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Article: Life and fate.
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- June 6, 1986
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1986 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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THIS WORK is so impressive that we need first to put it in perspective. The translator, although apologetic about its old-fashioned style, calls Life and Fate "the true War and Peace of this century." The noun-and-noun title, the occasional references to Tolstoy, the subject matter (the battle of Stalingrad)--all indicate that the author also had such a comparison in mind. But on that exalted level, Life and Fate doesn't have a fair chance.
Nor is Life and Fate quite what Le Monde called it, "the great russian novel of the twentieth century," a distinction probably reserved for Bely's Petersburg--or possibly Nabokov's The Gift. Is it the great Soviet novel? ...