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NYRB Classics (2010), Paperback, 384 pages
Description
The Road rings together short stories, journalism, essays, and letters by Vasily Grossman, the author of Life and Fate, providing new insight into the life and work of this extraordinary writer. The stories range from Grossman's first success, "In the Town of Berdichev," a piercing reckoning with the cost of war, to such haunting later works as "Mama," based on the life of a girl who was adopted at the height of the Great Terror by the head of the NKVD and packed off to an orphanage after her father's downfall. The girl grows up struggling with the discovery that the parents she cherishes in memory are part of a collective nightmare that everyone else wishes to forget. The Road also includes the complete text of Grossman's harrowing report from Treblinka, one of the first anatomies of the workings of a death camp; "The Sistine Madonna," a reflection on art and atrocity; as well as two heartbreaking letters that Grossman wrote to his mother after her death at the hands of the Nazis and carried with him for the rest of his life. Meticulously edited and presented by Robert Chandler, The Road allows us to see one of the great figures of twentieth-century literature discovering his calling both as a writer and as a man.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member labfs39
Vasily Grossman has become one of my favorite authors, thanks both to his novels and nonfiction writings. He was a journalist, born in Ukraine, and became renowned during WWII for his eyewitness reporting, including an in-the-trenches account of the fall of Stalingrad. He also wrote one of the
The first section of the book is a collection of three short stories that Grossman wrote in the 1930s. In them, you get a sense of how Grossman felt pulled in different directions: he owed his education and success as a writer to the Soviet government, but his family had felt the effects of the Terror, and being Ukrainian he had an idea of the horrific scale and effect of the 1932-33 famine there, a direct result of Stalin's policies. His stories balance social realism, the State sponsored literary style, with moral dilemmas that suggest a different point of view. For instance, "In the Town of Berdichev" a young commissar is forced to choose between her newborn baby and her comrades in the Red Army. One of the themes that is to return again and again in Grossman's stories is that of maternal love.
The second section contains two short stories and two essays from the 1940s. The first story is very Soviet in tone and is based on accounts from Russians who lived in villages occupied by the Germans. The second story is more personal. Grossman's mother had been murdered in one of the first Einsatzgruppen actions in the Ukraine in 1941, and the short story "The Old Teacher" is not only a personal reaction to his mother's death, but one of the first works of fiction published about the Holocaust. In it, an old, revered teacher tries to deal with the change in attitude of some of the villagers when the Germans move in and with the foreknowledge of his fate at the hands of the Nazis. We not only sense Grossman trying to imagine the thoughts of the Jews in situations like his mother's, but also his yearning for the love between parent and child.
The essay entitled "The Hell of Treblinka" is an incredible piece of journalism. Grossman was there with the Soviet army and interviewed as many people as he could in a short amount of time: survivors, locals, and former guards in detention. Although he got some of his numbers wrong by extrapolating based on local accounts, he accurately depicts the workings of a death camp and captures the psyche of both captives and captors to explain how it happened. It was instantly translated into other languages and was a powerful document revealing the extent of the Nazi horror to the rest of the world.
The third part of the book contains six stories from the mid to late 1950s. These stories are more daring, treading more closely the line between what was acceptable and what would get him arrested. During this time, Grossman was writing and trying to publish his novel [Life and Fate], considered his masterpiece. In 1961, the KGB confiscated the manuscript and everything related to it, even the typewriter ribbon. Fortunately, Grossman had taken precautions and had hidden copies with friends, but he never recovered from the "arrest" of his book, as he called it. He was extremely fortunate not to have been arrested along with it. According to Chandler, only one other author had his book confiscated and remained free; only one other book was considered as dangerous—[The Gulag Archipelago]. The stories from this time deal with subjects like loved ones being taken in the night, their fates unknown; a young girl adopted by Yezhov, head of the NKVD during the Great Terror, and her devotion to him even after he is executed and she is sent away (based on a true story); the reception people released from the Gulag received when they returned home; the horror of war seen through the eyes of a mule; and how people who compromised with the regime would be blackmailed into becoming accomplices.
