Stalingrad
by Vasily Grossman
This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app
1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date 6 Aug 2020 | Archive Date 6 Sep 2020
Random House UK, Vintage Publishing | Vintage Classics
Talking about this book? Use #Stalingrad #NetGalley. More hashtag tips!
Description
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER AND NOW A MAJOR RADIO 4 DRAMA
'One of the great novels of the 20th century, and now published in English for the first time' Observer
'A gripping panorama of the human experience' Kenneth Branagh
In April 1942, Hitler and Mussolini plan the huge offensive on the Eastern Front that will culminate in the greatest battle in human history.
Hundreds of miles away, Pyotr Vavilov receives his call-up papers and spends a final night with his wife and children in the hut that is his home. As war approaches, the Shaposhnikov family gathers for a meal: despite her age, Alexandra will soon become a refugee; Tolya will enlist in the reserves; Vera, a nurse, will fall in love with a wounded pilot; and Viktor Shtrum will receive a letter from his doomed mother which will haunt him forever.
The war will consume the lives of a huge cast of characters – lives which express Grossman’s grand themes of the nation and the individual, nature’s beauty and war’s cruelty, love and separation.
For months, Soviet forces are driven back inexorably by the German advance eastward and eventually Stalingrad is all that remains between the invaders and victory. The city stands on a cliff top by the Volga River. The battle for Stalingrad – a maelstrom of violence and firepower – will reduce it to ruins. But it will also be the cradle of a new sense of hope.
Stalingrad is a magnificent novel not only of war but of all human life: its subjects are mothers and daughters, husbands and brothers, generals, nurses, political officers, steelworkers, tractor girls. It is tender, epic, and a testament to the power of the human spirit.
‘You will not only discover that you love his characters and want to stay with them – that you need them in your life as much as you need your own family and loved ones – but that at the end... you will want to read it again’ Daily Telegraph
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9780099561361 |
| PRICE | £12.99 (GBP) |
| PAGES | 704 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Mark T, Reviewer
I got Stalingrad by Vasily Grossman free from NetGally for a fair and honest review
Stalingrad is the the book set before one of Vasily Grosman’s famous books Life and Fate. However this is the first time that the book has been published English it was originally published in 1952, under the name, For A Just Cause, although the writer himself wanted it to be called by this name, Stalingrad.
The story follows a number of individuals from high ranking officers in the Russian army, ordinary soldiers, new recruits, doctors and nurses as well as workers and scientists. Although the story does start after the invasion of the Soviet Union by Germany, it does go back and tells the individual stories on how each dealt with the time just before the conflict and in those first months of the war when the Russian military had little chance of holding the German army up.It ends in September 1942 during the hight of the Battle for Stalingrad.
This is an epic novel in many ways, Grossman, himself said he wanted to write World War II War and Peace, and be the Red Tolstoy that the state wanted. War and Peace appears throughout the book, as was common during the conflict, so Grossman was only reflecting this.
The writer takes the reader into the mind of each of the major individual, giving them their own thoughts, so even though they is a large number of people in the book it allows the reader to get to know them,so when you encounter them again you as a reader know who they are.
The bombing of Stalingrad by the German air force is told with such a way that it brings the terror of the raid to life. Another scene, that stands out for me, is where the writer describes, that the cities animals have mainly moved out and how, the animals in the surrounding area are aware something major is happening, this then expands out, to the world as a whole watching this epic clash between to totalitarian systems. Now as this book was written in Russian originally, and translated to English by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler, I do not know who has the greater effect on the style of writing we as a reader experience, but all of them have put together such a beautiful written book .
Who would I recommend this book to, every one who has read Life and Fate as this book is set before that, so you find out how the people got to where they did. Another group of readers are those who have read War and peace and are looking for a similar book set in World War II. In fact this book is for every one who loves to read books, which takes you the reader to places where you may never go, into the minds of the people you won’t meet, who are experiencing a normal life while living in challenging times. Then I can highly recommend that you take time out and read Stalingrad by Vasily Grossman as you will not be disappointed
Readers who liked this book also liked:
Susan Stokes-Chapman
General Fiction (Adult), Historical Fiction, Mystery & Thrillers
