tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post3071918780281848562..comments2024-01-02T15:37:04.858-05:00Comments on Caravana de recuerdos: Life and Fate: A Wrap-Up Post of SortsRichardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-59901256342068253422013-03-13T19:01:17.356-04:002013-03-13T19:01:17.356-04:00Richard - these are two really great passages for ...Richard - these are two really great passages for highlighting the range of Grossman's accomplishment. That first one is - for those of us who read literature - all too irresistible, and I was rather surprised to see that - aside from frequent brief references to numerous writers - it wasn't followed up by further such meditations on literature. I thought it was a fantastic section, not simply because Grossman pretty much tells us his influences and has his characters talk about their relative contributions, but also because it relegates the more aesthetic considerations about his writing - the questions of influence and style, etc. - to a level significantly far below the moral ones, as though to say yes, we can talk about literature, and here are my predecessors and what they've done, here's what I've borrowed from them, but what's important here is what I'm telling you, what I saw.<br /><br />The other section you excerpt is a good example one of the relatively infrequent essay-style passages in the narrative. In a similar manner, they seem to suggest what <i>Life and Fate</i> might have been like had Grossman put it across as journalism instead of fiction. seraillonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17654593356535433945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-79278697682326285812013-03-03T23:43:45.782-05:002013-03-03T23:43:45.782-05:00Brian, thanks to you as well for your kind words a...Brian, thanks to you as well for your kind words and for sticking out all these posts--it was certainly a pleasure for me to have that kind of interactive and involved readership over the course of the mini-series! Grossman has no shortage of insightful and quotable moments in <em>Life and Fate</em>; some of the better ones prob. got left on my cutting room floor since there were just so many of them. Cheers!Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-68281616032839839872013-03-02T11:40:19.338-05:002013-03-02T11:40:19.338-05:00The quote that you close the post with is insightf...The quote that you close the post with is insightful and I find it superb. As someone somewhat interested in this time and place I find that mostly somewhat summarizes my view of Stalingrad and what happened there.<br /><br />I also thought that your commentary on this novel was terrific Richard!Brian Josephhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15139559400312336791noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-34558550180933942922013-03-01T20:26:27.804-05:002013-03-01T20:26:27.804-05:00Jill, thanks a bunch for the kind words about the ...Jill, thanks a bunch for the kind words about the posts and for sticking with them throughout. As you might have noticed, you've singlehandedly prevented me from receiving the dreaded Lurkers' Standing Ovation (zero comments) today! As far as your question goes, what's my take? Well, naturally I agree that Grossman is much, much easier to spell than Solzhenitsyn, silly! Actually, I'm so ill-informed about both the German and the Soviet writers from the era that I suspect that what you contend is probably true without being able to support or argue the point from much firsthand knowledge of the writers. The only German novel I've read from that time period recently, Gert Ledig's 1955 <em>The Stalin Front</em>, is a possible counterargument, but it seems more anti-war than interrogating the nature of good and evil from what I recall of it. Thomas Mann's 1947 <em>Doctor Faustus</em> would be another good counterexample, but it was written in exile so I'm not sure it meets the made in Germany criterion as satisfactorily. Anyway, excellent comparison and hopefully somebody with more familiarity with the two countries' literature produced on or about WWII will engage you on the topic at some point. Cheers!Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-46755192001640921062013-03-01T10:30:03.393-05:002013-03-01T10:30:03.393-05:00Bravo and thanks for these great posts. And yes t...Bravo and thanks for these great posts. And yes to bookish, often dramatic conversations - that's in fact what I love about Solzhenitsyn, (but Grossman is so much easier to spell)! I love that fact that so much fiction that came out of Stalinism actually chose to interrogate thoroughly the nature of good and evil, whereas I personally haven't seen that much from Germany, except on a very symbolic level. But it also could be that there *was* so much debate in Russia about what the ideal polity would be, and the morality of means versus ends, and so many characters who strove to embody "the new man" and yet fell victim to human weakness (or however one might characterize their evil turns). In Germany it seems much more like: thugs (with a ludicrous and irrational trumped-up ideology to justify their behavior) versus victims, whereas in Russia there were actually ideas worth debating (for a while, at any rate). But that's my take. And you?rhapsodyinbookshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07041412748239010264noreply@blogger.com