The next section of the book includes an excerpt from [Life and Fate] known as "The Last Letter" and is thought to be the letter Grossman wished his mother had been able to write him before her death. It is heartbreaking, as are the two letters that Grossman wrote to his mother after her death and kept with him the rest of his life. One written in 1950 and the other on the twentieth anniversary of her death, the letters show the love, anguish, and guilt that is reflected so often in his fiction.
In 1961, Grossman's health declined, and he died of lung cancer in 1964. "Eternal Rest", the last essay in the collection, is about death and the struggles people had to undergo to be buried where they wished. Although it is believed to have been written in 1956, shortly after the death of his father, it was to presage the difficulty his widow had in having him buried and the controversy over whether that was where he wished to be interred.
Overall, I find Grossman's writing to be highly personal, whether he is writing about the war, the Holocaust, or fictional characters. His stories reflect the changes he underwent as a result of all that he had witnessed and experienced. If it were not so dramatic, I would say that his soul is reflected in his writing, both tarnished and sublime. He obviously felt a great deal, and even when constrained in how he could say it, he managed to convey his feelings and ideas. I admire him a great deal.
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first accounts of a Nazi death camp when the Soviet army reached Treblinka. [The Road] is a collection of stories, essays, and nonfiction pieces, including the piece on Treblinka, and depicts the different stages in his writings as he went from a patriotic Red Army journalist to a persecuted author disillusioned with Stalinsim. This NYRB publication is also valuable for the commentary by editor Robert Chandler.The first section of the book is a collection of three short stories that Grossman wrote in the 1930s. In them, you get a sense of how Grossman felt pulled in different directions: he owed his education and success as a writer to the Soviet government, but his family had felt the effects of the Terror, and being Ukrainian he had an idea of the horrific scale and effect of the 1932-33 famine there, a direct result of Stalin's policies. His stories balance social realism, the State sponsored literary style, with moral dilemmas that suggest a different point of view. For instance, "In the Town of Berdichev" a young commissar is forced to choose between her newborn baby and her comrades in the Red Army. One of the themes that is to return again and again in Grossman's stories is that of maternal love.
The second section contains two short stories and two essays from the 1940s. The first story is very Soviet in tone and is based on accounts from Russians who lived in villages occupied by the Germans. The second story is more personal. Grossman's mother had been murdered in one of the first Einsatzgruppen actions in the Ukraine in 1941, and the short story "The Old Teacher" is not only a personal reaction to his mother's death, but one of the first works of fiction published about the Holocaust. In it, an old, revered teacher tries to deal with the change in attitude of some of the villagers when the Germans move in and with the foreknowledge of his fate at the hands of the Nazis. We not only sense Grossman trying to imagine the thoughts of the Jews in situations like his mother's, but also his yearning for the love between parent and child.
The essay entitled "The Hell of Treblinka" is an incredible piece of journalism. Grossman was there with the Soviet army and interviewed as many people as he could in a short amount of time: survivors, locals, and former guards in detention. Although he got some of his numbers wrong by extrapolating based on local accounts, he accurately depicts the workings of a death camp and captures the psyche of both captives and captors to explain how it happened. It was instantly translated into other languages and was a powerful document revealing the extent of the Nazi horror to the rest of the world.
The third part of the book contains six stories from the mid to late 1950s. These stories are more daring, treading more closely the line between what was acceptable and what would get him arrested. During this time, Grossman was writing and trying to publish his novel [Life and Fate], considered his masterpiece. In 1961, the KGB confiscated the manuscript and everything related to it, even the typewriter ribbon. Fortunately, Grossman had taken precautions and had hidden copies with friends, but he never recovered from the "arrest" of his book, as he called it. He was extremely fortunate not to have been arrested along with it. According to Chandler, only one other author had his book confiscated and remained free; only one other book was considered as dangerous—[The Gulag Archipelago]. The stories from this time deal with subjects like loved ones being taken in the night, their fates unknown; a young girl adopted by Yezhov, head of the NKVD during the Great Terror, and her devotion to him even after he is executed and she is sent away (based on a true story); the reception people released from the Gulag received when they returned home; the horror of war seen through the eyes of a mule; and how people who compromised with the regime would be blackmailed into becoming accomplices.
