Life and fate
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.
Stats for nerds
12recommend
14mentions
14people
2014–2023years
86% recommend14% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- If you liked war and peace, you should check out grossman’s life and fate, it’s WWII’s version, fantastic. And blacklisted by the soviet government because critical of it.
- Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman is a fascinating of samizdat. Never published it during his lifetime, it was smuggled out of the USSR on microfilm and now its considered one of the great novels of the 20th century
- I also recommend Vasily Grossman's books. Life and Fate, Stalingrad, Everything Flows, etc. Life and Fate is one of the most powerful books I've read.
https://www.nyrb.com/products/life-and-fate?_pos=1&_sid=f10e...
- Life and Fate is a truly incredible book - readable, thought provoking and deeply moving. Wildly underappreciated.
There's also an excellent translation with light commentary of Grossman's journalistic notes and articles from the war, "A Writer At War". Something that separates him from even certain more modern commentators is an intense concern for the experience of the ordinary soldiers, not just the cut and thrust of grand strategy and leadership.
- For sure. For worldwide literature translated to English you could do a lot worse that the Complete review[1] its father site the Literary Saloon is quite good too[2]
If you know French La Republique des Livres is a good choice[3]
In Spanish there are lots of sites, but this book recommendation section from Clarin has a good selection from all over the world [4]
I really liked this site[5] in English about "post-modern" writers (Kafka, Borges,Joyce,Beckett etc), too bad it was shut down, but you can still read it on Internet archive.
Surprisingly 4chan /lit has very good taste in literature.They have several guides,for example one by origin of the work[6]
To finish I will give 7 books, very well known, but they wont always appear in, say a reddit top 100 books or whatever:
1. The tartar steppe. Dino Buzzati
2. Pedro Paramo. Juan Rulfo.
3. Life and fate.Vasily Grossman
4.Memoirs of Hadrian. Marguerite Yourcenar
5. The book of disquiet. Fernando Pessoa
6. The House of the Sleeping Beauties. Yasunari Kawabata.
7. Midaq Alley. Naguib Mahfouz
[1]http://www.complete-review.com/main/main.html [2]http://www.complete-review.com/main/main.html [3]https://larepubliquedeslivres.com/ [4]https://www.clarin.com/tema/libros-recomendados.html [5]https://web.archive.org/web/20130401045155/http://www.themod... [6]https://4chanlit.fandom.com/wiki/Recommended_Reading/Literat...
- It's interesting seeing how many of my touchstone books turn up in other people's lists. Here are some I didn't see yet:
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness. My favorite Le Guin (the Dispossessed is pretty good too). Shockingly original when it was published in 1969; the portrait of the society and culture on Gethen still feels unique. A slow burn at the beginning, but builds to a dramatic conclusion.
Patrick O'Brian, Aubrey-Maturin series. Probably the best historical fiction ever written. Rich tapestry of life during the Napoleonic Wars. Set in the Royal Navy during the Age of Sail, but that description doesn't do it justice; O'Brian's great inspiration was Jane Austen, and the focus is on characters and people, particularly the brilliantly contrasting personalities of the two main characters.
Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate. Like Tolstoy's War and Peace, but set in Russia during WWII. Explores the dark heart of the 20th century (the Battle of Stalingrad, concentration camps, the gulag) through the eyes of a wide cast of characters from different walks of life. Grossman wrote about Stalingrad from firsthand experience as a war journalist, and is able to uncover moments of hope and human kindness amid horrifying world-historical events.
Books others have already mentioned:
* Tolstoy, War and Peace and Anna Karenina. * Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita (interesting how several people mention this one; I used to think it was my own private discovery). * Neal Stephenson, especially Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle
And the obligatory Tolkien and Douglas Adams that I read and re-read as a teenager.
