Outerwear Edit from Shopbop
To share your reaction on this item, open the Amazon app from the App Store or Google Play on your phone.
Add Prime to get Fast, Free delivery
Amazon prime logo
Buy new:
-19% $22.56
FREE delivery Saturday, January 25 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Ships from: Amazon.com
Sold by: Amazon.com
$22.56 with 19 percent savings
List Price: $27.95
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
FREE delivery Saturday, January 25 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Or Prime members get FREE delivery Wednesday, January 22. Order within 56 mins.
In Stock
$$22.56 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$22.56
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Ships from
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Returns
30-day refund/replacement
30-day refund/replacement
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
$21.43
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
Used book in good and clean conditions. Pages and cover are intact. Limited notes marks and highlighting may be present. May show signs of normal shelf wear and bends on edges. Item may be missing CDs or access codes. May include library marks. Ships directly from Amazon. Used book in good and clean conditions. Pages and cover are intact. Limited notes marks and highlighting may be present. May show signs of normal shelf wear and bends on edges. Item may be missing CDs or access codes. May include library marks. Ships directly from Amazon. See less
FREE delivery February 3 - 14 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Or fastest delivery February 3 - 12
$$22.56 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$22.56
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the authors

Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Life and Fate (New York Review Books Classics) Paperback – May 16, 2006

4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 2,429 ratings

{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$22.56","priceAmount":22.56,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"22","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"56","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"ZbZH1ST6S3uHiOj%2BXAHH6f9yEAn9GUqtaLCwjUo7womkaX44%2FnBb14gIBkDBQMoiFCIyduMES2em7Ky1%2BVByisByDql9j0OBguRxnS4%2Bx57iAjwVhz0C3YMUTwMy%2FAOx%2FsfdxGerO2U%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$21.43","priceAmount":21.43,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"21","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"43","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"ZbZH1ST6S3uHiOj%2BXAHH6f9yEAn9GUqtxHT6faapTNu%2BPOzQ8iYZ0hiSHXKstIYidePD01x8EQbduMy2jOiu3OHV2FmhNftO%2B34FvL7xCRbqjdywbtnS0l5v3xClmsZcepCYUWQu3XFd1WGfvRaVZJNcC%2BXOOyprqqzgV7BJdYGn%2F29kP2yiPBpcJX0aoEB%2F","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

A book judged so dangerous in the Soviet Union that not only the manuscript but the ribbons on which it had been typed were confiscated by the state, Life and Fate is an epic tale of World War II and a profound reckoning with the dark forces that dominated the twentieth century.

Interweaving a transfixing account of the battle of Stalingrad with the story of a single middle-class family, the Shaposhnikovs, scattered by fortune from Germany to Siberia, Vasily Grossman fashions an immense, intricately detailed tapestry depicting a time of almost unimaginable horror and even stranger hope.

Life and Fate juxtaposes bedrooms and snipers’ nests, scientific laboratories and the Gulag, taking us deep into the hearts and minds of characters ranging from a boy on his way to the gas chambers to Hitler and Stalin themselves.

This novel of unsparing realism and visionary moral intensity is one of the supreme achievements of modern Russian literature.
The%20Amazon%20Book%20Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now

Frequently bought together

This item: Life and Fate (New York Review Books Classics)
$22.56
Get it as soon as Saturday, Jan 25
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
$23.82
Get it as soon as Monday, Feb 3
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
$12.44
Get it as soon as Thursday, Feb 6
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Total price: $00
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Details
Added to Cart
spCSRF_Treatment
Some of these items ship sooner than the others.
Choose items to buy together.
Popular Highlights in this book