The next section of the book includes an excerpt from [Life and Fate] known as "The Last Letter" and is thought to be the letter Grossman wished his mother had been able to write him before her death. It is heartbreaking, as are the two letters that Grossman wrote to his mother after her death and kept with him the rest of his life. One written in 1950 and the other on the twentieth anniversary of her death, the letters show the love, anguish, and guilt that is reflected so often in his fiction.
In 1961, Grossman's health declined, and he died of lung cancer in 1964. "Eternal Rest", the last essay in the collection, is about death and the struggles people had to undergo to be buried where they wished. Although it is believed to have been written in 1956, shortly after the death of his father, it was to presage the difficulty his widow had in having him buried and the controversy over whether that was where he wished to be interred.
Overall, I find Grossman's writing to be highly personal, whether he is writing about the war, the Holocaust, or fictional characters. His stories reflect the changes he underwent as a result of all that he had witnessed and experienced. If it were not so dramatic, I would say that his soul is reflected in his writing, both tarnished and sublime. He obviously felt a great deal, and even when constrained in how he could say it, he managed to convey his feelings and ideas. I admire him a great deal.
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LibraryThing member gbill
I’ll start by saying this is a beautiful collection from New York Review Books, including short stories in sections over Grossman’s life (the 1930’s, the war/shoah, and late stories), helpful notes and introductory sections, and some nice photographs as well. It’s fascinating to see
While there are some very nice stories/articles throughout, I’ll just briefly mention my favorites from each section, starting with “A Young Woman and an Old Woman”, which is touched with a philosophical theme of transience and the inevitable shifting of things in life. “The Hell of Treblinka”, written in 1944 when Grossman arrived there as a war correspondent and one of the very first publications in any language about a German concentration camp, is stunning. “The Elk” is a nuanced and layered story of terminal illness, with an old man pondering a cow elk he shot years ago, and his wife who researches the Russian revolutionaries of the 1870’s.
Grossman’s courage is inspiring. It seems he became more honest as time went on, in contrast to Isaac Babel, whom he admired, but who said in 1930 “Believe me … I’ve now learned to watch calmly as people are shot”, dumbfounding Grossman. He recognized and spoke out about the danger of the government labeling people and institutions “enemies of the people”, as well as the Holocaust denial implicit in the government’s position that “all nationalities had suffered equally under Hitler”, in part because Stalin “needed a new enemy in order to justify his continued dictatorship” (as Robert Chandler and Yury Bit-Yunan explain). These things cast an eerie shadow over what today’s populist leaders spew at their rallies and on Twitter. There is a darkness to Grossman’s writing, and the outrageous evil of Hitler and Stalin is a constant presence, but there is also great humanity and truth.
Quotes:
On books, and God, from “The Old Teacher”:
“He loved books – and books were not a barrier between him and life. His God was Life. And he learned about this God – a living, earthly, sinful God – by reading the works of both greater and lesser writers. All of them, as best they could, celebrated, justified, blamed, and cursed Man on this splendid earth.”
On memories, from “The Old Teacher”:
“During the night he went through his vast store of memories. He remembered the hundreds of people who had passed through his life. He remembered pupils and teachers, friends and enemies. He remembered books and student discussions; he remembered the cruel, unhappy love he had lived through sixty years before and which had cast a shadow over his whole life. He remembered years of wandering and years of labor. He remembered his spiritual vacillations – from a passionate, frenzied religiosity to a cold, clear atheism. He remembered heated, fanatical arguments in which no one would yield.”
On the Nazis, from “The Hell of Treblinka”, in wondering how it had happened; it makes one consider who today’s comical charlatans are:
“Somehow the embryonic traits of a racial theory that sounded simply comic when expounded by the second-rate charlatan professors or pathetic provincial theoreticians of nineteenth-century Germany … all the nonsense about the superiority of Germans to every other race on earth, all the cheap nonsense that seemed so comical, such an easy target for journalists and humorists – all this, in the course of only a few years, ceased to seem merely infantile and was transformed into a threat to mankind.”
