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Title: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn, Alexander Tvardovsky, Yevgeny Yevtushenko ISBN: 0451527097 Publisher: Signet Classic Pub. Date: August, 1998 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $5.95 Amazon Price(USD): $5.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.52326
Rating: 5
Summary: Harrowing Tale of Stalin-Age Work Camps
Comment: Stalin gets off easy in the annals of history for his butchery, probably because he fought with the U.S. against Hitler. But this book will make people think a little differently. Stalin was a man who killed nearly 100 million of his own people, ostensibly in the name of security, but the real reason lies in paranoia and power-hunger. This is a tragic story by a man who experienced the same thing. Solzhenitsyn spent time in a Soviet labor camp because he made a derogatory comment about Stalin. But Ivan Denisovich Shukhov's crime is even less. He is captured by Germans in World War II but escapes to Russian lines. Instead of being decorated, he is caught in one of Stalin's witch hunts and is labeled a German spy. He confesses to a crime he did not commit, and is given 10 years hard labor. One Day chronicles his life in the camp. It is a story you will not soon forget. This short volume tells of the back-breaking work, the cruel injustices, and ultimately denounces Stalin. If the book had been published ten years earlier Solzhenitsyn would most likely have been killed. But Krushchev allowed it to be published. Along with Doctor Zhivago it stands as one of the greatest pieces of Soviet Literature ever written, still as powerful today as it was when published in 1962.
Rating: 4
Summary: 3650 days to go plus 3 more for leap years
Comment: This was a good read, not a great one, but an interesting one at that.
A chilling historical look at a way of life that many had to endured due to the effects of war, and the survival of the fittest within the confines of a Siberian labor camp.
Ivan Denisovich tells us about a "Good" day in this life that he's been sentenced 10 years to unjustly. He was an innocent man beaten to within inches of death when he signed a confession of treason to save his own life.
Reveille was tapped out by a stick, on windows covered with two fingers thick ice, and on this particular morning the outside temperature was a mere 37 below zero, not cold enough to call work off for the day. It had to be 40 below for that event to take place. Clad in foot rags and wet felt boots, trousers, jacket, a hat, and makeshift mittens, the men fell out into the darkness of the beginning day in formation to be counted. Once hopefully, if the guards got the count right the first time, which didn't seem to happen very often. They survived on a watery soup. If one was lucky, he might find a bit of a potato, or even a remnant of fish in his bowl. For the most part, it appeared as dirty dish water, littered with discarded fish bones, which were welcomed by it's diner as they sucked on them to get whatever bits they could from them. Along with this they were served a 200 gram ration of bread. Then it was off to whatever work detail they were assigned to for the day. Today they would be fortunate, they would be laying a block wall. Inside work, which they were grateful for seeing they would be sheltered from the extreme bitterness of the flesh cutting winds that blew outside. The harder your worked for your foreman, measured by the amount of work accomplished, the unit would be rewarded with extra food portions. So needless to say, the survivalists kept on the backs of the slackers to ensure their fair share, which kept tension tight between the men.
Ivan paints a very descriptive portrait about the men that he shared this life with, the pathetic camp conditions they overcame, and the hopes and dreams, both lost and found.
I was a bit taken back when I realized this all took place in the 1940's, not so very long ago at all. It just seemed too barbaric for the era.
I have to say this is a good historical piece, as well as a look at the human nature's fight to survive. It's a quick read, and worth taking a look at.
Rating: 4
Summary: Survival Story
Comment: This book is possibly a more important historical document than a work of literature, especially when read in translation. This is the story of a single, ordinary day in the life of a labor camp prisoner in Stalin's Russia. The narrative is involving as it has that quality of documenting detail on which the character's survival depends, the way Dafoe documented Crusoe's life. You don't have to know very much about Russia or history to read this book. It is an account of simple human survival in the harshest and most dehumanizing conditions. Its honest, raw language and first-hand source places it into the tradition of modern realism. Ivan Denisovich is not out to teach us something about human resilience, only the desire to live. He is not out to make a profound political statement, since conclusions can be easily made by the reader. The conditions of life Solzhenitsyn depicts are so injust and harrowing that the reader has little choice but to denounce the regime which enacted such terror. In the end, this is a story of the simplest instinct of survival under the most artifical conditions of bondage.
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Title: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich: Notes by Franz G. Blaha ISBN: 0822009609 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: January, 1990 List Price(USD): $5.99 Amazon Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation by Thomas P. Whitney, Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn ISBN: 0813332893 Publisher: Westview Press Pub. Date: May, 1997 List Price(USD): $25.00 Amazon Price(USD): $17.50 |
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Title: Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn, Nicholas Bethell, David Burg ISBN: 0374511993 Publisher: Noonday Press Pub. Date: November, 1991 List Price(USD): $18.00 Amazon Price(USD): $12.60 |
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Title: The First Circle by Thomas P. Whitney, Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn ISBN: 0810115905 Publisher: Northwestern University Press Pub. Date: October, 1997 List Price(USD): $16.05 Amazon Price(USD): $11.24 |
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Title: The Stranger by Albert Camus, Matthew Ward ISBN: 0679720200 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: March, 1989 List Price(USD): $9.95 Amazon Price(USD): $9.95 |
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