Live and Remember

Download or read book Live and Remember written by Valentin Rasputin and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Back Cover: Live and Remember is one of the most important works of Russian literature of the post-Stalin, pre-glasnost era. First published in Russian in 1974, it was immediately hailed by Soviet critics as a superb-if atypical-example of war literature and a moving depiction of the degradation and ultimate damnation of a frontline deserter-although it did provoke controversy for its sympathetic portrayal of the deserter's wife. But the novel has also attracted the attention of both Western and Soviet critics for it masterly psychological portrait of two characters caught in a hopeless situation. The novel tells the story of a Siberian peasant who makes a tragic miscalculation by deserting in the last year of the war, and the loyal wife who embraces his fate as her own. Rasputin examines the doomed relationship of these characters, sharply evoking the ties that bind individuals to their land, their community, their family. More than commentary on the nature of Soviet power or on the conduct of the war, Live and Remember is simultaneously a timeless tale with universal appeal and a very Russian story.