by beatriceotto | Nov 30, 2017 | a quote to note
This is part of a detailed, detached account of what happened when people entered a gas chamber, as experienced by Sofya, a Russian doctor in Grossman’s 800 page novel of the Second World War in and around Russia. I found it moving that he focuses on her eyes,...
by beatriceotto | Nov 30, 2017 | a quote to note
This is a memorable description of Captain Grekov, commander of House 6/1 in the rubble of Stalingrad, summing up so much of the man by the look in his eyes. See also in the same book a touching account of the eyes of a woman – with much of what they had seen in...
by beatriceotto | Nov 23, 2017 | a quote to note
Having been caught between the colliding tectonic plates of two totalitarian systems, it is easy to see how Grossman saw history not in terms of a matched battle between good and evil, but of a juggernaut trying to mow down seedlings of kindness. Despite – or...
by beatriceotto | Nov 23, 2017 | a quote to note
This graphic and heart-rending typology of despair makes me conscious of having been mercifully spared much of anything that could be likened to despair. Count your blessings, indeed. ‘Abarchuk sighed. ‘You know what, someone ought to write a treatise on...
by beatriceotto | Nov 23, 2017 | a quote to note
This refers to a love affair that burgeons in the grimness of Stalingrad, and I like how Grossman expands the spectrum to show that love can happen in the worst places, full of ‘noise, stench and rubble’. The photo by Angela Compagnone seemed the perfect...
by beatriceotto | Nov 16, 2017 | a quote to note
A fine metaphor for dots of kindness shining through darkness; Grossman’s hope for the future is largely vested in the fact that the great machinery of totalitarian brutality has failed to extinguish these random sparks of human warmth. ‘Even at the most...
by beatriceotto | Nov 2, 2017 | a quote to note
This is one of the most graphic, disturbing descriptions of the effects of severe hunger I have seen, written by a man who witnessed it in extreme situations of war and death camps. It makes a mockery of the common throw away line of ‘I’m starving...
by beatriceotto | Sep 28, 2017 | a quote to note
How clever these creatures, able to distinguish between the sound of planes that unleash havoc and so should be hidden from, and those that simply fly over to unleash havoc elsewhere. ‘I don’t know … Take dogs, for example – they can tell different planes apart. When...
by beatriceotto | Sep 1, 2017 | you got mail
A moving comment on the effects of time and separation, and the hiatus of news caused by war. Firstly, the sorrow and regret of discovering the death of a loved one after months of silence, only thanks to the efforts of strangers. Then the question of how many other...