From the Publisher

Customer Reviews
4.6 out of 5 stars
1,093
4.6 out of 5 stars
2,429
4.4 out of 5 stars
73
4.6 out of 5 stars
253
4.8 out of 5 stars
149
Price $23.82 $22.56 $17.95 $15.95 $15.49
About this book Grossman writes with extraordinary power about the disasters of war and the ruthlessness of totalitarianism, without losing sight of the little things that are the daily currency of human existence. This is the prequel to ‘Life and Fate.’ An epic tale of World War II and a profound reckoning with the dark forces that dominated the twentieth century. This is the second half of the two part novel that begins with ‘Stalingrad.’ The most intimate of Grossman’s works, this account of his impressions of Armenia has an air of absolute spontaneity. A story of love, survival, honor, and an indictment of the totalitarian state, Grossman’s final novel centers on a former political prisoner adjusting to freedom after decades spent in Soviet camps. This collection brings together short stories, journalism, essays, and letters by Vasily Grossman, the author of 'Life and Fate,' providing new insight into the life and work of this extraordinary writer.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Life and Fate . . . has been widely hailed as one of the greatest books of the 20th century. For my money, Life and Fate is one of the greatest books, period.” —Becca Rothfeld, Jewish Currents

"Vasily Grossman is the Tolstoy of the USSR." —Martin Amis

“What better time to read 
Life and Fate, Vasily Grossman’s epic novel about the second world war, to put our current troubles into perspective? Grossman’s book, which traces the fate of the family of the brilliant physicist Viktor Shtrum at the time of the Battle of Stalingrad, records how humanity endured the monstrous evils of Nazism and Stalinism, surviving like weeds in the cracks of concrete slabs.”—John Thornhill, Financial Times

#1 on Antony Beevor's 2009  "Five Best of World War II Fiction" list (The Wall Street Journal)

“One of the greatest works of literature to come out of Russia during the 20th century, Life and Fate could be looked at as the closest thing the Second World War had to a War and Peace. An absolute sprawling and haunting masterpiece that should be on every list.” —Flavorwire

“A delightfully readable 2006 translation by Robert Chandler, this edition preserves nearly all the color of Russian sayings and dark humor while remaining a devastating portrait of Stalin's Russia. Grossman shows how Russian communism was a moral and ideological dead end, an almost exact counterpart to Hitler's Nazism that was preordained from the moment Lenin began killing his opponents instead of talking to them. . . . In the end, he leads the reader to the inescapable conclusion that Communism, like Nazism, had only one goal: power. Coming from a man who once sat in on the privileged inner circles of this government, as an acclaimed journalist and author, this is a devastating message indeed.” —Forbes

"A chronicle of the past century's two evil engines of destruction-Soviet communism and German fascism—the novel is dark yet earns its right to depression. But it depresses in the way that all genuinely great art does—through an unflinching view of the truth, which includes all the awfulness of which human beings are capable and also the splendor to which in crises they can attain. A great book, a masterpiece, Life and Fate is a book only a Russian could write." —Joseph Epstein, The Wall Street Journal

“The greatest Russian novel of the 20th century. . . . Life and Fate will continue to dazzle and inspire—as unerring a moral guide today as it was 50 years ago.” —Foreign Policy

"It's a masterpiece." —Frederic Raphael

"Grossman's depiction of Soviet citizens as they struggle to survive is magnificent. Life and Fate has been called the greatest Russian novel of the 20th Century. I agree." —Daytona Beach News

"World War II’s War and Peace. Written (mainly) from the vantage point of a Soviet Jew, this masterpiece was judged far too ambivalent in its treatment of the 'Great Patriotic War' to be published in the author’s lifetime." —Niall Ferguson, The New York Times

"Life and Fate is not only a brave and wise book; it is also written with Chekhovian subtlety." —Prospect Magazine

“[A] classic of 20th century Russian literature.” —The New York Times

“Grossman’s account of Soviet life—penal, military and civilian—is encyclopedic and unblinkered . . . enormously impressive . . . A significant addition to the great library of smuggled Russian works.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Takes its place beside The First Circle and Doctor Zhivago as a masterful evocation of the fate of Russia as it is expressed through the lives of its people.” —USA Today

“Among the most damning indictments of the Soviet system ever written.” —The Wall Street Journal

