Are there any books I should read before beginning this? It's

>>8689379
Pay attention to the character overview that is added at the end and which I didn't notice at first, else you might get confused. But that's about it. I'll finish it tomorrow, sixty pages left!

>>8689456
how is it?

>>8689490
Its socialist realist style was something I had to come to terms with, and sometimes it felt tough to keep an overview over its sprawling plot and the myriad of characters, but all in all, it's enjoyable. Especially because there's a fundamental change in tone after a while, when it's less about Papa Stalin and his glorious USSR fighting fascism, but about very different characters getting their fate crunched and churned between the meddling of two totalitarian systems..

File: SDC10419.jpg (3MB, 3648x2736px) Image search: [Google]

3MB, 3648x2736px

>>8689379
I'm from /k/, and have a hard on for Russian firearms as long as the list of wars that the Mosin series of rifles have seen. I kinda doubt the information you're looking for is related to firearms, but Hell, I love them, and I love talking about them, so just putting it out there. A great book detailing the Eastern Front of WWII, by the way, is Stalingrad: The Infernal Cauldron by Stephen Welsh (or Walsh). It focuses on Stalingrad, yes, but includes A LOT of information leading up to it, including the first 6 months of Operation Barbarossa in 1941.

Also, yeah, that's a pretty old pic... anyways, feel free to ignore this if you're not interested in the firearm aspect, all good.

read my diary first

>>8689561
That's not what I meant but thanks for the input anyway. I was thinking more along the lines of W&P etc. Fuck it, I'll just start it tonight.

Read Andrei Platonov's 'The Foundation Pit'. Quite a quick read and much more critical of Stalin than this. Life and Fate felt like Grossman's attempt at a 'Great Russian Novel' in the W&P sense. Personally I don't feel he quite pulls it off. Still excellent though.

>>8691825
No problem, hope you enjoy the book! Might have to look it up myself some day!