Life and Fate

“You know, we ­ we did a ­ a book club here at Econ Talk on Life and Fate ­ ­ silly Grossman's Masterpiece.”

“this is a followup to our recent conversation with Tyler Cowan on Grossman's Masterpiece life and fate”

“Like stying gr or life and fate and were they different in terms of the length that took you to finish”

“um you know I read the book I read life and fade over I don't know probably a month or two”

“I made a um a reference in the last episode with Tyler about life and fate that someone on X on uh named High piled books when we promoted the idea of a book club”

“there's I think about a 100 names in the back of life and fate”

“um when I talked to Tyler Cowan uh he wanted to ask you if there's more humor in life and fate in the Russian than there is in the English”

“IC nationalist um certainly by LifeTime we're reading life and fate it's a it's a much uh more critical portrait”

“yeah well people have contradictory feelings yeah no doubt I mean um it as you can feel it in life and fate”

“absolutely are there portions In A Book Like life and fate I mean there are extraordinary passages there's”

“uh in particular I'd like you to talk a little bit about Grossman's relationship with his mother uh as I mentioned in life and fate there's a letter from Victor's mother”

“Gran's own marriage was um a bit of a mess and he has some of that mess in life and fate”

“because it's not really about Stalingrad one of the most as a newcomer to Grossman when people say oh life and Fate's about the Battle of Stalingrad”

“so um I would encourage I encourage readers to read life and fate for sure I'm looking forward to reading sty and gr I encourage people to read”

“um which is a passage at the end of a of a document that appears in life and fate it's a Manifesto”

“our topic for today is vasil Grossman's Masterpiece life and fate”

“Our topic for today is Vasily Grossman's masterpiece Life and Fate. We will minimize spoilers, but I'd encourage you to read the book before listening if that's your habit.”

“and I want to remind listeners by the way that we're going to be reading um life and fate together by basil grman oh wow uh if you want to uh read it before I talked to Tyler Cowen about it that will be”

“Tyler C and I are reading life and Fate by Vil Grossman and we will be releasing a conversation about the book in late November so if you'd like to read in advance along with us feel free to do so you can find links to the paperback and the Kindle edition on the website for this episode”

“And I don't want to make this too book centric, but this was a very important experience for me. The best book I've read over the past year, I think you both have heard me talk about it before, is an amazing novel called Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman”

“The famous one is Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. And the one that should be famous is Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman, who was a phenomenal Russian writer in the first half of the 20th century, which is just this amazing, brilliant, gorgeous, disturbing, frightening book.”

“There's this rule, as you know, that I go into in the book that I've mowled on a lot that I got from the great Soviet Jewish writer Vasley Gman, who I who appears intermittently throughout the book. Um, and Vasley Gman had this terrific dictim in the middle of life and fate where he says, "Tell me what you”

“So for instance uh the main accusation that the revolutionary Islamic government in Thran uses of the Jewish state of Israel is that it's a uh it's a colonial power... tell me what you accuse the Jews of and I'll tell you what you're guilty of.”

“But the real thing is, one of my great heroes Vasily Grossman says at the center of "Life and Fate," almost everything that is worth saying about antisemitism...”

“Vasily Grossman says at the center of "Life and Fate," almost everything that is worth saying about antisemitism”

“You know that Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate?”

“vastly grossman's life and fate so in the middle of life and fate which a persian friend of mine said was one of only two great novels of the 20th century”

“anyway i mention this because grossman in the middle of life has takes time out and does this like three-page explanation three-page description of anti-semitism”

“anyway grossman says in the middle of life and fate the – the – one of the extraordinary things about anti-semitism is that it does everything at the same time”

“I'll do uh Life and Fate by Vaseli Gman. A really, I think, stunning kind of human portrayal um of the ramifications of the Holocaust in that entire era.”

“if only if one reads grossman's life and fate”

“much of that is a theme in vasel Grossman's life and fate right the paity of people denunciations the logic of decentralized control”

“fosy Grossman life and fate I'm doing a whole podcast on it that's a great great novel”

“- I love the bit in Life and Fate when you get...”

“um absolutely and it was actually um the very first chapter of life and fate I translated was the dialogue”

“and um he did I mean usually guilt is a fairly incapacitating feeling um I think it's rather unusual that um Grossman was able to turn this weight you know to really use this weight of guilt in such a positive way um so in life and fate whe”

“yes there is perhaps fancifully I see it as sort of I see it as a mini life and fate that sort Grossman trying to compensate for the loss of his novel”