Books, Arts & Manners: The Great Soviet Novel?

Life and Fate, by Vasily Grossman, translated by Robert Chandler (Harper & Row, 880 pp., $19.95)

This work is so impressive that we need first to put it in perspective. The translator, although apologetic about its old-fashioned style, calls Life and Fate “the true War and Peace of this century.” The noun-and-noun title, the occasional references to Tolstoy, the subject matter (the battle of Stalingrad)—all indicate that the author also had such a comparison in mind. But on that exalted level, Life and Fate doesn’t have a fair chance.

CN

About the Author

Charles Nicol

Featured Tags

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Life and Fate, by Vasily Grossman, translated by Robert Chandler (Harper & Row, 880 pp., $19.95)

This work is so impressive that we need first to put it in perspective. The translator, although apologetic about its old-fashioned style, calls Life and Fate “the true War and Peace of this century.” The noun-and-noun title, the occasional references to Tolstoy, the subject matter (the battle of Stalingrad)—all indicate that the author also had such a comparison in mind. But on that exalted level, Life and Fate doesn’t have a fair chance.