. A major attribute is Grossman's ability to make us care what happens to the individuals involved, some of whom become entrapped in Kafka-esque situations. A further help is Grossman's own philosphical insights into all the subjects he treats, including an intriguing passage in which he compares Communism to Fascism. The translation is good and the prose flows, the story is excellent and gripping. This novel is a masterpiece of human suffering and survival in a waring socilaist state.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Life and Fate captures the reality of Stalin's Russia
An awesome novel. Brilliantly constructed, written and translated, and sweeping in its wisdom and overview of the trauma of the Second World War. Read more
Published 1 month ago by ML Brayne

5.0 out of 5 stars compelling account of totalitarianism

Despite its length - and its many subplots and characters - I found this novel consistently absorbing. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Dr. Sarah A. Brown

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely brilliant
Vasily Grossman submitted his manuscript for Life and Fate in 1960 at the height of Khrushchev's post-Stalinist cultural thaw. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Leonard Fleisig

5.0 out of 5 stars Monument to the fallen heroes of Stalingrad
My gauge of a book is the degree I feel myself immersed in the tale. Vasily's prose allowed me to feel the dust and the sweat and to sense around me the hoard's of fascists... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Michael Gale

5.0 out of 5 stars Freedom!
I believe Life and Fate is one of the greatest books of the 20th century. This is a definitive account of the madness of totalitarianism filtered through the poignant and... Read more
Published 12 months ago by demola

5.0 out of 5 stars Putting the 'human' back into dehumanized
I wish to add my voice to the many fine reviews of this masterpiece.The book is certainly long,but I read it in one week. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Mr. Anthony Wilde

5.0 out of 5 stars Epic and insightful
This is an outstanding book. Epic in its ambition, it manages to completely evoke not just a place and time but to give a shattering insight into the nature of Soviet Russia... Read more
Published 19 months ago by T. William

5.0 out of 5 stars Life and Fate - A book everyone should read
I concur. This is a brilliant book and one that everyone should read. So ambitious and so successful. The themes that run throughout are complex, real, and human. Read more
Published 21 months ago by S. Rea

5.0 out of 5 stars Not Just A War Story - A Book Full of Wonders
This book is about human nature, a subject which many authors have shown to be thrust into prominence by hardship and deprivation. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Clifford

5.0 out of 5 stars Flawed masterpiece
I have now finished this book and essentially, my original view at three quarters through stands. I still give it five stars - not because it is the greatest novel since hype... Read more
Published on 10 Jul 2007 by Pillowtail

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