Life and Fate Read Along, Part 2 Chapter 36

This post, covering Part 2, Chapter 36 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.

After quickly brushing aside his gunshot wound, Krymov makes his return to the narrative. He immediately returns to the Political Administration thinking “What a lot of furrowed brows, what tension in everyone’s eyes!” (p. 509). Whenever he mentions house 6/1, he seems to get strange responses. Of course, due to his injury he still doesn’t know that the house has been reduced to rubble along with everyone in it.

Even after some time to think, Krymov still feels irked by his time in house 6/1. He thinks that “In Stalingrad he had felt a rapport with the men around him. He had been at ease there… In house 6/1 he had expected to feel the spirit of Lenin still more strongly. Instead he had immediately encountered mockery and hostility,” (p. 511).