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A review by mint_renegade
Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Viktor, David
i read a book, i liked the book, and now all that's left to do is record my thoughts about said book. how tedious. who cares, in the end, this will serve but a headstone on a cloud too intangible for nature to comprehend.
i read war and peace and whilst i could grasp that much of the fiction was based on fact, the distance between now and then, seemed immesurable, the history unknown to me, the aggressor's motives elusive; facts, figures, waylaid for the fantasy. with life and fate, it was more difficult to discard reality, 80 years' separation, victims and perpetrators still living; history lessons, movies, books, psychological experiments all of them intent on dissecting this phenomena, all of them asking why and how could the whole world sit by whilst millions were herded to the slaughter. knowledgeable as i was in the history of the holocaust, in all these classes, in all these readings, it never occurred to me to imagine all the minute details; all the little steps taken towards the chambers, the sign-postings. i knew of the leaders of course, but it never occurred to me, quite so viscerally, that there were people on the ground, paving the way. it never occurred to me that there were people tasked to disperse the gas, people responsible for the clean up, people looting for gold in dentures. people, people, people.
it occurred to me to look to russia , seeking to find a protagonist state to root for, but there i found only the same state of affairs. russians struggling against the shackles of a fascist regime only to rebind themselves to the shackles of a totalitarian government.
this book is timeless. how could a whole world sit by whilst millions were herded to the slaughter? for the same reason you are sitting there whilst millions are being herded to their slaughter. they sat there because they had jobs to go to, bills to pay, petty grievances to nurse, colleagues to out-do; they sat there because they had depressive states to contend with, smiles to feign, managers to impress, they sat there while history repeated itself, and you sit there, all the while history repeats itself. it doesn't matter what year it is, somewhere out there people are killing each other, for oil, for sovereignty, for supremacy, for a few more kilometres of land to call their own.
character - my main gripe with this books is the characters, and the relationships they had with each other. from the synopsis, i would be reading about he lives of the Shaposhnikov's, but right up until the end, i had trouble figuring out who was who in relation to who. at some point i stopped trying to figure it out, instead choosing to focus on the characters' whose arcs hooked me the most - lyda and her profound grief, viktor and his isolation, david, dear god david. if i were to judge this book just on these characters' chapters, it would be a 5 stars. alas, there were many other characters, i wish their interconnectedness to the main family line had been more fleshed out - 4/5
writing - lyrical at some points, straightforward in most and easy to digest - 3/5
plot - this is history, what greater plot could there be? 5/5
4.5/5
i read a book, i liked the book, and now all that's left to do is record my thoughts about said book. how tedious. who cares, in the end, this will serve but a headstone on a cloud too intangible for nature to comprehend.
i read war and peace and whilst i could grasp that much of the fiction was based on fact, the distance between now and then, seemed immesurable, the history unknown to me, the aggressor's motives elusive; facts, figures, waylaid for the fantasy. with life and fate, it was more difficult to discard reality, 80 years' separation, victims and perpetrators still living; history lessons, movies, books, psychological experiments all of them intent on dissecting this phenomena, all of them asking why and how could the whole world sit by whilst millions were herded to the slaughter. knowledgeable as i was in the history of the holocaust, in all these classes, in all these readings, it never occurred to me to imagine all the minute details; all the little steps taken towards the chambers, the sign-postings. i knew of the leaders of course, but it never occurred to me, quite so viscerally, that there were people on the ground, paving the way. it never occurred to me that there were people tasked to disperse the gas, people responsible for the clean up, people looting for gold in dentures. people, people, people.
it occurred to me to look to russia , seeking to find a protagonist state to root for, but there i found only the same state of affairs. russians struggling against the shackles of a fascist regime only to rebind themselves to the shackles of a totalitarian government.
this book is timeless. how could a whole world sit by whilst millions were herded to the slaughter? for the same reason you are sitting there whilst millions are being herded to their slaughter. they sat there because they had jobs to go to, bills to pay, petty grievances to nurse, colleagues to out-do; they sat there because they had depressive states to contend with, smiles to feign, managers to impress, they sat there while history repeated itself, and you sit there, all the while history repeats itself. it doesn't matter what year it is, somewhere out there people are killing each other, for oil, for sovereignty, for supremacy, for a few more kilometres of land to call their own.
character - my main gripe with this books is the characters, and the relationships they had with each other. from the synopsis, i would be reading about he lives of the Shaposhnikov's, but right up until the end, i had trouble figuring out who was who in relation to who. at some point i stopped trying to figure it out, instead choosing to focus on the characters' whose arcs hooked me the most - lyda and her profound grief, viktor and his isolation, david, dear god david. if i were to judge this book just on these characters' chapters, it would be a 5 stars. alas, there were many other characters, i wish their interconnectedness to the main family line had been more fleshed out - 4/5
writing - lyrical at some points, straightforward in most and easy to digest - 3/5
plot - this is history, what greater plot could there be? 5/5
4.5/5