Life and Fate: P.1, Ch.43-71, War and Peace, ideas, the novel’s power

 1/ Life and Fate is even more closely modelled on War and Peace than I thought. 

Like Tolstoy’s book, Vasily Grossman’s book has a large canvas, painting a picture of the entire society in a particular period of history. Like Tolstoy’s book, Grossman’s book depicts a big war in which Russia’s invaded. Like Tolstoy’s book, Grossman’s book has hundreds of characters—War and Peace has 4 families (the Bolkonskys, the Rostovs, the Kuragins, and the Drubetskoys) in the centre, reviews say Life and Fate has the Shaposhnikovs in the centre though right now they also seem like supporting characters to me. 

More interestingly, Life and Fate also has some essays, interrupting the narrative—perhaps not as often, perhaps not as long as in War and Peace, I cannot say—but they are there. And within the narrative itself, Vasily Grossman often includes a line or two about fascism, totalitarianism, or human nature. 

One of the questions which bothered Tolstoy and which he explored in War and Peace was why millions of people went to war and killed each other. 

“… to us, to posterity who view the thing that happened in all its magnitude and perceive its plain and terrible meaning, these causes seem insufficient. To us it is incomprehensible that millions of Christian men killed and tortured each other either because Napoleon was ambitious or Alexander was firm, or because England’s policy was astute or the Duke of Oldenburg wronged. We cannot grasp what connection such circumstances have with the actual fact of slaughter and violence: why because the Duke was wronged, thousands of men from the other side of Europe killed and ruined the people of Smolensk and Moscow and were killed by them.” (Vol.2, P.1, ch.1)

(translated by Aylmer and Louise Maude, revised by Amy Mandelker) 

Vasily Grossman also had questions he wanted to examine in his own novel, and his questions were much more horrible. 

“… when people are to be slaughtered en masse, the local population is not immediately gripped by a bloodthirsty hatred of the old men, women and children who are to be destroyed. It is necessary to prepare the population by means of a special campaign. And in this case it is not enough to rely merely on the instinct for self-preservation; it is necessary to stir up feelings of real hatred and revulsion.

It was in such an atmosphere that the Germans carried out the extermination of the Ukrainian and Byelorussian Jews. And at an earlier date, in the same regions, Stalin himself had mobilized the fury of the masses, whipping it up to the point of frenzy during the campaigns to liquidate the kulaks as a class and during the extermination of Trotskyist–Bukharinite degenerates and saboteurs.” (P.1, ch.50)

(translated by Robert Chandler) 

These things are much more horrible to contemplate, much more difficult to understand. 

“… And it wasn’t merely tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, but hundreds of millions of people who were the obedient witnesses of this slaughter of the innocent. Nor were they merely obedient witnesses: when ordered to, they gave their support to this slaughter, voting in favour of it amid a hubbub of voices. There was something unexpected in the degree of their obedience.” (ibid.) 

Vasily Grossman doesn’t just depict the horrors of the 20th century—he raises questions and tries to find the answers. 

“The violence of a totalitarian State is so great as to be no longer a means to an end; it becomes an object of mystical worship and adoration. How else can one explain the way certain intelligent, thinking Jews declared the slaughter of the Jews to be necessary for the happiness of mankind? That in view of this they were ready to take their own children to be executed – ready to carry out the sacrifice once demanded of Abraham? How else can one explain the case of a gifted, intelligent poet, himself a peasant by birth, who with sincere conviction wrote a long poem celebrating the terrible years of suffering undergone by the peasantry, years that had swallowed up his own father, an honest and simple-hearted labourer?” (ibid.) 

He is deliberately drawing comparisons between Nazism and communism. But Life and Fate is not only about fascism or communism or the 20th century, but about the poison of ideology and the destruction of totalitarianism in general. 

“Human groupings have one main purpose: to assert everyone’s right to be different, to be special, to think, feel and live in his or her own way. People join together in order to win or defend this right. But this is where a terrible, fateful error is born: the belief that these groupings in the name of a race, a God, a party or a State are the very purpose of life and not simply a means to an end. No! The only true and lasting meaning of the struggle for life lies in the individual, in his modest peculiarities and in his right to these peculiarities.” (P.1, ch.53) 

You can tell what Vasily Grossman would think about identity politics, were he alive today. 

