Nathan Bick

  In the middle of 2022, I was listening to Douglas Murray on Lex Fridman podcast when I heard something that was astonishing - Murray quoted an unnamed “Persian friend” who proclaimed that there were only two truly great novels of the 20th century - Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate and The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa ( link ). This was humbling. I thought I knew something about literature, had read or was familiar with the great works and writers. I had of course closely read Vasily Grossman and wrote about it. But here was a work and a writer, ostensibly “obviously” among the greatest of the last hundred years, which I had not heard anything about? I was floored; I paused the video and researched. This was a sobering reminder to not be too high in one’s own self-estimation, and also a surprising joy. Putting aside any evaluation of Murray’s politics and ideology (which would be a long essay), he’s clearly respectable for his literary experience and perspective, and he...

  For a time a few years ago, around 2018 or 2019, my family (including the “MV Bicks”) conducted a monthly book club. We took turns each selecting the book, which I recall was the source of a little pressure - my family is well read and intellectual, so there was a pressure to make a good selection, something impressive or respectable which nonetheless was suitably representative of our interests and tastes. For example, I chose Everything Flows by Vasily Grossman. This novel by Olga Tokurczuk was among those selected but I can’t recall by whom. It was after her selection for the Nobel Prize in Literature, since I know my mother bought several copies at Politics and Prose, including the copy I just read - they all advertise the author’s prize on the cover. I shirked at that time and didn’t read the book, so this year I picked it up again on a whim, more or less. I had little knowledge or context about it and didn’t know what to expect. I was hopeful that reading this novel by an a...