Jack Feise’s Reviews > Life and Fate > Status Update

Grossman’s prose is stunningly beautiful. An overall sense of defamiliarization of the war reminds me a lot of Tolstoy. There are also like 150 named characters in this book and 8 pages of character lists in the back. I’m just meeting the Soviet airmen 170 pages in and they are pretty intriguing. I need a shorter book rec after this so hmu.

If this is 100 pages in… I’m gonna need a lot of time to process the next 800. Stunning writing. A psychological exposé of fascism that certain present day figures would really benefit from reading (though I assume Grossman is far above their reading level…) This book is already shaping up to be EPIC — both as a literal, all encompassing historical epic, and in the overall style.

Wow. So much of this book reminds me of War and Peace… dare I say I like it better. It’s so interesting that so much of the style is in conversation with War and Peace - I’m glad I read that Grossman ONLY read W+P while actually at Stalingrad! The metaphors and description are brilliant. Hopefully I don’t finish it before Tuesday… I think I might binge Russian WW2 books the rest of the summer.

So excited for this. Needed a book for a long plane ride(s). LFG