“To read Life and Fate is, among other things, to have some sense of how it feels not to be free. . . . In more ways than one, Life and Fate is a testament to the strength of character that terrorized human souls are capable of attaining. It is a noble book.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Read it, and rejoice that the 20th century has produced so thoughtful and so profound a literary humanist. The sufferings and self-revelations of these characters provide us with some of the most troubling and occasionally uplifting examinations of the human heart to be found in contemporary literature. A novel for all time.” —Washington Post Book World

“[An] extraordinarily dark portrait of Soviet society.” —David Remnick, The Washington Post

“Fascinating and powerful . . . Life and Fate does something that, as far as I know, no other novel has tried to do fully—and that is to portray believing Soviet Communists as ordinary characters, rather than as predictable embodiments of evil.” —Vogue

Life and Fate has no equals in contemporary Russian literature . . . I would go so far as to say that Grossman in Life and Fate is the first free voice of the Soviet nation.” —Commentary
 
“Vasily Grossman's novel ostensibly concerns World War II, which he covered as a Soviet war correspondent. But his true subject is the power of kindness—random, banal or heroic—to counter the numbing dehumanization of totalitarianism. . . . By the novel's end, both communism and fascism are reduced to ephemera; instinctive kindness, whatever the consequences, is what makes us human.” —Linda Grant, The Wall Street Journal blog

From the Back Cover

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.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ NYRB Classics; First edition, first printing (full number line) (May 16, 2006)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 896 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1590172019
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1590172018
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.2 x 1.82 x 7.9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 2,429 ratings

About the authors

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
2,429 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers

Customers say

Customers praise the writing quality, history, and insight into the book. They find the writing brilliant, with fine-grained particularity and evocative character sketches. The book provides an intriguing glimpse into a period of history that tends to focus exclusively on Germany and the Nazis. Readers appreciate the profound psychological insights and philosophical discussions. Many describe the story as heart wrenching, touching, and visceral. Overall, customers find the book authentic and credible. However, some feel the book is too long and slow to read.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

84 customers mention "Writing quality"66 positive18 negative

Customers praise the writing quality of the book. They find it vivid and detailed, with a humanity that captures the harshness of life under Stalin. The translation is superb, and the book is described as magnificent, moving, nuanced, and heartbreaking.

"...Although Grossman was not as polished a writer as Chekhov, he writes with a humanity and fine-grained particularity Chekhov would have admired...." Read more

"...for the narrative, and the philosophical concepts, but for the beautiful writing, as well. The two books total about 2000 pages...." Read more

"...What this novel offers is an insight into the Russian soul and into what was probably the single most important battle of the Second World War." Read more

"...This is a book with powerful messages. It is a difficult read, covering many characters and episodes, told in a linear narrative time-wise, but..." Read more

70 customers mention "History"60 positive10 negative

Customers find the book provides an interesting glimpse into a period of history that tends to focus on Germany and the Nazis. They describe it as an honest description of Soviet life from 1917 to Stalin's death. Readers appreciate the author's depiction of Stalingrad and Moscow battles as excellent. Overall, they say the book captures the entire circle of war, from the Russian battlefield soldier to the gas chambers.

"...In its explorations of suffering, understanding of history, and affirmation of the human spirit, Love and Fate has to be ranked as one of the..." Read more

"...I believe the book to be historically accurate, to a level comparable to War & Peace...." Read more

"...Both express the Russian love of homeland. Both extol the Russian defeat of an invader. And both bring the Russia of the past up close...." Read more

"The two volumes - Stalingrad and Life and Fate - are modeled on Tolstoy's War and Peace, and measure up favorably with it...." Read more

58 customers mention "Insight"58 positive0 negative

Customers find the book insightful, profound, and edifying. They appreciate its psychological and philosophical insights into the lives and fates of people during the USSR. The book provides a thoughtful glimpse into human nature, though some find it ponderous.