2/ This is Sofya Osipovna Levinton, on the way to gas chamber: 

“She realized with surprise that although the process of evolution had taken millions of years, these people had needed only a few days to revert to the state of cattle, dirty and unhappy, captive and nameless . . .” (P.1, ch.43)  

Life and Fate stirs strong emotions in the reader. 

“As she listened to people’s cries and mutterings, she realized that their heads were filled with painfully vivid images that no words could ever convey. How could these images be preserved, how could they be fixed – in case men remained alive on earth and wanted to find out what had happened?” (ibid.)

These chapters are haunting. Grossman doesn’t hold back.  

3/ One complaint I do have is that I can’t keep track of the characters very well—they’re not individualised enough.

Perhaps I’m spoilt, having read Tolstoy and Proust earlier this year. Perhaps I’m distracted by work and personal problems. But I do think that, even though a few characters stand out (such as Lyudmila, her sister Yevgenia, Lyudmila’s former husband Abarchuk, Getmanov…), the majority aren’t distinct enough: Vasily Grossman adds more details, more information over time but he has to move between different groups of people and the details aren’t striking, aren’t memorable enough so a lot of the characters, especially in the army scenes, get blurred together.

Somehow Life and Fate, despite the scope, doesn’t feel epic in the way that War and Peace is (or is it too early to say?). It feels more like a series of vignettes.

But many of the vignettes are very, very good. 

For example, in a scene, the Soviet soldiers are gleefully boasting about the Germans they have killed, and Krymov is listening:

“There was something terrible about the reports of these snipers. Krymov had always scorned lily-livered intellectuals, people like Shtrum and Yevgenia Nikolaevna who had made such a to-do over the fate of the kulaks. Referring to 1937, he had told Yevgenia: ‘There’s nothing wrong with liquidating our enemies; what’s terrible is when we shoot our own people.’

Now he felt like saying that he’d always, without the least hesitation, been ready to shoot White Guards, to exterminate Menshevik and SR scum, to liquidate the kulaks, that he had never felt the least pity for enemies of the Revolution, but that it was wrong to rejoice at the killing of German workers. There was something horrible about the way these soldiers talked – even though they knew very well what they were fighting for.” (P.1, ch.55) 

Krymov is Yevgenia’s former husband and he’s a fanatical communist. It’s an interesting moment because the soldiers only see people in terms of nationality, or side in a war, and Krymov only sees people in terms of class—neither see humanity, neither see the individual. But Grossman doesn’t comment on it, he presents the characters as they are, the way Chekhov would have done. 

The sequence about Katya, a young female radio operator entering a space full of lonely, desperate soldiers, is good. 

“She already knew who would start showing her letters and photographs tomorrow, who would look at her in silence and sigh, who would bring her a present of half a flask of water and some rusks of white bread, who would say he didn’t believe in women’s love and would never fall in love again . . . As for the bearded second lieutenant, he would probably start pawing her.” (P.1, ch.55) 

This is an interesting bit: 

“… But as [Grekov] looked at Katya’s thin little neck, at her lips, at her half-lowered eyelashes, he saw an all-too-vivid picture of a broken neck with pearly vertebrae poking out through lacerated skin, of two glassed-over, fish-like eyes, and of lips like grey, dusty rubber.

He was longing to seize hold of her, to feel her life and warmth while they were both alive, while this young being was still full of grace and charm. He thought it was just pity that made him want to embrace the girl – but does pity make your temples throb and your ears buzz?” (ibid.) 

Grekov is a captain, the “house manager” of house 6/1. 

I like the flirtation between Darensky and Alla Sergeyevna: 

“She said this very quietly, as if to let him know, or rather feel, how easily a conversation could develop between the two of them, a conversation that would send shivers up their spines, a conversation of the only kind that matters between a man and a woman.” (P.1, ch.66) 

I have no idea if and how it’s going to develop, but the episode feels very Chekhovian in its subtlety, its melancholy and inconclusiveness. 

Vasily Grossman is also very good at selecting striking images: 

“The day before, Klimov had left some dirty washing with an old woman who lived in a cellar together with her granddaughter and a goat; he had promised to come back for it later when it was ready. […] 

Klimov crawled through the ruins along paths known to him alone – only to find that the old woman’s dwelling had just been destroyed by a Russian bomb. There was nothing left of the old woman, her granddaughter or the goat – or of Klimov’s pants and shirt. All he found among the splintered beams and lumps of plaster was a kitten, covered with dirt. It was in a pitiful state, neither complaining nor asking for anything, evidently believing that life was always just a matter of noise, fire and hunger.” (P.1, ch.58) 

Or: 

“He flung his thin arms around his son’s neck. There was such pain in this plea for help, such trust, that Yershov could find only one response: he burst into tears.

