One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich: A Novel

You find yourself in a freezing Siberian work camp on limited, disgusting food and conditions and a regime that gives you barely any relaxation but pain day in day out - how would you survive? So gripping did I find this book (versions differ, the earlier versions were less explicit than the unexpurgated text that forms the basis of post 60s editions) that I did not ge off my train on time and ended up in a freezing station having to get back home. It's enough to make anyone give up, but Denisovich (Sukhov or Shukov) does not. Shukov is his surname is a survivor who measures and calculates his survival strategy to a T and has almost become instutionalised into his gulag camp. Would he be happy to win his freedom. By the end of the book this question remains moot as Shukov knows freedom is not a reality, merely survival.

Counting bowls of food and getting himself extra rations through the back door. Knowing how to deal tactfully with his superiors. There is a tragi comic aspect to this short, undivided script the rings out in a matter of fact highly descriptive scenario from an author who apparently did time in a gulag.

Stalin was a cold monster and the victims try to cope. Interestingly I sometimes feel my life almost as restrictive as one negotiates ones limited student stipend to make it stretch in colourful ways ... or our lives could so easily get so tough. All the more reason to work hard and be kind to neighbours in the rat race - and perhaps this book will guide you about trancending your ratty nature if you feel that rat race it is.

A classic book, worth reading to get into educated circles.

Solzhenitsyn distills his voluminous Gulag Archipelago into his magnificent novel, "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich". The book is almost mundane in its account of the dreary, repetitive, and dehumanizing life in a Soviet "work" camp.

The circumstances leading to the arrest of thousands were doctrinaire and naive, corresponding perfectly with the personalities of those writing and enforcing such laws. The Soviet rule which first made use of such "concentration" camps can be accurately described, and is demonstrated perfectly by Solzhenitsyn, using the following analogy.

Imagine a social system in which the leaders are colour blind--they cannot distinguish between ripe and green tomatoes. However, they are not content to accept this fact; they must unrealistically force those who have functional vision to become like they are. They must cease to distinguish between green and ripe tomatoes. Under such leaders' supervision, they must even eat green tomatoes, pretending they are ripe. Such leaders, however, cannot rule without those who have some ability to distinguish colour. These are the middle men, caught between two worlds.

The phenomenon of Communism can be accurately described as pathocracy, a term created by Dr. Andrew Lobaczewski in his book Political Ponerology. In such a system psychopaths are the Daltonists; those who cannot understand the emotional inner life of the vast majority of humanity. They thus attempt the impossible, to stamp the conscience out of the rest of us.

Solzhenitsyn masterfully captures the essence of life under pathocracy. It is absurd and horrific, and without knowledge of its true nature, it will continue to periodically destroy large portions of humanity.

Required reading for my daughter. She thought is was awful. MysticBleu

A.S. in a short masterpiece clearly describes a world of which I knew little, and now I know some. Most of my Russian reading has been confined to the pre-revolutionary era, and it is interesting to contrast work to my favorites of Tolstoy and Chekhov. In short, A.S. is much to the point, informal, and writes with accuracy and a minimum of characterization. It's a fine book.

A brief Anti-Stalinist tendency in 1962 in the Soviet Union allowed the publication of Solzhenitsyn's account of life in a Siberian labor camp, a fictionalized account firmly based on his own experiences. He had spent eight years in such a camp.

There are innumerable details, such as the fact that prisoners are never allowed the sight of a clock, that speak to the authenticity of the narrative, details that few fiction writers could think up.

The author uses a plain, unadorned prose that is appropriate to the theme. To that extent, translations are not problematic, but the story includes a lot of prison slang, some grossly obscene, which is virtually untranslatable. Translators usually employ the nearest equivalent slang in the target language, which can read a little oddly - especially to an American reader reading a British edition, or vice versa - but it is probably the best approach. This occasional oddness of language does not detract from the overall effect.

A Day is a grim narrative yet easy to read, and surprisingly optimistic and uplifting. It portrays honorable and proud behavior under extreme stress. It stands as a testament to the horrors of political repression and the resilience of the human spirit.