Life and Fate Read Along, Part 3 Chapter 3

This post, covering Part 3, Chapter 3 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.

Inside the Soviet prison, Krymov can hear the action of Stalingrad rumbling. Instead of hoping to participate, he spends most of this chapter still hoping that his imprisonment was a misunderstanding.

The narrator’s description of the prison’s workings and its inhabitants again highlights an important point: how “From time to time there were movements out in the corridor. The doors of the general cell — for deserters, traitors to the Motherland, looters and rapists — opened and closed,” (p. 618). The order of prisoners is telling: traitors to the Motherland are considered among the most vile of criminals, along with looters and rapists.