On transience, from “A Young Woman and an Old Woman”:
“And only when she was being driven to the dacha and buildings were appearing from nowhere, then vanishing in front of her eyes, did she feel that there wasn’t really anything so extraordinary about her existence; it was just that her life too had subordinated itself to this precipitate movement, to this swiftness that took one’s breath away.”
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Grossman’s evolution from writing stories which supported the Soviet government but included small subversive truths, to all-out condemnation with his blistering honesty, damning the consequences.While there are some very nice stories/articles throughout, I’ll just briefly mention my favorites from each section, starting with “A Young Woman and an Old Woman”, which is touched with a philosophical theme of transience and the inevitable shifting of things in life. “The Hell of Treblinka”, written in 1944 when Grossman arrived there as a war correspondent and one of the very first publications in any language about a German concentration camp, is stunning. “The Elk” is a nuanced and layered story of terminal illness, with an old man pondering a cow elk he shot years ago, and his wife who researches the Russian revolutionaries of the 1870’s.
Grossman’s courage is inspiring. It seems he became more honest as time went on, in contrast to Isaac Babel, whom he admired, but who said in 1930 “Believe me … I’ve now learned to watch calmly as people are shot”, dumbfounding Grossman. He recognized and spoke out about the danger of the government labeling people and institutions “enemies of the people”, as well as the Holocaust denial implicit in the government’s position that “all nationalities had suffered equally under Hitler”, in part because Stalin “needed a new enemy in order to justify his continued dictatorship” (as Robert Chandler and Yury Bit-Yunan explain). These things cast an eerie shadow over what today’s populist leaders spew at their rallies and on Twitter. There is a darkness to Grossman’s writing, and the outrageous evil of Hitler and Stalin is a constant presence, but there is also great humanity and truth.
Quotes:
On books, and God, from “The Old Teacher”:
“He loved books – and books were not a barrier between him and life. His God was Life. And he learned about this God – a living, earthly, sinful God – by reading the works of both greater and lesser writers. All of them, as best they could, celebrated, justified, blamed, and cursed Man on this splendid earth.”
On memories, from “The Old Teacher”:
“During the night he went through his vast store of memories. He remembered the hundreds of people who had passed through his life. He remembered pupils and teachers, friends and enemies. He remembered books and student discussions; he remembered the cruel, unhappy love he had lived through sixty years before and which had cast a shadow over his whole life. He remembered years of wandering and years of labor. He remembered his spiritual vacillations – from a passionate, frenzied religiosity to a cold, clear atheism. He remembered heated, fanatical arguments in which no one would yield.”
On the Nazis, from “The Hell of Treblinka”, in wondering how it had happened; it makes one consider who today’s comical charlatans are:
“Somehow the embryonic traits of a racial theory that sounded simply comic when expounded by the second-rate charlatan professors or pathetic provincial theoreticians of nineteenth-century Germany … all the nonsense about the superiority of Germans to every other race on earth, all the cheap nonsense that seemed so comical, such an easy target for journalists and humorists – all this, in the course of only a few years, ceased to seem merely infantile and was transformed into a threat to mankind.”
On transience, from “A Young Woman and an Old Woman”:
“And only when she was being driven to the dacha and buildings were appearing from nowhere, then vanishing in front of her eyes, did she feel that there wasn’t really anything so extraordinary about her existence; it was just that her life too had subordinated itself to this precipitate movement, to this swiftness that took one’s breath away.”
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LibraryThing member lriley
Vasily Grossman's 'The road'--a collection of short stories and an essay on the Nazi death camp at Treblinka covers the length and breadth of Grossman's writing career. Generally I wasn't all that impressed with the earliers stories but in any case he seemed to have found his voice during the WWII
Having previously read 'Life and Fate' and 'Everything flows' my own take on his work can be problematic. To be honest there are at least a few of his contemporaries that I prefer to him--in particular Aksyonov and Rybakov which is not to say that Grossman isn't a very good writer but I don't think of him as great. All of these writers and a number of others like Grossman--such as Pasternak, Kuznetsov, Voinovich cover similar ground and had similar problems getting their work published and/or dealing with a repressive regime--so Grossman's problems with the state may have been unique but weren't exclusively unique. Of the works I have read I like I like 'Everything flows' the best for the way it looked at the brutality of the Stalin regime.
