A review by lauren_endnotes
An Armenian Sketchbook by Vasily Grossman
4.0
A "twilight" travelogue of Armenia by the famous war reporter and novelist, Vasily Grossman. His travels took place in the early 1960s, written just few years before his own death.
Poetic passages and philosophical musings weave right along with descriptions of Armenian lakes and mountains, dinnertime conversations, and late-night feasts and drinking sessions.
It's both charming and weighty; Grossman, a Ukrainian Jew, finds a somber and tragic kinship with the Armenian people who were also subjects of ethnic-based genocide in the 20th century.
Poetic passages and philosophical musings weave right along with descriptions of Armenian lakes and mountains, dinnertime conversations, and late-night feasts and drinking sessions.
It's both charming and weighty; Grossman, a Ukrainian Jew, finds a somber and tragic kinship with the Armenian people who were also subjects of ethnic-based genocide in the 20th century.