"...explorations of suffering, understanding of history, and affirmation of the human spirit, Love and Fate has to be ranked as one of the twentieth..." Read more

"...While there is action, there are also many profound philosophical discussions and contemplations in the novel that reveal one of Grossman's strengths..." Read more

"...This is a book with powerful messages...." Read more

"...There are some extraordinarily poignant moments, such as when Lyudmila’s son Tolya is wounded on the front and she hurries to visit him in the..." Read more

21 customers mention "Heart wrenching"18 positive3 negative

Customers find the book heart-wrenching and emotional. They say it's a touching true story that allows them to feel the pain, life, determination, culture, values, and fears of the characters. The book is described as visceral, brutal, and personal. It's well worth the anguish of horror and full of love and tenderness.

"...But what it was most of all for me was a uniquely credible and poignant chronicle of the war fought on Soviet soil in WWII, the unrelenting and..." Read more

"...This is also a beautiful novel, full of love and tenderness along with an eye level perspective on what a Jew might have experience being led to..." Read more

"...Yet the book grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go...." Read more

"...and their struggles and suffering are described with often touching intimacy...." Read more

9 customers mention "Authenticity"9 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's authenticity. They find it credible, poignant, and raw. The book is in excellent condition and a valuable read.

"...But what it was most of all for me was a uniquely credible and poignant chronicle of the war fought on Soviet soil in WWII, the unrelenting and..." Read more

"...it truly covers life and fate from a myriad of aspects and a depth of authenticity...." Read more

"...Well here it is in all its raw suffering toughness...." Read more

"...It is about integrity and dignity with a powerful message that it is better to honorably die for the cause than it is to live without honor...." Read more

25 customers mention "Character development"13 positive12 negative

Customers have mixed views on the character development. Some find it rich and well-developed, with a large cast of three-dimensional characters. Others feel the book is disjointed with too many characters, no focus on any one character, and difficult to follow with their various Russian names.

"...It is a difficult read, covering many characters and episodes, told in a linear narrative time-wise, but skipping from story to story...." Read more

"...Some of the characters are not that strong, which is inevitable with such a large cast...." Read more

"...Almost every page has brilliant descriptions and evocative character sketches. Once begun it is very difficult to put down...." Read more

"...It’s hard to keep track of all the characters, but one of the most remarkable things is how even some of the minor, intermittent players leave an..." Read more

13 customers mention "Book length"3 positive10 negative

Customers find the book too long. They say it moves slowly and is not perfect in its full 870 pages. Some readers could not read more than 5 pages without falling asleep.

"...They go on too long, probably because the author was struggling to work out his own attitudes towards these issues...." Read more

"...It is also a long book, but I like long books. I'm a slow reader and this book is taking me forever to read. The book is amazingly well written...." Read more

"...While the writing is powerful and compelling, it is not perfect in its full 870 pages...." Read more

"...The two books total about 2000 pages. It took me almost three weeks to read the two...." Read more

A History of War, Humanity and Suffering.
5 out of 5 stars
A History of War, Humanity and Suffering.
"Life and Fate" is the "War and Peace" of our time. Both are set during a time of immense peril and struggle for the Russian people, a time of heroism, sacrifice and loss."Life and Fate" is a masterpiece of sifting through the ruins of war to create a history of suffering, loss and, rarely, redemption. It's unforgettable.
Thank you for your feedback
Sorry, there was an error
Sorry we couldn't load the review

Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2006
    Vasily Grossman was a scientist, a respected novelist during the Stalin era, a Jew, a widely admired war correspondent for the Soviet army newspaper, and, in the later years of his life, a dissident writer whose works were banned by the Soviet state. He brings all of his experiences to bear in this monumental novel of Russian society under siege during World War II. The book has a sweep and power and humanity that make most other novels seem trivial by comparison.