Soon afterwards they visited three graves. Yershov’s mother had died during the first winter, his elder sister Anyuta during the second winter, and Marusya during the third.

[… ] That night his father told his story. He spoke calmly and quietly. What he described could only be spoken about quietly; it could never be conveyed by tears or screams.” (P.1, ch.70) 

For context, Yershov’s father was denounced as a kulak and the family was sent to the Northern Urals. 

The power of Life and Fate, I think, lies in images like these. And the way they make us feel. 

4/ Grossman’s depiction of the relationship between Viktor and Lyudmila is very good. It’s related to a thought I’ve been having recently: each of us is so wrapped up in our own problems that we cannot understand other people, and we can never know what goes on in another person’s head. 

5/ As one may expect from a Russian-language novel, Life and Fate is filled with ideas and debates.

Chapter 63 has a long debate about the Soviet system, and includes a fantastic speech from Madyarov about freedom of the press. Chapter 64, following the same conversation, turns into a debate about 19th century Russian writers and their ideas, and Madyarov makes a superb speech about Chekhov. Here’s a snippet: 

“‘… He said – and no one had said this before, not even Tolstoy – that first and foremost we are all of us human beings. Do you understand? Human beings! He said something no one in Russia had ever said. He said that first of all we are human beings – and only secondly are we bishops, Russians, shopkeepers, Tartars, workers. Do you understand? Instead of saying that people are good or bad because they are bishops or workers, Tartars or Ukrainians, instead of this he said that people are equal because they are human beings. […] Chekhov said: let’s put God – and all these grand progressive ideas – to one side. Let’s begin with man; let’s be kind and attentive to the individual man – whether he’s a bishop, a peasant, an industrial magnate, a convict in the Sakhalin Islands or a waiter in a restaurant. Let’s begin with respect, compassion and love for the individual – or we’ll never get anywhere. That’s democracy, the still unrealized democracy of the Russian people…’” (P.1, ch.64) 

Life and Fate is compared to War and Peace because of its scope, but in terms of worldview and temperament, Vasily Grossman is closer to Chekhov. 

The Soviet system is again debated in chapter 67, between a Bolshevik (Mostovskoy) and a Menshevik (Chernetsov). Grossman goes even further, not only exposing that the Soviet system has been cruel and inhuman from the very beginning (not only from Stalin’s time as many foolish people now think), but also stressing the pact with Hitler and invasion of neighbouring countries. He’s a fearless, admirable man.  

Artistically Life and Fate cannot compare to War and Peace, but it has three advantages over Tolstoy’s book. One, because it’s more recent, the ideas and debates in it are of more interest (some people would say “more relevant”, but I don’t particularly like that word). Two, Grossman was a reporter and directly saw many things he wrote about; he also openly criticised the totalitarian regime he was living under. Three, even when a novelist withholds judgment and presents the characters as they are, we can still feel their personality, and Grossman has a much more pleasant, likable personality than Tolstoy. 

6/ Just so you don’t think Life and Fate is dry as dust, here’s a passage about the steppe: 

“… the boundary between air and earth, between water and salt, has been erased. The mind of a thirsty traveller can transform this world with ease: the scorching air becomes elegant, blueish stone; the lifeless earth is filled with the gentle murmur of streams; palm trees stretch out to the horizon and the terrible sun blends with the clouds of dust to form the golden cupolas of temples and palaces . . . In a moment of exhaustion, a man can transform this sky and this earth into the world of his dreams.

But there is another, unexpected side to the steppe. It is also a noble, ancient world; a world where there are no screaming colours or harsh lines, but only a sober grey-blue melancholy that can rival the colours of a Russian forest in autumn; a world whose soft undulating hills capture the heart more surely than the peaks of the Caucasus; a world whose small, dark, ancient lakes seem to express the very essence of water more truly than seas or oceans.

Everything passes; but there is no forgetting this huge, cast-iron sun shining through the evening mist, this bitter wind laden with the scent of wormwood . . .” (P.6, ch.66)