Book Review: STALINGRAD by Vassily Grossman

Stalingrad by Vasily Grossman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"And here, perhaps, lies humanity's greatest hope: great deeds can be accomplished by simple, ordinary people."

I first saw a copy of this eye-catching red spine in the beautiful reading nook of a friend, and I remember thinking, "I'd like to read that yummy-looking book."

Fast forward a few months, and after a very convincing testimony during our book club's monthly meet up, I ordered STALINGRAD. The very name evokes balalaika and male choir music running in my head, with images from the immortal film ENEMY AT THE GATES.

A novel on the Battle of Stalingrad written by someone who was actually there?!? My idea of a book-to-spend-the-three-day-weekend-with!

STALINGRAD is like the 2021 DUNE movie: extremely long setups for what comes after.

* insert groan *

At 900+ pages, this must be the LONGEST prequel ever!

While the book has its moments, I must admit I was a bit repelled by the very strong overtones of Soviet propaganda (with lines like "Within him, in all its fulness, he felt the strongest, truest force in the world - that of a working man"). Reading this book reminded me of college English courses where we had to read shorter excerpts of Soviet social realism, so similar were the literary flavors.

For me, the best bit was Chapter 30, with seven pages of the author's take on how Hitler managed to get voted into power, when he stood for mediocrity and all that is base in man.

"After being defeated in 1918, Germany was looking for a Hitler, and she found him."

Grossman said Hitler's rise to power was made possible by his "philosophy of inner impotence," which was "equally attractive to dregs and failures."

And after winning, he "silenced all dissent, transforming Germany into an intellectual desert."

Grossman proceeds to question the Hitler myth of greatness: "Can we call someone a great man if he has not brought into people's lives a single atom of good, a single atom of freedom and intelligence?"

If the book category is "WWII experiences by people who lived through it," I would recommend Svetlana Alexievich's THE UNWOMANLY FACE OF WAR over Grossman's. It's quite evident that Grossman sanitized his work because of censorship, and couldn't help but put party-approved lines in the mouths of his characters, which somewhat detracted from the overall emotional impact of what could have been a true epic.

Then again, Grossman saw STALINGRAD and the sequel LIFE AND FATE as one complete work, so perhaps I'd better get a move on reading the next book posthaste.



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