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A review by captainfez
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
5.0
I've avoided Solzhenitsyn for a while as I'd previously gone overboard with Russian literature, and was a little worried about becoming bogged down in some more turgid prose.
Happily, this isn't a concern with One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch. It's gripping. Not in a ripping yarns kind of way, but more in the way it conveys accurately what would have been considered an average day for many under Stalinist rule.
Thankfully, this novel is easily readable by those without a great grasp of Stalin's history (it's enough to be acquainted with the excesses and strictures of that leader's rule) as it concentrates on the grinding mundanity of life in detention camps; the struggles for food, the struggles between different nationalities; the battles against the weather, the supervisors and human greed, perhaps the most insidious opponent of all.
It's perhaps a little strange to say the the novel wasn't grindingly depressing - after all, the existence of camps and the deprivation that many underwent in them (to the point of death, obviously) is a terrible thing - but the end of the narrator's story
It's no wonder Khrushchev authorised its publication, as it finally stands as testament to human strength, not just to the horrors of imprisonment.
Happily, this isn't a concern with One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch. It's gripping. Not in a ripping yarns kind of way, but more in the way it conveys accurately what would have been considered an average day for many under Stalinist rule.
Thankfully, this novel is easily readable by those without a great grasp of Stalin's history (it's enough to be acquainted with the excesses and strictures of that leader's rule) as it concentrates on the grinding mundanity of life in detention camps; the struggles for food, the struggles between different nationalities; the battles against the weather, the supervisors and human greed, perhaps the most insidious opponent of all.
It's perhaps a little strange to say the the novel wasn't grindingly depressing - after all, the existence of camps and the deprivation that many underwent in them (to the point of death, obviously) is a terrible thing - but the end of the narrator's story
It's no wonder Khrushchev authorised its publication, as it finally stands as testament to human strength, not just to the horrors of imprisonment.