Whatever or whoever is innocent in Grossman's work cannot remain so without being smashed or destroyed. That seems an essential element in his work--so what is best is almost always annihilated by the reality of the world he lives and breathes in and Grossman handles these facts with an open-eyed objectivity. Always under threat from in front and behind.
In any case it is well worth reading. There are some stories that I do like quite a lot--The elk, Mama and The Dog from the post-war period particularly. These stories seem the best and it's not surprising considering that there was no more Stalin to worry about. The shackles were off and he could breathe again.
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years.Having previously read 'Life and Fate' and 'Everything flows' my own take on his work can be problematic. To be honest there are at least a few of his contemporaries that I prefer to him--in particular Aksyonov and Rybakov which is not to say that Grossman isn't a very good writer but I don't think of him as great. All of these writers and a number of others like Grossman--such as Pasternak, Kuznetsov, Voinovich cover similar ground and had similar problems getting their work published and/or dealing with a repressive regime--so Grossman's problems with the state may have been unique but weren't exclusively unique. Of the works I have read I like I like 'Everything flows' the best for the way it looked at the brutality of the Stalin regime.
Whatever or whoever is innocent in Grossman's work cannot remain so without being smashed or destroyed. That seems an essential element in his work--so what is best is almost always annihilated by the reality of the world he lives and breathes in and Grossman handles these facts with an open-eyed objectivity. Always under threat from in front and behind.
In any case it is well worth reading. There are some stories that I do like quite a lot--The elk, Mama and The Dog from the post-war period particularly. These stories seem the best and it's not surprising considering that there was no more Stalin to worry about. The shackles were off and he could breathe again.
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LibraryThing member santhony
The Road, by Vasily Grossman, is a collection of short stories written by one of the most celebrated Russian authors of the 20th century. Grossman was a journalist embedded with the Red Army during World War II, who later became something of a Soviet dissident and whose master work, Life and Fate,
Some of the stories simply touch upon the simplicity of Russian life in the first half of the 20th century, while others deal with the mindless stupidity and soul grinding nature of the Soviet bureaucracy. Some, however, written during the “Great War”, have as their primary focus the nature of the German war machine and its actions as it subjugated the Polish, Ukrainian and Russian countryside prior to the Battle of Stalingrad.
In explaining the German hierarchy of oppression in one such Ukrainian village, one character in the short story, The Old Teacher, says:
“Well it seems to me that the sufferings of the Russians and Ukrainians are so great that the time has come to demonstrate that there is a fate still more awful, still more terrible. The Germans will say, ‘Don’t grumble! Be happy and proud, be glad that you are not Jews! It’s not a matter of elemental hatred. It’s simple arithmetic- the simple arithmetic of brutality.”
In The Hell of Treblinka, Grossman sets out the single best description and explanation for what happened in a Nazi concentration camp that I have ever encountered. He does so by providing examples, examples of what occurred to the hundreds of thousands of men, women and children condemned to an experience so utterly horrifying as to defy imagination. It is a simple matter to write and comprehend that “near a million people were transported to Treblinka, gassed and cremated”. It is another to read:
“The SS singled out for particular torment those who had participated in the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto. The women and children were taken not to the gas chambers but to where the corpses were being burned. Mothers crazed with horror were forced to lead their children onto the red-hot grid where thousands of dead bodies were writhing in the flames and smoke, where corpses tossed and turned as if they had come back to life again, where the bellies of women who had been pregnant burst from the heat and babies killed before birth were burned in open wombs.... The children clung to their mothers and shrieked, ‘Mama, what are they going to do to us? Are they going to burn us?’ Not even Dante, in his Hell, saw scenes like this.”
