The Living And The Dead

The combination of traditional Tolstoyan verbiage with the time-worn universal theme of war has not prevented this Russian author (Days and Nights) and journalist from creating an intense and absorbing World War II documentary of the first months at Russia's Western Front, as the Germans advance relentlessly toward Moscow. More than an accurate, exciting record of the actual battles, retreats, and encirclements, the novel is meaningfully overcast with an aura of war—any war of any nation—no...