World Literature Weekend - Yekaterina Grossman

Having been lucky enough to get to the London Review Bookshop World Literature Weekend at the British Museum yesterday I wanted to provide my thoughts and views from the two sessions that I attended.

The first session provided a chance to hear from a living relative to one of Russia's greatest 20th century authors, Vasily Grossman. I will post thoughts on the second session tomorrow.

His daughter from his first marriage, Yekaterina Korotkova-Grossman, was in London for the first time to talk not just about her father and his work, but also her own memoirs of growing up in a Soviet world during and after the traumatic Second World War.

She was joined by the translator of her father's work, most recently Everything Flows, Robert Chandler who is also an authority on the work he has spent a great deal of time and energy translating.

Grossman is well known for the masterpiece Life & Fate (my review from a while ago is here) covering the horrors of the Second World War and the events in Stalingrad. The battle is a backdrop but the real fight here is not for control of buildings and a city but of your own mind and the position to be able to speak your mind without fear of attack.

Yekaterina recalled the devastation that her father felt when he tried and failed to get Life & Fate published and how years later when she tried to get support from writers and the authorities for publication how most of them did not have the guts or the gumption to support her.

It was eventually published in Russia in 1988 and became a 'must read' book with some of the same publishers that had turned it down using the poor excuse of thinking this was a different book from the one they originally read as a way of saying they had not quite understood what they potentially were working with.

There were then questions around his other work with Everything Flows and For a Just Cause both being mentioned as books that have moments that rival Life & Fate.

Chandler said that a great deal of Grossman's sophistication, particularly with historical writing, had been overlooked and deserved to be recognised.

But the session really belonged to Yekaterina. Speaking occasionally in English but with great fluidity and humour when she returned to her native Russian she painted a picture to the audience, via her translator, of a childhood in a poor world that was also a fickle one.

Waves of antisemitism washed over her father and she told of her experience as a teacher who was attacked by colleagues who accused her father of being a coward for not repenting and admitting he was wrong. She rightly argued it was a cowards way out to tow the party line.

She said that her father might be associated with writing about some of the most horrific events in Russian history but he was essentially an optimist and thought human beings could improve themselves. His optimism she said was higher than those people currently living in Russia.

She has written one volume of her memoirs and is working on another at the moment to cover the years she lived in Tashkent. She has that ability to describe so well a lost world. A world that was full of fear and poverty but one that was incredibly interesting.

As she said of her experience of reading her father's work for the first time it described , "a poor world but you wanted to live there".

book of books - Life and Fate

This book by Vasiliy Grossman was in terms of pages one of the longest that I have chosen to read so far this year and that has an impact on the way you approach it with the expectation that it is going to be an epic. The fact it is an epic that encompasses the most vital stuff of life but not quite in the way you might have expected.

You come to this book with an idea, based on the dust jacket imagery and words, that this is going to be a hard-hitting book based on people in and around the battleground that became the bloody fight for control of Stalingrad during the Second World War. The battle is a backdrop but the real fight here is not for control of buildings and a city but of your own mind and the position to be able to speak your mind without fear of attack.

Plot summary
The tentacles stretch out from nuclear physicists Viktor and his wife with their various family members and their loves being used as a way of illustrating what was happening at different levels of the social spectrum as well as various locations during the fight for the survival of the motherland. Grossman is able to also jump into the heads of the German’s that have a similar battle with wrestling with the party and their own ability to speak the truth.
The main plot ends up focusing on Viktor who ends up almost losing everything after making a breakthrough in his field of science but is saved by a telephone call from Stalin. Meanwhile others are either busy being denounced or facing the consequences of speaking out. There are also others quite happy to avoid that sort of conflict and step aside and duck out and compromise themselves.
Along with Viktor the old communist Krymov is dragged back through the KGB prisons and the heroic tank commander Novikov, who are both vying for the love of the same woman, is also denounced and called back to Moscow.
On the German side the blind faith in Hitler is exposed as the sixth army is surrounded and then finally forced to surrender and those that are Nazi party members are ridiculed in the same way that right-minded people criticise the Communist party/
But the main theme of the book along with the title struggle to overcome fate – which the system seems to be in charge of – and enjoy life is the moral questions that Grossman raises. In a passage that includes a meeting between a dye-in-the-wool communist and the commander of a Nazi prisoner of war camp the suggestion is made that both the communist and the Nazi systems are not that far apart but are in fact mirrored with their one party state, aggression and disregard of individual liberty. The battle here is for the ability to speak your mind and most of the time reality has to be distorted as the system turns saints into sinners and soldiers into cowards.

