Robert Chandler Volgorde van de boeken

Vasily Grossman wrote three novels about the Second World War, each offering a distinct take on what a war novel can be, and each extraordinary. A common set of characters links Stalingrad and Life and Fate, but Stalingrad is not only a moving and exciting story of desperate defense and the turning tide of war, but also a monumental memorial for the countless war dead. Life and Fate, by contrast, is a work of moral and political philosophy as well as a novel, and the deep question it explores is whether or not it is possible to behave ethically in the face of overwhelming violence. The People Immortal is something else entirely. Set during the catastrophic first months of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, this is the tale of an army battalion dispatched to slow the advancing enemy at any cost, with encirclement and annihilation its promised end. A rousing story of resistance, The People Immortal is the novel as weapon in hand.

One of Pushkin’s most thrilling prose works, Dubrovsky follows the adventures of an aristocrat-turned-brigand and his audacious scheme for revenge. It is published here with the short story Egyptian Nights. Dubrovsky is the son of a landowner whose property has been confiscated by a corrupt and malicious general. After his father dies, and his faithful servants burn his ancestral home to the ground, Dubrovsky turns to crime. But to achieve his ultimate aim of avenging his father, he must resort to subtler means than banditry. Masquerading as a French tutor, he enters the General’s house and sets about beguiling his daughter. Asking hard questions of our faith in social institutions, in particular the law, Dubrovsky displays the considerable storytelling skill of Russia’s greatest poet. Alexander Pushkin wrote lyric and narrative poems, but his masterwork is the verse novel Eugene Onegin.

Life and Fate is an epic tale of a country told through the fate of a single family, the Shaposhnikovs. As the battle of Stalingrad looms, Grossman's characters must work out their destinies in a world torn apart by ideological tyranny and war. Completed in 1960 and then confiscated by the KGB, this sweeping panorama of Soviet society remained unpublished until it was smuggled into the West in 1980, where it was hailed as a masterpiece. Librarian's Note: This is an alternative cover edition of ISBN13: 9780099506164