Vasily Grossman and I have crossed paths before. Earlier this year I read An Armenian Sketchbook as part of my NYRB subscription. I enjoyed his memoir/travel narrative. It is a book about a place I am unlikely to ever visit, but I found it very interesting to read about. Mostly, though, I liked Grossman's "voice" and his compassion which came through so clearly in his writing. At the time I thought 'this is a man of great sensitivity and humanity' and after finishing Everything Flows (Vse techer translated by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler with Anna Aslanyan), I'm convinced he wrote from the heart as well as from the intellect.
Everything Flows is heartwrenching. It's a hybrid of sorts. It's a novel based on historical events, but it is as much a look at post-WWII Stalinist Russia from a purely historical perspective. It's an indictment of the atrocities Russia's leaders perpetrated on their fellow countrymen. Surely he wrote from his own personal experiences, which makes it all the more painful to take in. Days after finishing reading the book I still can't quite wrap my mind around what took place. Once again my knowledge of this period in Russian history is narrow at best, though I have long been aware of the political turmoil that has plagued Russian history. Russia has been a fascination for me since I was young. It has been a place steeped in mystery--the Iron Curtain--what was behind that iron curtain? Mostly what I find so curious about it is understanding how it came to be the way it is/was and why. Why is a question I asked a lot while reading.
The story begins simply enough. Ivan Grigoryevich has been released from the Gulag where he spent thirty years imprisoned after being informed on. Ostensibly the story is about Ivan's attempt to find a place for himself in a world that bears little resemblance to the one he left and is now void of any of his loved ones. But it quickly becomes apparent that the structure of the story is a way to write about and perhaps make sense of Russia's history in the first half of the twentieth century. I still ask why, I still find so much of it perplexing, but Grossman has shed light on the reality of Russia's bloody history in a way no other novelist I've yet read has.
Grossman's 'digressions' from the narrative take many forms. He writes about those who inform on others and those informed on. He presents multiple scenarios and lets the reader decide the culpability. Informing on your neighbor, or your loved ones--is it ever justified? Or is it only ever just as abhorrent as it seems. Grossman doesn't really make it easy. The portrayals are often brutal, but the judgements are often subtle. He writes about prison life. He writes about women's equality, but not the sort women would want--the one place they achieve equality is in their suffering in the camps which equals that of men, perhaps even surpasses it. One of the most disturbing sections is that which tells the story of the destruction of the Ukrainian peasantry. How does what was once the 'breadbasket' of the Soviet Union turn into a bleak waste land--a famine of catastrophic proportions devastating communities until there is literally no one left. And the officials, the secret police go door to door counting the dead and dismissing their lives. As if they never existed. How many lives were really lost and have been forgotten?
And I kept asking why. Why did this happen. Then Grossman turns his attention to Lenin and Stalin. Two of the most fascinating chapters, which go a long way to explaining things. And the whys and hows come slowly into focus. I still cannot wrap my head around it all. I don't think I could begin to try and explain it here in any detail, I'm afraid. It would seem the seeds were buried deep within the history of Russia. Maybe it is too simplistic of an explanation, but the roots lead back to the enslavement of the Russian people. And what Lenin began, Stalin finished, and then it was simply part of the Russian makeup--the State just continued on. Stalin was determined to bring Russia into the modern world, which he did through collectivization and a fair amount of terror. I still don't understand the 'whys'. Can the sheer desire for power create such monstrous behavior? Apparently so.
Vasily Grossman's masterpiece is his 900+ page work, Life and Fate, which was surpressed in the Soviet Union during his lifetime. Everything Flows is the result of his difficulties in getting Life and Fate published. Unfortunately Everything Flows is an unfinished work. Whatever it lacks in final polish it makes up in breadth and scope. I feel one small step closer to understanding something about Russia's history. Again, though, it is Grossman's portrayal of those doomed to suffer under the weight of this history that leaves such an indelible mark upon my mind. He has managed to put a very human face on the sufferings of those marginalized and dismissed by their leaders, and that impresses me.
You can read Caroline's thoughts on the book here. Make sure you check out the other links in her post for more perspectives on the book. Someday I would like to tackle Life and Fate, too. As painful as books such as these are to read, I think they are important--to understand and remember.
Next up is The Death of the Adversary by Hans Keilson.