Reviews

Stalingrad by Vasily Grossman, Robert Chandler, Elizabeth Chandler

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hitchm00's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.5

hannahtosh's review against another edition

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5.0

Hailed as the 20th century equivalent Stalingrad gently nudges the feeling you get from reading War & Peace for the first time, not immediately but around the 300 page mark then absolutely wallops you in the diaphragm the last third.

It made me laugh, cry and avoid it for the best part of three days because the war manoeuvre lingo was frustrating me but I did love it, I did absolutely love it and I am so pleased I don't have to carry it around with me anymore.

And a few of my favourite quotes:

'"You're wrong. I can tell you as a surgeon that there is one truth, not two. When I cut someone's leg off, I don't know two truths. If we start pretending there are two truths, we're in trouble. And in war too - above all, when things are as bad as they are today - there is only one truth. It's a bitter truth, but it's a truth that can save us. If the Germans enter Stalingrad, you'll learn that if you chase after two truths, you won't catch either. It'll be the end of you."'

'He wanted to say dozens of things, both important and unimportant, that would have served to express not only his concern over practical matters but also his love for his family.'

'"I go over to the bookshelves you were just talking about. I say to Lenin, Chernyshevsky, and Herzen, 'Can we really not defend you? Is this really going to be the end of you?' And then I say, 'Defend us! Help us! Some kind of darkness has fallen on us."'

'"You want the Soviet people to fight against Hitler. And you also want them to remember the words, 'Workers of the World, Unite!' But the only thing that matters today is who's with us and who's against us. Your thinking's like the teachings of Christ. All very beautiful - but nobody actually lives by them. They just soak the whole earth with blood."'

'He understood that it was to her, and to her alone, that he needed to recount all he had lived through, all he had thought about during this last difficult year; he realised that he had been looking for her, and thinking about her at painful moments, because he longed for real closeness, for an end to his loneliness.'

'This mass baptism, however, was a fateful moment for Russia. This mass baptism before the terrible battle for freedom on the high cliffs of the west bank of the Volga may have been as fateful a moment in the country's history as the mass baptism carried out in Kiev a thousand years earlier, on the banks of the Dnieper. Should future historians wish to understand the turning point of this war, they need only come to this shore. They need only imagine a soldier sitting beneath this high cliff; they need only try, for a moment, to imagine the thoughts of this soldier.'

'Nevertheless, all this would pass; people would reminisce about these years and write books about this great war. Krymov looked at the wounded who had fallen by the wayside, at their grim, tormented faces, and wondered if these men would ever enter the pages of books. This was not a sight for those who wanted to clothe war in fine robes. He remembered a night-time conversation with an elderly soldier whose face he had been unable to see. They had been lying in a gully, with only a greatcoat to cover them. The writers of future books had better avoid listening to conversations like that. It was all very well for Tolstoy - he wrote his great and splendid book decades after 1812, when the pain felt in every heart had faded and only what was wise and bright was remembered.'

'Much has been written about the smells of meadows and forests, of autumn leaves, of young grass and fresh hay, of sea and river water, of hot dust and living bodies. But what about the smells of fire and smoke in wartime?

'It's not far from a man's home to the front, but it's a long way from the front to his home.

'"The bastards won't even let us have a bite to eat," said one man, looking at the earth in his mess tin, as if the Geneva Conventions forbade mortar and artillery fire during mealtimes.'

'"All deaths are stupid," said Filyashkin. "There's no clever way to get killed." If we were spared, he would recall his comrades in years to come. One quiet evening, he would feel a lump in his throat. Tears would well up in his eyes and he would say, "He was a good chief of staff. A splendid, straightforward fellow. Yes, I remember him as if it were yesterday. When the Germans attacked, he tore up some letters he kept in his pockets. It was as if he knew. And then he took out a comb and ran it over his hair, and he looked at me." But in combat the heart goes cold and stone-like, and it's best to let it stay that way. In any case, no heart can comprehend all the blood and death in battle.

'With the fragility of human life now so apparent, the value of every individual emerged more clearly than ever...Differences of age, professions and social standing - differences that so often make it difficult for people to draw close to one another - ceased to be of importance. The Stalgres workers and engineers became a single family.'