Having read Life and Fate, dispatches from Grossman’s time as a Soviet War correspondent and The Road, I can place Vasily Grossman in the pantheon of the greatest writers of the 20th century, if not ever.
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examined the harsh repression of Soviet Communism through the prism of the siege of Stalingrad.Some of the stories simply touch upon the simplicity of Russian life in the first half of the 20th century, while others deal with the mindless stupidity and soul grinding nature of the Soviet bureaucracy. Some, however, written during the “Great War”, have as their primary focus the nature of the German war machine and its actions as it subjugated the Polish, Ukrainian and Russian countryside prior to the Battle of Stalingrad.
In explaining the German hierarchy of oppression in one such Ukrainian village, one character in the short story, The Old Teacher, says:
“Well it seems to me that the sufferings of the Russians and Ukrainians are so great that the time has come to demonstrate that there is a fate still more awful, still more terrible. The Germans will say, ‘Don’t grumble! Be happy and proud, be glad that you are not Jews! It’s not a matter of elemental hatred. It’s simple arithmetic- the simple arithmetic of brutality.”
In The Hell of Treblinka, Grossman sets out the single best description and explanation for what happened in a Nazi concentration camp that I have ever encountered. He does so by providing examples, examples of what occurred to the hundreds of thousands of men, women and children condemned to an experience so utterly horrifying as to defy imagination. It is a simple matter to write and comprehend that “near a million people were transported to Treblinka, gassed and cremated”. It is another to read:
“The SS singled out for particular torment those who had participated in the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto. The women and children were taken not to the gas chambers but to where the corpses were being burned. Mothers crazed with horror were forced to lead their children onto the red-hot grid where thousands of dead bodies were writhing in the flames and smoke, where corpses tossed and turned as if they had come back to life again, where the bellies of women who had been pregnant burst from the heat and babies killed before birth were burned in open wombs.... The children clung to their mothers and shrieked, ‘Mama, what are they going to do to us? Are they going to burn us?’ Not even Dante, in his Hell, saw scenes like this.”
Having read Life and Fate, dispatches from Grossman’s time as a Soviet War correspondent and The Road, I can place Vasily Grossman in the pantheon of the greatest writers of the 20th century, if not ever.
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LibraryThing member languagehat
The Road is a stunning collection (and bless NYRB Books for making so much important Russian literature available in English). It ranges from Grossman's first published story, the unforgettable "In the Town of Berdichev" (made into the 1966 movie Komissar, which was shelved for over twenty years),
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through his WWII reporting (he was one of the first to report on the German concentration camps in "The Hell of Treblinka") to his daring late stories; it also includes a selection of letters, and has the superb notes one expects from Robert Chandler (the main translator). If you've read his famous novels, you'll want to get this as well; if you haven't, this will give you an appetite for them. Grossman should be much better known than he is. Show Less
LibraryThing member Stbalbach
The Road is a collection of short stories by Jewish Russian author Vasily Grossman. He is best known for long epic novels like Life and Fate so this is a good short introduction to his writing. He mainly wrote about World War II and the stories are typically heavy and dark. However they are not
The most powerful piece is "The Hell of Treblinka", which is more non-fiction, it was one of the first published works to describe the Holocaust and remains a classic, the imagery will become a part of your Holocaust experience. Other good stories include "The Road", told from the perspective of a mule (the animal) on the Eastern Front and "The Old Teacher", a powerful re-imagining of the cleansing of Jews from a Russian village. "In Kislovodsk" was published in The New Yorker a few years ago and is a haunting story about a Russian doctor ordered by the Germans to poison wounded Russian POWs.
There is a lot of extra material in the New York Review of Books edition, including lengthy introductions to each section, biographical, time-lines, even copies of personal letters, it's well done and exemplary. I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in WWII-era Russian writers, Jewish literature, Holocaust studies.