    The book's episodic, multi-layered structure deliberately evokes Tolstoy's War and Peace. The plot revolves around the members, relatives and friends of the Shaposhnikov family. The main action centers on the battle for Stalingrad during the winter of 1942. Other locales include a Ukrainian village where thousands of Jews were slaughtered, a Russian labor camp housing the victims of Stalin's purges, a German prisoner of war camp, a Nazi concentration camp, and a Soviet institute for advanced physics.

    Theoretical physicist Viktor Shtrum is the character Grossman uses to explore the ethical and emotional difficulties of living in a totalitarian state. Viktor is devoted to the ideal of scientific truth, and understands that intellectual freedom is a necessary prerequisite for scientific discovery. Viktor resists bureaucratic control over his thought processes with a heedless egoism that is heroic on one hand, but damaging to his family, colleagues and research on the other. For Viktor, the most enervating aspect of Stalin's Russia is the fog of moral ambiguity that blankets everything: independence equals disloyalty; integrity means selfishness; courage implies anti-social recklessness. Fear of state punishment leads to a mass form of voluntary censorship. What freedoms the secret police don't crush, citizens crush within themselves.

    Grossman tried to publish this book in the early sixties during the political thaw of the Khrushchev regime. The manuscript was confiscated by the KGB, down to the carbons used to make copies. Its revelations that the USSR was complicit in the slaughter of Jews during World War II, and that Stalin's political commissars hindered the officers in charge of the Soviet armed forces subverted commonly held myths about the Great Patriotic War. The novel's ultimate heresy may have been its assertion that Stalinism and Nazism were mirror images of each other, totalitarian empires organized to suppress individual freedom in order to ensure their own perpetuation. Fortunately two copies of the novel survived, and one was smuggled to the west. Life and Fate was finally published in the 1980s, long after Grossman's death.

    This book puts Grossman in the pantheon of Russia's greatest novelists. The scenes of women and children confronting their deaths in the concentration camps rival Dostoievsky at the peak of his powers. Although Grossman was not as polished a writer as Chekhov, he writes with a humanity and fine-grained particularity Chekhov would have admired. The texture of the battle scenes is astonishing, down to the feel and smell of hunkering down in bunkers during an aerial bombardment. Life and Fate can stand up to a comparison with War and Peace. Grossman may not have Tolstoy's magical ability to make words stand in for real life, but he's a deeper social thinker. The novel's only structural flaw is in the chapters where Viktor is working out the moral implications of his work and his love life. They go on too long, probably because the author was struggling to work out his own attitudes towards these issues. To be fair, Grossman never got to do a final edit on the galleys.

    Grossman had a ringside seat during the climatic struggle between the twentieth century's most malign political monsters. He had the courage and the skill to see the story clearly, to bring back reports from the living, and to bear witness for the dead. In its explorations of suffering, understanding of history, and affirmation of the human spirit, Love and Fate has to be ranked as one of the twentieth century's greatest novels. Seldom in world literature have words been used to such powerful effect.
    39 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2024
    "Life and Fate" is the second half of a dilogy written by Vasily Grossman (Soviet author, and WW2 military reporter). I've already posted a review of his first book, "Stalingrad." First of all, I would recommend that you read "Stalingrad" before "Life and Fate." Some readers feel that you can read this book, without reading the first book. I disagree. "Life and Fate" continues the storylines, and themes of "Stalingrad". In my opinion, skipping "Stalingrad" and just reading "Life and Fate" would be the equivalent of starting The Brothers Karamazov" after the murder, or "Lord of the Rings" halfway through "The Two Towers." Not only will you miss out on events alluded to or referenced in the first book (for example, one of the last chapters of "Life" parallels and references one of the first chapters of "Stalingrad"); but you will also miss out on the changing beliefs of the characters, and the author's evolution, as well.

    "Life and Fate" is famous for being "arrested" by the Soviet government. Not only were the manuscripts confiscated, but the typewriter ribbons were, too. The book was deemed to not follow the dictates of socialist realism.

