This is a tough read, dealing as it does with the atrocities Ukraine has suffered in the past and is currently suffering. The book started out as an exploration of the Babyn Yar massacre of 1941, but when Russia invaded in 2022 Littel revised his text to include it. It’s not an historical document as such but a series of essays and impressions accompanied by some horrific photographs, which underline the tragedies. These images are haunting and make the book even more harrowing than it would be otherwise. It’s an important chronicle of past and present, but it didn’t quite come together satisfactorily for me. I found the interweaving of the two events too fragmented, and it also assumes a great deal of prior knowledge to put it all into context. It does successfully draw the parallels between the Nazi and Russian atrocities placing Babyn Yar and Bucha side-by-side, and this aspect of the narrative is particularly disturbing. But I still found the reading somewhat alienating with its disjointed approach, which for me detracted from the horror.

Felt like I needed more time to read/digest this, stopped at about halfway. I thought it was all structured very well, but the context and content/writing felt to sensitive and almost indecent to be written while the wars and violence are still on-going? Especially because this is written through the eyes of someone uninvolved? This is just my personal feelings, subjective views and alike. I think this may be better appreciated with passed time, a little further down the line in the future.

An unmistakably important story to tell, but I sadly wasn’t a fan of the execution. I found the interweaving of the WW2 massacre and the current war interesting but there wasn’t’’t really enough about the massacre to make me feel like I had a proper grasp on the story. I ended up going to Wikipedia to read up on it to gain more knowledge. Several things were referred to visually without being shown, or mentioned as “famous colour photograph” when everything in the book was black&white. The book offers and interesting insight on Ukraine and the relationship with nationalism, the scars of WW2 and the Soviet Union - and how the invasion from Russia is impacted and impacting in turn.

Several of the individual stories were interesting, but this feels like a book where you need some prior knowledge about the author and place to appreciate it. The way it was broken up made it hard to get a good flow and it went back and forth without enough establishing of people and places. Hearing about what they ordered at a cafe feels so uninteresting when there is so much to unpack, and wouoldn’t be an issue had they actually unpacked it more thoroughly.

Unfortunately I found the book to be lacking in several ways, and the rating is really rescued by my interest in the subject matter.

Sadly did not finish, as is too near to the current war in Ukraine for my mind to consider. Appreciate others reviews, this is no reflection on the book.

i have thoroughly enjoyed jonathan littell’s fiction in the past, and his essay on babyn yar and the issues of collective memory and remembrance in contemporary world politics is absolutely fantastic. i wish it had been a little bit lengthier, though, because i would have loved to delve a little bit more into the atrocities that the germans carried out in ukraine during world war 2.