It is well written?
Despite its length Grossman has an ability to put together a book that operates on various different levels including the political and the emotional. The characters work on their own, the battle scenes and fear of death at the hands of the enemy are powerful and the political muscle of the state has a genuine frustration and incredulity to it. In the world of journalism the answer to the question a writer often asks about how long the story should be is: “write it to what it deserves”. You sense it would have been difficult to write a book that on one hand described the world in 1942 across Russia along with making an incredibly powerful statement about the political systems of both Germany and Russia without using all 855 pages. Add to that the chapter where Viktor’s Jewish mother writes to him about life in the ghetto and her inevitable death – one of the most moving pieces that you are every likely to come across about the holocaust – and there is a very powerful statement being made throughout the book about the evil of anti-Semitism.

Should it be read?
If you ever want to know what it might have felt like not only to be trapped in a city under siege, facing charges that have been completely fabricated and living in fear of conversations that you made with friends years before then this is the book that provides the insights. This is a piece of work that was “arrested” by the KGB and aged the author by years because he believed that his own country was ready to read something that was not only critical but true. They weren’t but luckily it was smuggled out and has become the well-known piece of literature. It deserves to be read because of its message and story but also because of the costs the author paid personally to deliver this novel.

Summary
The bullets and bombs might be flying around Stalingrad but the most dangerous move to make on both sides - that share the disregard of individual rights - is to speak your mind

Version read - Vintage Classics

Life and Fate - post XIII

This mammoth book comes to an end and the reader is left mentally tying up the lose ends with the point having been well and truly made that the characters lives are in the hands of fate. In a book that is more about the personal battle an individual has with the state rather than the battle with the Germans this is not the book that you might initially expect.

A full review will follow by the weekend but it’s fair to say that the ambition here is as strong as Tolstoy’s to get down on paper the thoughts, hopes and fears of a generation at one particular time in Soviet history. The fact he manages to pull it off is not just down to style but because there is an anger and a determination to tell the truth that is on every single page.

Bullet points between 806 – 855

* Kyrmov receives his parcel from his ex-wife and it becomes clear that he has not been forgotten of denounced, unlike Novikov who disappears into the system to be chewed up and interrogated

* Viktor has his comfortable world turned upside down after being asked by colleagues to sign a letter damming those who go against the system and now it is his friends who are going to be against him not his enemies

* Back in the ruined City life starts to return to normal with the workers quickly put back in their places by the bosses and the last family scenes played out by Viktor’s mother and sister-in-law remind you of the strength of the state to rule people’s lives much more than the bombs and tanks

* The book ends with a couple that are not described whispering and sharing their hopes and misery together as spring arrives and life moves on

Exhausting but well worth the read…

Life and Fate - post XII

There was a slight hope of finishing the book today but it’s often the case that as you get closer to the end the pages get slower to consumer. Its almost as if you don’t want it to end so you read more slowly almost without being conscious of it. Still it will get completed tomorrow because there are simply not that many pages left.

There are so many contrasting stories going on here with some to do with fate and others to do with love and even when things seem to be going well there is a fear that one false move and it could all come crumbling down.

Bullet points between pages 754 - 806

* Krymov is put through the interrogation mill being kept up all night and confronted with so many facts about his past that he becomes dizzy at the knowledge of the state but he remains determined not to confess to being a German spy

* After a while he cracks and shouts at the interrogator asking him where he was when the bullets were flying in Stalingrad and his reward is the be beaten by guards that seem to know exactly where to hit to start some serious internal bleeding

* Krymov comes to the conclusion that his ex-wife has denounced him and faced with that bitter betrayal, which is of course not the case, he becomes resigned to his fate and starts to enter possibly the final stage of the process ending in a confession

* Viktor is finding that following Stalin’s phone call he is the most popular and intelligent scientist around and although he enjoys it he knows that they were only too ready to kill him off before his luck changed

* Novikov finds life getting harder with Getmanov threatening to countermand his orders unless his exhausted tank corps continues into the Ukraine and in the end after being dropped by Krymov’s ex-wife who he thought would be his he is recalled back to Moscow

There is no lunchtime read for the simple reason I spent my lunch break talking with someone about the state of the computer security market in a hotel next to Liverpool Street station. There will be some more House on the Embankment along with the final chunk of Life and Fate tomorrow…

Life and Fate - post XI

The word ‘fate’ crops up more and more but unlike the fate the soliders talked about on the battlefields which was in the hands of the gods the fate Viktor and others are subjected to is very much down to the system.