    My version of the first book, "Stalingrad", was published in 2019. The earliest published version, entitled "For a Just Cause" was an emasculated version, published in the USSR in the early 1950s while Stalin was still alive; it had the parts deemed anathema to socialist realism removed.(The 2019 version, has the offending sections, and characters, edited back in.)

    For "Life and Fate", Grossman would not remove the Soviet unapproved sections. He mistakenly believed that the Soviet censors under Khrushchev would be more open minded. The book was published years after the death of the writer. Other Soviet authors has smuggled microfilm of the text out of the country, or we would have never seen this masterpiece. And these books are masterpieces. Grossman's writing is so compelling, that you cannot not read every word. It doesn't make a difference what he's writing about: a dinner party, a military engagement (Vasily covered WW2 for a variety of Soviet newspapers and magazines), a mother's last letter to her son before she's murdered in a Nazi concentration camp, the thoughts and feelings of a young boy and an elderly doctor, as they are in line for a Nazi gas chamber, the torture and imprisonment of a former true believer in a Soviet Gulag; it all becomes real to the reader.

    "Life and Fate" follows more than a hundred characters, military and civilian, throughout the timeframe of most of the Battle of Stalingrad. While there is action, there are also many profound philosophical discussions and contemplations in the novel that reveal one of Grossman's strengths. You will read the philosophical segments with as much attention as you will the harrowing battle scenes. Reviewers of this novel have claimed that reading it changed their lives. I believe it was mostly due to the contemplative portions of the novel.

    One of the author's main themes was that there were strong parallels between national socialism, and communist socialism. Both raise the State (and certain groups) above the individual (a common characteristic of totalitarianism). One of the core discussions of the book is between the old Bolshevik, Mostovskoy, who is a prisoner in a concentration camp, and SS officer Liss. The German officer points out to the Bolshevik that "what you hate is yourselves--yourselves in us." Mostovsky will not acknowledge the parallels between the two systems (prison camps, their leaders, their delusions, their condemnation of dissenting opinions, citizens policing and reporting those that dissent, coerced confessions and apologies). Mostovskoy is discomforted because, even though he will never admit it, part of him realizes the similarities.

    Other characters who experience the abuses of totalitarian systems, in the novel, are Viktor Schtrum, a physicist who believes scientific knowledge should be shared (Grossman, who studied physics, was inspired by Soviet physicist Lev Strum, who first postulated the tachyon, and was arrested by the Soviet government); Zhenya Shapshnikova, ex-wife of Commissar Nikolay Krymov (a true believer), and Col. Pyotr Novikov (a hero of the battle of Stalingrad). I will not supply any spoilers for these characters, or the dozen others who populate, exist, and move through the narrative.

    As I read these two novels, I could see how some of these totalitarian characteristics exist in the supposed democratic countries of the world in our current time. During the Covid years, people reported on their neighbors and colleagues who they felt weren't following the rules for the collective. I personally heard a women in a restaurant bragging to her friends that she reported a bar because its patrons were only 5-1/2 feet apart. People are fired or "cancelled" for saying something deemed politically incorrect or having an "offending" opinion about certain beliefs or policies. Those same "offenders" are coerced/shamed/pressured into renouncing, and apologizing for said opinions. Hopefully, reading these novels may open up some readers eyes before we start locking people away for different, unapproved opinions.

    As you can guess, I give these two novels my highest recommendation. They are among the best literature that I've had the pleasure of reading. Not only for the narrative, and the philosophical concepts, but for the beautiful writing, as well. The two books total about 2000 pages. It took me almost three weeks to read the two. For comparison, a couple months ago, I read sixteen 400 page novels in the same amount of time. You will not want to skip one word of Grossman's masterpieces.
    9 people found this helpful
    Report

