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A review by rhubarb1608
November 1916 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
3.0
Giving this a numbered rating is so trite. This book is so potent, so profound, that giving it three or four stars feels like shrugging it off.
Reading this was a lot of work. It took effort and discipline. But I was determined to read it for the centennial, and while I didn't love every moment, and had to physically battle my way through sections, finishing it gives me almost more satisfaction than anything else I've read this year.
Solzhenitsyn was a great voice of the 20th century. He was brilliant and insightful while at the same time poetic. Some parts of this, I couldn't tell you if it was Russia 1916 or America in 2016 -- it's just that timeless.
Beautiful and terrible. A piece of literature awesome not in the colloquial sense, but in the sense of overwhelming the reader that anyone could take on and complete such a project. I salute the translator as well; he had a gargantuan undertaking, and his work put Solzhenitsyn's work in my hands. Well done.
Reading this was a lot of work. It took effort and discipline. But I was determined to read it for the centennial, and while I didn't love every moment, and had to physically battle my way through sections, finishing it gives me almost more satisfaction than anything else I've read this year.
Solzhenitsyn was a great voice of the 20th century. He was brilliant and insightful while at the same time poetic. Some parts of this, I couldn't tell you if it was Russia 1916 or America in 2016 -- it's just that timeless.
Beautiful and terrible. A piece of literature awesome not in the colloquial sense, but in the sense of overwhelming the reader that anyone could take on and complete such a project. I salute the translator as well; he had a gargantuan undertaking, and his work put Solzhenitsyn's work in my hands. Well done.