Life and Fate Read Along, Part 3 Chapter 47

This post, covering Part 3, Chapter 47 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.

What fate will meet the German officers who, up to this point in the novel, everyone figured unstoppable?

It seems that for most of this chapters the officers are concerned with petty, trivial matters. In transport, Schlemmer is concerned about his suitcase and Colonel Adam is making a fuss about his toilet-case. The narrator observes that “These officers had indeed become human again, but not in the most admirable manner,” (p. 801). Their loss in war has deprived each of these men their ability to think beyond the most immediate, material concerns. They are no longer concerned with delusions of grandeur but, on the contrary, with their toiletries.