Poor old Viktor, who remains astounded at his misfortune despite his big mouth, starts to show that in the face of a political and bureaucratic storm he has some metal and will not bow to pressure. Through his experience Grossman shows all too clearly how the state could turn on an indivudual, how friendships could unravel and how decent men and women could betray themselves in the madness of fear.

Bullet points between pages 670 - 754

* Viktor’s career at the academy is running into increasing trouble and he is expected to renounce his views and attend a meeting where he will publicly repent but he decides not to attend and stick to his guns

* The result is he feels isolated and lost but his ego continues to carry on being a feature of his personality and results in a continuing dividing line between Viktor and his wife

* Back on the front Novikov expects to get married not yet aware that his intended is hanging out at the Lubyanka trying to see her first husband Krymov who she has so fare failed to get any information about

* Things are looking really bleak for Viktor and he stops going into work and discovers that everyone but his best friend denounced him and so he resigns himself to the inevitable arrest

* Krymov’s wife finally gets the chance to send him a parcel in prison which will indicate to him that he has not been forgotten but as she comes back to Viktor’s house she hears a radio broadcast that mentions the heroics of Novikov and his tanks

* The Germans are starting to fall apart in the encircled city and those who are members of the party stick to each other mistaking fear of Russian retribution as evidence that no one will leave and desert showing how well disciplined Hitler has made his army

* Just as everything seems to be getting pitch black for Viktor the phone rings and it is Stalin himself who is on the other end telling Viktor that his work is very important and in a matter of seconds turning his life back the right way up

More tomorrow…

Life and Fate - post X

As the battle for Stalingrad enters its final phase with victory for the Russians insight the personal battles of some of the individual characters Grossman has introduced us to start their battle for survival. A system that encourages and rewards denunciation finds plenty of people happy to keep the secret service ticking over.

Bullet points between pages 625 – 670

* Having been arrested Krymov sits with his colleagues and waits for the inevitable to come with them urging him to confess to make his own life easier a similar fate awaits Viktor who is targeted by a newspaper criticising scientists who work for their own vanity and not the state

* Meanwhile back at the front the tank regiment is ordered into battle but in order to ensure none of his men are killed and the barrage has cleared a path through Novikov keeps Stalin and his generals waiting for eight minutes

* The tanks sweep through and the encirclement is complete after 100 hours of fighting but those eight minutes provide Getmanov with ammunition in his report and you suspect the successful tank commander will be next in for questioning

* Meanwhile Viktor’s sister in law who decides that after flirting with the idea of being in love with Novikov will come to Moscow to support her husband Krymov sets out on the difficult task of trying to see him in prison

More tomorrow…

Life and Fate - post IX

One of the features of the Stalinist system was that those who had helped carry out the arrests, interrogations and murders of innocent people often ended up going through the same process. At that point even the most ardent believers in the system faced the moment when they had to accept that it was a cruel house of cards that had been more about manipulation and greed than solving poverty and breaking down class barriers.

The other powerful point that Grossman underlines is that living during this period of history was a twenty four hour nerve racking experience as it was not just about a job but it was a way of life that surrounded and suffocated.

