Life and Fate Read Along, Part 1 Chapter 65

This post, covering Part 1, Chapter 65, is part of The Slavic Literature Pod’s chapter a day read along of Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate. Learn more about our project here.

Here we find the Red Army: pushed to the so-called end of the Earth. We join Darensky on a lonely mission through the Kalmyk Steppe.

Though the steppe is normally considered a desolate, relatively inhospitable climate, Darkensky sees something different. He thinks that “ there is another, unexpected side to the steppe. It is also a noble, ancient world; a world where there are no screaming colours or harsh lines, but only a sober grey-blue melancholy that can rival the colours of a Russian forest in autumn…” (p. 292).