Vasily Grossman, Trans. by Robert Chandler and Elizabeth Chandler
RaveJacobinMovingly illustrating the tragedies of wartime Soviet society, Grossman’s epic novel is a nonetheless powerful rebuke to those who equate Nazism and those who fought against it ... a rich narrative portraying the fate of a whole society through the perspective of a single family ... From the early catastrophic defeats of 1941, Grossman builds a total picture of Soviet society around the Shaposhnikov family ... The substantial sections of the book concerning the \'Home Front\' may grate with those who care little for industrial fiction with which Grossman first cut his literary teeth; meanwhile a chapter praising Stalin’s role as commander-in-chief will be exotic for those unused to the style of high socialist realism demanded by Grossman’s censors ... Grossman’s understated yet redolent literary style is most obvious in Stalingrad when it comes to characterizing the confused, vulnerable, and isolated rather than the certain and the fanatical. Grossman’s empathetic and humanistic approach to his subjects appears...powerfully ... the translators’ excellent description of what was excised from the official editions—and why—offer a fascinating insight into the minds of Soviet censors (the unprofessionalism inherent in talk of dirty hands, thievery, and tardy commanders could be as problematic as divisive political ideas).