Bullet points between pages 560 – 625

* Viktor burns his bridges after losing his temper and taking the unwise decision to speak his mind to his superior who is against him and quite happy to watch an opponent lose his cool

* Viktor is quite surprised by the lack of interest in his downfall from his close friends and his family and starts to accept that his future lies outside his institution and outside of Moscow in the provinces

* Back at the front the Russians finally mount the offensive that would lead to surrounding he German sixth army and it brings cheer and relief to those who have been waiting for a sign of hope

* But for Krymov the spirit of optimism is crushed as he is arrested and taken back to Moscow to the Lubyanka (KGB headquarters) and starts to endure the sort of sense of loss and vulnerability and confusion that thousands of others have gone through

* He cannot quite accept what is happening to a loyal old Bolshevik and is fighting to keep his reasoning and his loyalty to the system even in the face of such overwhelming evidence that it is all wrong

Maybe more tomorrow…

Life and Fate - post VIII

What happened to the Jews in the Second World War is one of those terrible things that becomes all too easily statistics on a history book page with a black and white image or two to try and illustrate the horror. Even on a trip to one of the camps that stands as a memorial it is all too easy to step back from the glass cases full of shoes and suit cases and feel comfortable in your late twenty first century skin.

Chapters 45 – 48 in part two of Life and Fate offer a chilling and moving account of death in a gas chamber. You finish reading those chapters with tears just behind the eyes but with your heart beating with anger at what happened and you start to realise how easy it all was and why these things should never be forgotten because they might happen again.

Bullet points between pages 500 – 560

* Something seems to have happened to Krymov and he seems to be out of favour with most people until he meets an old friend of the love of his life who he seems to be trying to forget

* Then there is the story of the Jews arriving at the camp and going through the gas chamber experience with the tension being built up as they are sorted between those with a value – doctors and dentists - and those who are going to be killed

* Despite being a doctor Sofya decides to accompany David and the rest of them to death and in some incredibly moving passages they all die in an airless room where they hoped they would be washed

* Back in Viktor’s world and things are staring to turn against him with his laboratory staff being dismissed and his position as a potentially great scientist being undermined by accusations he has gone against the Leninist principles of science

More tomorrow…

Life and Fate - post VII

Not much read today because I met a colleague on the train and then fell asleep it is non-stop at work at the moment. There is a sense of the disconnect between the military and the political with the later believing that because they are party disciples they are somehow more worthy than generals. That difference in opinion naturally causes tension but there is a blindness that comes from arrogance that the politicals are on the side of right that gives them carte blanche to be hypocrites as well as lecturers.

Bullet points between pages 440 - 500

* The story follows the German camp commander as he visits the first construction of a gas chamber and discovers the extent of the amibtion to wipe out the Jews and that provides Grossman with a chance to warn about the evils of going along with the holocaust

* Viktor discovers that the head of the scientific academy has been encouraged to stand down and there have been other changes that penalise those who are not in favour by the regime

* Viktor starts showing his frustration in a way that could potentially cost him more than his job and his inability to control his tongue loses him friendships and his relationship with his daughter is under strain for similar reasons

* Near the front Getmanov is a whirlwind getting round the generals and staff upsetting them and making sure they realise that whatever they do on the battlefield means very little

* Krymov recovers from his head wound and has to write a report about his experience in Stalingrad and discovers that he seems to have fallen out of favour with the reader guessing that earlier comments Getmanov made about his war record probably being the reason why

More tomorrow…

Life and Fate - post VI

After mapping out a network of Russian characters that are linked with Viktor and his wife Grossman shows his true Tolstoyian ambitions by switching the narrative cross to cover the German forces. Here he again focuses on the theme of freedom of speech with a lieutenant suffering from a shoulder injury frightened of sharing his real thoughts with his fellow solders.

What appears to be becoming one of the central themes of the book – the battle to speak your mind – surfaces again as Mostovsky the old communist meets the head of the prisoner of war camp and is lectured that there is not a great deal dividing the Germans and the Soviets both with their adherence to a one-party state and brutality.

Bullet points between pages 340 – 440

* The Germans are as much dominated by Hitler with the common soldiers frowning on those that are party members blinded to criticism of a leader who appears to be unable to walk away from Stalingrad

* General Paulus in charge of the German forces around and in the besieged city seems to understand the threat to the flanks and the futility of fighting but signs the order for a major attack on the tractor factory

* Viktor stumbles across the solution to his scientific problems but continues to be hurt by the attitude of his colleagues that ranges from jealousy to indifference and he ends up arguing with his daughter and realises his wife doesn’t care anymore

* Back at the front the fighting goes on with the house holding out against the Germans a target of both sides as Krymov is sent into to make sure that the political line of the party is stuck to and the commander there does not become too partisan