Top reviews from other countries

  • paul m
    5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece
    Reviewed in Spain on July 14, 2024
    A masterpiece made better by a seamless and readable translation by Robert Chandler. His rendering most likely makes this book even better in English than the original - not the usual direct translation from Russian making classics hard going
  • Akash Srivastava
    5.0 out of 5 stars Everyman's Library books are simply amazing.
    Reviewed in India on March 20, 2024
    This book was on my wish list for quite some time. The moment I saw it here on Amazon for Rs.776 I decided to buy it. The book is in good condition. I love books by everyman. Happy with the book. Can't wait to read it. ✌✌
    Customer image
    Akash Srivastava
    5.0 out of 5 stars Everyman's Library books are simply amazing.
    Reviewed in India on March 20, 2024
    This book was on my wish list for quite some time. The moment I saw it here on Amazon for Rs.776 I decided to buy it. The book is in good condition. I love books by everyman. Happy with the book. Can't wait to read it. ✌✌
    Images in this review
    Customer image Customer image Customer image Customer image Customer image Customer image Customer image
    Customer imageCustomer imageCustomer imageCustomer imageCustomer imageCustomer imageCustomer image
  • Pat
    5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Book I've Read, Ever
    Reviewed in Canada on August 12, 2020
    My only complaint is that it isn't long enough.
    Life and Fate has been praised as the War and Peace of the 20th century, and its message today is more timely than ever. I would say it's the best book I have ever read, even better than Tolstoy's last novel, Resurrection.
    It's a book about freedom and kindness and our right to be different at a time when liberties are under attack, cruelty is often condoned and diversity is vilified.
    Grossman saw where this can lead. In Stalin's Soviet Union almost everyone lived with the icy dread of having their number drawn in the great terror lottery. No one was immune.
    At the start of Part 3 of the novel, Krymov, the fanatically loyal battalion commissar, is ordered, out of the blue: "Hand over your weapon and your personal documents." Thus begins his irreversible descent into the Gulag.
    One reason the KGB seized Life and Fate is it equates Stalinism with fascism. (He didn't say one was worse or better, just that all totalitarianism is bad.)
    I would say the biggest difference between Stalin and Hitler is Stalin got away with it. Stalin lived happily ever after. This book details Stalin's crimes against humanity without downplaying Hitler's monstrous legacy.

    GETMANOV: Stalin?
    In my opinion Stalin appears in the novel twice -- as himself (the historical character) and as the fictional character Getmanov. Without a doubt, Getmanov is Stalin.
    Despite Grossman's courage and political naivete, there was a limit to what he could say about Stalin in the Soviet Union of the late 1950s.
    Stalin had been dead since 1953. In a closed session of the Communist Party Congress in 1956 Khrushchev had denounced Stalin and his legacy of mass murder, torture and slave labour.
    But the fact that the ruling dictator was only willing to criticize Stalin in a secret speech -- even though Stalin was dead -- speaks volumes about freedom of expression in the Soviet Union as Grossman was writing Life and Fate.
    Getmanov is by far the most hateful of the novel's fictional characters. He is a self-promoter with a fake persona. He always appears to be smiling, but inspires fear. He never misses a chance to denigrate ethnic minorities. Grossman’s Getmanov would be quite at home in Snakes in Suits, a book about psychopaths.
    The former obkom secretary, who was appointed as a military commissar to spy on senior officers, had always been considered a man of the masses. "He only had to open his mouth for people to laugh; his vivid, direct way of talking, his sometimes vulgar language quickly bridged the distance between the secretary of an obkom and a worker in overalls.”
    On the factory floor, he would present himself as "a true servant of the people, the way he was ready to attack managers." But in his office at the obkom, "his only preoccupations were the preoccupations of Moscow."
    ...
    "What was most extraordinary of all was that Getmanov always seemed to be absolutely sincere."
    ...
    "Despite the fact that he never served at the front, people said of him: 'Yes, our commissar's a true soldier.' He enjoyed holding meetings and his speeches went down well with the troops: he made lots of jokes and spoke very simply, often quite coarsely."
    ...
    "He was quick-tempered and resented it if someone answered him back.”