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hopeless, there is always a sense of right and wrong and evil exposed, so you are left feeling upright, if not good, at least somewhat satisfied.The most powerful piece is "The Hell of Treblinka", which is more non-fiction, it was one of the first published works to describe the Holocaust and remains a classic, the imagery will become a part of your Holocaust experience. Other good stories include "The Road", told from the perspective of a mule (the animal) on the Eastern Front and "The Old Teacher", a powerful re-imagining of the cleansing of Jews from a Russian village. "In Kislovodsk" was published in The New Yorker a few years ago and is a haunting story about a Russian doctor ordered by the Germans to poison wounded Russian POWs.
There is a lot of extra material in the New York Review of Books edition, including lengthy introductions to each section, biographical, time-lines, even copies of personal letters, it's well done and exemplary. I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in WWII-era Russian writers, Jewish literature, Holocaust studies.
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LibraryThing member fredbacon
Vasily Grossman is often acclaimed as the Leo Tolstoy of the Soviet Union. The comparison is rather superficial in that it seems to be based on a perceived correspondence between their two masterpieces, Tolstoy's War and Peace and Grossman's Life and Fate. Aside from the fact that both books are
To me, Grossman has always seemed more like Somerset Maugham. His tales are simple, yet carefully constructed. He reveals the inner workings of his characters through their outward behavior. Grossman's journalistic background is always on display. He meticulously records the world around him. His art is in the precise selection of an act or moment that will momentarily shine a light through the tiniest of cracks in his characters' armor to reveal the inner workings of their hearts.
The Road is a collection of some of Grossman's short works of fiction and nonfiction essays selected from different periods of his life. The center piece of the book is a new translation of Grossman's article "The Hell of Treblinka" which restores some content missing from previous translations. Even if you have read Treblinka before, say in Antony Beevor's A Writer at War, it is worth having the book for this translation alone. Restored are subtle jabs at Great Britain and America. Grossman, like most Russians, felt that too much of the burden of war was left for the Soviet Army to fight. Clearly he seemed to feel that western dawdling contributed to the size of the catastrophe that befell the Polish and Russian Jews.
Grossman's writing career stretched from the early 1930s into the early 1960s--from Stalin and the collectivization until Krushchev and the Thaw. The stories and essays in this book span those tumultuous years, beginning with his first published story, "In the Town of Berdichev," and ending with his late life ruminations on cemetaries and Soviet life. Berdichev, set during the Civil War years of 1920-21, tells the story of a manish Red Cavalry woman, Vavilova, who finds herself pregnant without a husband. (The father had died in an earlier battle.) Circumstances require that she spend several weeks in the town of Berdichev while she waits to have the child.
Grossman builds a beautifully crafted story around the contrasting lives of the rustic Jewish residents of Berdichev and the devoted proletarian soldier from Moscow. Vavilov briefly inhabits a seductive world as alien to her as another planet. In the end, however, her sense of purpose wins out.
As good as Berdichev is, it is Grossman's story "The Old Teacher" that will hit you the hardest. Written during the war, "The Old Teacher" is his first attempt at coming to grips with the fate of the Ukrainian Jews under the German occupation. There are strong echos of this story in Life and Fate, but the power of this version stands on its own.
The weakest portion of the book are some of the late stories. While Grossman was penning his greatest novels, some of his shorter works sank into a maudlin sentimentality. The stories of an Italian donkey and Moscow dog are still skillfully told, but they seem almost a retreat by an old man from a life too difficult to face.
There is much to like in The Road. Any fan of Grossman will want to have a copy for their shelves, but the book is uneven. With luck, this will not be the end of translations of his works into English. Let's hope that some of his earlier works will make it to these shores.
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massive and deal with an invasion of Russia, the two men and their books are very different.To me, Grossman has always seemed more like Somerset Maugham. His tales are simple, yet carefully constructed. He reveals the inner workings of his characters through their outward behavior. Grossman's journalistic background is always on display. He meticulously records the world around him. His art is in the precise selection of an act or moment that will momentarily shine a light through the tiniest of cracks in his characters' armor to reveal the inner workings of their hearts.
