Friday, June 13, 2014

Life and Fate, by Vasily Grossman--at Escape Into Life


Once again I must use this blog simply to steer you to my post at Escape Into Life to read my review of this great novel surrounding the events at the Battle of Stalingrad. I hesitate to call it a review--it is more an enjoinder to tackle this long work. We should not cower before a tome, as one of my friends put it in our recent discussion of The Way We Live Now.


One of the subjects Life and Fate tackles is how to keep our integrity and human freedom in the face of totalitarianism. It is interesting that in daily life, we evade, prevaricate and obscure the truth when we really have very little to lose. How hard was it, then, for those who faced prison and even death in these circumstances? If nothing else, we can all be just a little bit braver, since most of us do have that luxury.

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