* It becomes irrelevant because Krymov is hit by a bullet and taken back to hospital and then the Germans attack and flatten the house and everyone in it the only people who escape are the female wireless operator who goes off with her sweetheart and a couple of scouts who were absent when the attack began

* Viktor and his family are sent back to Moscow with more people feeling that a corner has been turned and there is reason to be optimistic and it is all because the Nazis have been halted on the Volga

* Meanwhile back in the prisoner of war camp there is a late night discussion between the camp commandant and Mostovsky about why the two countries should really be fighting together leaving the old communist feeling like he has been mentally assaulted

More tomorrow…

Life and Fate - post V

"What a wonderful power and clarity there is in speaking one’s mind. What a terrible price people paid for a few bold words."

When I did a history evening course a couple of years ago the tutor kept talking about his aim to do a book about what it was really like for normal people to live under Stalin’s rule. He wanted to try and capture the fear of being denounced, the attraction of doing it and also try to paint a picture of what life was like – was it all prison camps and interrogations or was there some normal living going on as well? I’m sure he has read Life and Fate but if not there are some interesting passages around the pages 256 – 275 mark where people dangerously express their views.

Grossman manages to evoke a sense of real fear and danger just from sharing your opinion or views not just on politics but everything including literature.

Bullet points between pages 256 – 340

* Viktor shares a discussion with his scientific friends that covers the war, the political system and literature but some come close to the edge of what is allowed and as a result there is an argument as the host tries to prove his loyalty to the party

* One suggestion is made to Viktor as they leave by another guest that the most outspoken guest has survived the purges almost untouched and as a result had to be protected as an informer adding to the feeling of suspicion

* Then the focus moves back to the front picking up the story of Darensky and his artillery unit that is being sent into a particularly unattractive sector to try and unsettle the Germans and then Novikov the tank commander remerges and catches up with his lost love who turns out to be Viktor's sister in law who had such problems with her passport earlier in the book

* Viktor despite being depressed manages to crack the scientific formula he has been wrestling with but as he shares his excitement he is only met with indifference and jealousy and is depressed by his colleague and wife

* Novikov is suffering Getmanov the political instructor who pokes around in his private life but when the tank commander finally loses control and speaks his mind - as Grossman has alreafy pointed out - an incredibly dangerous thing to do he wins the respect from the political commissar rather than his wrath

More tomorrow...

Life and Fate - post IV

The action swings back to Stalingrad but most of the focus sticks with the political commissars who are spending their time giving lectures and making sure that the Stalinist line is not deviated from, rather than getting behind a gun. The result is that they are distrusted and unless they are assured of their own power and ability end up feeling slightly vulnerable and isolated.

Bullet points between pages 200 – 256

* At the front Getmanov has arrived to sit with his tank squadron and the men get ready to pull out of their camp and head off to face the enemy with some frank talking between the commanding officer Novikov and Getmanov about the mistakes Stalin made shooting so many generals in the 1930s

* Meanwhile the other political officer Krymov has been stopped from fighting and is frustrated at the way he is isolated from the generals never being taken into their confidence or sparking debate about his lectures

* Back with Viktor (sorry just sharpened the eyes and realised it doesn’t have a ‘c’) he is struggling to make headway with his experiments and is slipping into depression, which is exacerbated by what is happening to him at home

* Lyudmila is going through the motions following the loss of her son and does not show any interest in Viktor’s work or to be honest much else going on around her

More hopefully tomorrow but my son has an Inset day (teacher training day) so I am taking a day off work and we are all going to Lego land so I am not sure quite when the reading will get done but there is always hope…

Life and Fate - post III

The web from Victor’s family starts to spread wider and introduce new characters and locations and there is a comment from Grossman about the treatment of the Jews at the hands of the Germans in the Second World War. The comments are understandably strong but you sense that the criticism of anti-Semitic Nazi behaviour could equally be applied to Stalin who was quite happy to stand by and let it happen on his own turf.

