A review by mandygollaher
Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

We've reached the finish line!!! It feels like my Russian lit class has been working through this book for months (and we more or less have been) and we discussed the final 100 pages today. This is a book that I never would have heard of and never would have worked my way all the way through on my own and I'm actually glad we dedicated such a big portion of our class to it. I don't typically gravitate towards or particularly enjoy World War Two fiction, but what makes 'Life and Fate' so different from any other historical fiction about the time period is the contemporary, first-hand perspective that Grossman has to the war. He was a war correspondent and a member of the Writer's Union and a lot of events in the novel are either semi-autobiographical or based on real experiences that he had during his life (insert footnote citation to Alice Nakhimovsky). The novel is bleak and pessimistic and does a phenomenal job of portrayal all of the horrors of World War too both on the part of the Germans and Stalin's regime with this HUGE narrative that sweeps across occupied Eastern Europe and Russia and focuses on like 100 different people and their experiences during the war.

There were some beautiful lines that I highlighted and I definitely think that this book could give any famous, Russian classic a run for its money. It's extremely well written and well plotted and I highly recommend reading this with a study guide/a Stalinist expert at your side.