    STALINGRAD
    While Getmanov is the embodiment of evil, the defenders of Stalingrad embodied hope.
    Stalingrad represented a turning point in the war – dawn’s early light in a long dark night of barbarism.
    Up to that point, the Nazi tsunami seemed unstoppable. One European nation after another capitulated. Hitler penetrated Soviet defences like a hot knife through butter. Entire armies were taken prisoner. The fuhrer, the only one Stalin ever trusted, could be forgiven for believing the campaign would be over before winter (assuming he hadn't heard of Napoleon).
    To be fair, Stalingrad wasn’t the first place where the blitzkrieg didn’t go as planned. The British inspired the world by holding out amid the most destructive air raids the world had seen up to that point. And though the Nazis reached the gates of Moscow, they never really tried to take it.
    But Hitler threw massive resources into the assault on Stalingrad.
    In one of the bloodiest battles of human history, the Soviets held out for five agonizing months before finally encircling and capturing the German 6th Army. With this historic victory the Red Army began a relentless drive that pushed the Nazis out of the Soviet Union and continued to Berlin.
    According to Grossman, Stalingrad was more than a turning point in the war; it was also a turning point in the defenders’ hopes for freedom and justice after the war.
    "Nearly everyone believed that good would triumph, that honest men, who hadn't hesitated to sacrifice their lives, would be able to build a good and just life," he wrote. "This faith was all the more touching in that these men thought that they themselves would be unlikely to survive till the end of the war; indeed, they felt astonished each evening to have survived one more day."
    Grossman declared: "The soul of wartime Stalingrad was freedom."
    Instead, they got a few more years of Stalin's terror, and no break from totalitarianism after Stalin's death. A symbol of that outcome still stands today. A decade after the Nazis were beaten at Stalingrad (now called Volgograd), Grossman notes slave labour built a megaproject.
    "Here, 10 years later, was constructed a vast dam, one of the largest hydro-electric power stations in the world -- the product of the forced labour of thousands of prisoners."

    HOPE
    When Grossman died in 1964, his country – and this novel – remained in chains, and there was no light on the horizon. Grossman was the first to report on the industrial-scale genocide of the Nazi death camps. His mother was murdered by the Nazis. He'd endured Stalin's terror.
    So what hope does this witness to some of humanity’s darkest deeds offer his readers?
    It certainly isn’t religion or ideologies, which he notes have been used to justify horrific evil. One of Grossman characters, Madyarov, gives us the author's philosophy in a nutshell:
    "Chekhov said: let's put God -- and all these grand progressive ideas -- to one side. Let's begin with man; let's be kind and attentive to the individual man -- whether he's a bishop, a peasant, an industrial magnate, a convict in the Sakhalin Islands or a waiter in a restaurant. Let's begin with respect, compassion and love for the individual -- or we'll never get anywhere."
    Grossman's character Ikonnikov, the "holy fool" who is executed for refusing to help build a Nazi gas chamber, discusses how religions and ideologies have endlessly divided and subdivided people -- all in the name of a supposedly universal good overcoming evil. But "whenever we see the dawn of an eternal good ... the blood of old people and children is always shed."
    Before he is taken away to be interrogated, Ikonnikov secretly pens his philosophy.
    Where good can be found, he wrote, is in the "private kindness of one individual towards another; a petty, thoughtless kindness; an unwitnessed kindness. Something we could call senseless kindness. A kindness outside any system of social or religious good."
    ... "This kindness is senseless and wordless. It is instinctive, blind."
    In the concluding words of Ikonnikov's essay we find Grossman's message of hope: "Human history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil. It is a battle fought by a great evil struggling to crush a small kernel of human kindness. But if what is human in human beings has not been destroyed even now, then evil will never conquer."
  • Paul Parks
    5.0 out of 5 stars Life and Fate
    Reviewed in Italy on June 3, 2019
    Amazingly good book, albeit demanding to read.
  • Paul
    5.0 out of 5 stars Classic
    Reviewed in Australia on September 18, 2024
    Classic read