Bullet points between pages 146 – 200

* Victor’s wife has mentioned that her son’s father is somewhere in the camps and the story catches up with him and reveals the suffering of the life of a political prisoner in one of Stalin’s camps

* Surrounded by criminals that are quite happy to murder politicals and intimidate them it is a miserable life that seems to go against everything that being a member of the party seemed to be about

* Things then move to describe the world in 1942 with the Nazi’s at the peak of their power making the decision to rid the world of Jews and start the final solution

* A woman in a train being sent to her death in one of the camps is surrounded by Jews that are all trying to cope with what has happened and Grossman dips into their various stories to reveal the horror of mass graves, abuse and the destruction of families

It is easy to forget that for those Jews living in Russian owned areas that were then taken over by the Germans, the Ukraine for instance, it was a double blow because they lost their liberty but then faced a brutal regime that was determined to destroy them. Grossman makes the point that fascism was able to hypnotise entire populations into carrying out mass murder but also points the finger at the community of victims arguing that they went in some cases too willingly to their deaths and failed to organise resistance.

More tomorrow…

Life and Fate - post II

There is an increasing concentration on Victor, the scientist and his extended family, with it becoming clear that although they believe they are going to be evacuated to Moscow they presumably end up somehow in the battle of Stalingrad. While the focus shifts to Victor and co. the battle is hardly mentioned with life at war more of the theme.

There is a great chapter where life under the Stalinist oppression is laid bare with one local part official scrambling for cover after a fellow apparatik discovers that his four year old has scribbled a pointed beard and glasses onto a picture of Stalin. Even in war the prospect of a bullet from your own side never diminished.

Bullet points between pages 80 – 146

* Victor’s wife gets news that her son, who was conceived with her first husband, has been badly injured and so she finds out which hospital he is laid up in and heads off to visit him

* There is a chapter with a local politician Getmanov who has been assigned to a tank division and he gets ready to head off and join his unit but before he goes he bids farewell to party colleagues who are all watching very carefully what they say

* Then carrying on the theme of the stifling bureaucracy (no wonder the KGB stole Grossman’s manuscript) a friend of Victor’s is hounded by a passport office and has to lean on all her contacts to beg to be allowed to stay and continue her war work

* When she gets to the hospital Victor's wife discovers that her son is dead and when she visits his grave she loses her grasp on reality and seems to think that he still might come back and once she gets home she rushes to open every letter and the front door

More tomorrow...

Inspiring stuff

Reading chapter 18 of Life and Fate, where a mother writes to her son to bid her farewell as she faces certain death at the hands of the Nazi’s, is an incredible piece of writing. No wonder then that when you tap in Vasily Grossman into Google you get the details of the stage play and the film that were based on that single chapter. It is testament to his writing ability that just one chapter can inspire such high levels of spin-off creativity.

Life and Fate - post I

If you have the battle of Stalingrad as the backdrop to your story the question is where to start. The choices seem pretty obvious with either introducing and developing the characters in the build-up to the battle; alternatively start the story in the heat of the conflict but not at a point where anything has been resolved; or something different to the two approaches outlined above.

Grossman opts for the third option and the story starts in a prisoner of war camp and you start by trying to work out whether the battle will be told through a retrospective lens but it turns out that the prisoner was captured early on and the description of the bombed out city and the heat of battle is still to come.

Bullet points between pages 1 – 80

* Things start with Mostivskoy who has been put in a camp run by the Germans and he describes the inequality in the camp system and the way it brings out the ugliness of human behaviour with some doing anything to protect themselves at the cost of others

* Then the story picks up the movements of the generals and commanders on the Russian side in the battle to hold a bridgehead on the Volga and the anxiety and fatalism of those running the conflict seems to be evident

* But of course the Russians couldn’t let their heads drop because there would be political commissars there to notice and the next character Krymov is introduced as he goes to deliver a lecture to soldiers at the front

* The general he visits then pops over the river to see Chuykov but they fail to talk about anything meaningful and the gallows humour and the differing opinions over the possibility of ever being victorious shows that despite the political pressures these are normal people fighting

* Then the story shifts to focus on a scientist Victor and his wife, mother-in-law and daughter as they have the luxury of sitting behind the lines and worrying about family members and try to carry on life against the backdrop of the war

* There is a powerful, haunting and moving letter sent to Victor by his mother who is a Jewish doctor who faces death now that the Germans have taken over where she lives and she is bidding him farewell a letter that he recieves and reads in secret

More tomorrow...