The Road is a collection of some of Grossman's short works of fiction and nonfiction essays selected from different periods of his life. The center piece of the book is a new translation of Grossman's article "The Hell of Treblinka" which restores some content missing from previous translations. Even if you have read Treblinka before, say in Antony Beevor's A Writer at War, it is worth having the book for this translation alone. Restored are subtle jabs at Great Britain and America. Grossman, like most Russians, felt that too much of the burden of war was left for the Soviet Army to fight. Clearly he seemed to feel that western dawdling contributed to the size of the catastrophe that befell the Polish and Russian Jews.
Grossman's writing career stretched from the early 1930s into the early 1960s--from Stalin and the collectivization until Krushchev and the Thaw. The stories and essays in this book span those tumultuous years, beginning with his first published story, "In the Town of Berdichev," and ending with his late life ruminations on cemetaries and Soviet life. Berdichev, set during the Civil War years of 1920-21, tells the story of a manish Red Cavalry woman, Vavilova, who finds herself pregnant without a husband. (The father had died in an earlier battle.) Circumstances require that she spend several weeks in the town of Berdichev while she waits to have the child.
Grossman builds a beautifully crafted story around the contrasting lives of the rustic Jewish residents of Berdichev and the devoted proletarian soldier from Moscow. Vavilov briefly inhabits a seductive world as alien to her as another planet. In the end, however, her sense of purpose wins out.
As good as Berdichev is, it is Grossman's story "The Old Teacher" that will hit you the hardest. Written during the war, "The Old Teacher" is his first attempt at coming to grips with the fate of the Ukrainian Jews under the German occupation. There are strong echos of this story in Life and Fate, but the power of this version stands on its own.
The weakest portion of the book are some of the late stories. While Grossman was penning his greatest novels, some of his shorter works sank into a maudlin sentimentality. The stories of an Italian donkey and Moscow dog are still skillfully told, but they seem almost a retreat by an old man from a life too difficult to face.
There is much to like in The Road. Any fan of Grossman will want to have a copy for their shelves, but the book is uneven. With luck, this will not be the end of translations of his works into English. Let's hope that some of his earlier works will make it to these shores.
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LibraryThing member yhaduong
Having just finished Grossman's epic tale, Life and Fate, I enjoyed reading this series of shorter tales and journalistic pieces. His skill at crafting simple narratives and straightforward descriptions remains consistent. Grossman's voice as he depicts so many diverse peoples and backgrounds feels
For the less erudite reader, Grossman is less well known than the standard Russian "greats" so it is a wonderful thing that the New York Review Books Classics is bringing more of his work to light.
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unerringly accurate and without pretense. I particularly love his ability to bring humanity to every person, despite their moral situation.For the less erudite reader, Grossman is less well known than the standard Russian "greats" so it is a wonderful thing that the New York Review Books Classics is bringing more of his work to light.
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LibraryThing member technodiabla
I really enjoyed this compilation. The biographical-historical information before each section adds great context to Grossman's works. Having only read Life and Fate previously, I found his short stories simple, yet moving. I also found the journalistic accounts-- like "The Hell of Treblinka"--
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really added something to the whole package (though they are not for the faint of heart). I hope to read more of Grossman's work in the future. Show Less
LibraryThing member ateolf
This is a very good collection of works, especially from a biographical point of view. The editing is well-done and puts a lot of perspective on Grossman's life and career as a whole. The earlier stories are a little weak, but still interesting in seeing his development. The essays and journalism
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are quite good. The later stories are the best part. Show Less
LibraryThing member g026r
At times overly showy, at times bleakly depressing, at times heartbreaking, and at times surprisingly beautiful. This selection of Grossman's shorter work, covering his entire career and including both fiction and non-fiction, makes an excellent, if somewhat uneven, introduction. It's most
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definitely not an easy read though. Show Less
LibraryThing member markm2315
I wanted to read his best known work, "Life and Fate", but it wasn't available as an e-book. Some of this volume is mostly of historical interest. I don't think it says much for someone if they only became disillusioned with Stalin when they discovered that he was antisemitic.
Language
Original language
Russian
Original publication date
2010 (English translation Robert Chandler)
1998 (Russian publication)
Physical description
384 p.; 8.1 inches
ISBN
1590173619 / 9781590173619