Reading the World discussion

no spoilers before August

book summary from Wikipedia (may have some spoilers)

Ivan Denisovich Shukhov has been sentenced to a camp in the Soviet gulag system. He was accused of becoming a spy after being captured briefly by the Germans as a prisoner of war during World War II. He is innocent, but is sentenced to ten years in a forced labor camp.

The day begins with Shukhov waking up sick. For waking late, he is forced to clean the guardhouse, but this is a comparatively minor punishment. When Shukhov is finally able to leave the guardhouse, he goes to the dispensary to report his illness. It is relatively late in the morning by this time, however, so the orderly is unable to exempt any more workers and Shukhov must work.

The rest of the novel deals mainly with Shukhov's squad (the 104th, which has 24 members), their allegiance to the squad leader, and the work that the prisoners (zeks) do in hopes of getting extra food for their performance. For example, they are seen working at a brutal construction site where the cold freezes the mortar used for bricklaying if not applied quickly enough. Solzhenitsyn also details the methods used by the prisoners to survive; the whole camp lives by the rule of survival of the fittest.

Tiurin, the foreman of gang 104, is strict but kind, and the squad's fondness of Tiurin becomes more evident as the book progresses. Though a morose man, Tiurin is liked because he understands the prisoners, he talks to them, and he helps them. Shukhov is one of the hardest workers in the squad and is generally well-respected. Rations are meagre at the camp, but they are one of the few things that Shukhov lives for. He conserves the food that he receives and is always watchful for any item that he can hide and trade for food at a later date.

At the end of the day, Shukhov is able to provide a few special services for Tsezar (Caesar), an intellectual who does office work instead of manual labor. Tsezar is most notable, however, for receiving packages of food from his family. Shukhov is able to get a small share of Tsezar's packages by standing in lines for him. Shukhov reflects on his day, which was both productive and fortuitous for him.

Author info -- there is a wonderful but very long Wikipedia article on Solzhenitsyn. I highly recommend it. This part is re: his imprisonment, which I am sure inspired this book.


In February 1945, while serving in East Prussia, Solzhenitsyn was arrested by SMERSH for writing derogatory comments in private letters to a friend, Nikolai Vitkevich,[21] about the conduct of the war by Joseph Stalin, whom he called "Khozyain" ("the boss"), and "Balabos" (Yiddish rendering of Hebrew baal ha-bayit for "master of the house").[22] Also he had talks with the same friend about the need of a new organisation against the Soviet regime.[23]

He was accused of anti-Soviet propaganda under Article 58 paragraph 10 of the Soviet criminal code, and of "founding a hostile organization" under paragraph 11.[24][25] Solzhenitsyn was taken to the Lubyanka prison in Moscow, where he was interrogated. On 9 May 1945, it was announced that Germany had surrendered and all of Moscow broke out in celebrations with fireworks and searchlights illuminating the sky to celebrate the victory in the Great Patriotic War as Russians call the war with Germany.[26] From his cell in the Lubyanka, Solzhenitsyn remembered: "Above the muzzle of our window, and from all the other cells of the Lubyanka, and from all the windows of the Moscow prisons, we too, former prisoners of war and former front-line soldiers, watched the Moscow heavens, patterned with fireworks and crisscrossed with beams of searchlights. There was no rejoicing in our cells and no hugs and no kisses for us. That victory was not ours".[26] On 7 July 1945, he was sentenced in his absence by Special Council of the NKVD to an eight-year term in a labour camp. This was the normal sentence for most crimes under Article 58 at the time.[27]

The first part of Solzhenitsyn's sentence was served in several different work camps; the "middle phase", as he later referred to it, was spent in a sharashka (i.e., a special scientific research facility run by Ministry of State Security), where he met Lev Kopelev, upon whom he based the character of Lev Rubin in his book The First Circle, published in a self-censored or "distorted" version in the West in 1968 (an English translation of the full version was eventually published by Harper Perennial in October 2009).[28] In 1950, he was sent to a "Special Camp" for political prisoners. During his imprisonment at the camp in the town of Ekibastuz in Kazakhstan, he worked as a miner, bricklayer, and foundry foreman. His experiences at Ekibastuz formed the basis for the book One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. One of his fellow political prisoners, Ion Moraru, remembers that Solzhenitsyn spent some of his time at Ekibastuz writing.[29] While there Solzhenitsyn had a tumor removed. His cancer was not diagnosed at the time.

In March 1953, after his sentence ended, Solzhenitsyn was sent to internal exile for life at Birlik,[30] a village in Baidibek district of South Kazakhstan region of Kazakhstan (Kok-terek rural district).[31][32][circular reference] His undiagnosed cancer spread until, by the end of the year, he was close to death. In 1954, he was permitted to be treated in a hospital in Tashkent, where his tumor went into remission. His experiences there became the basis of his novel Cancer Ward and also found an echo in the short story "The Right Hand". It was during this decade of imprisonment and exile that Solzhenitsyn abandoned Marxism and developed the philosophical and religious positions of his later life, gradually becoming a philosophically-minded Eastern Orthodox Christian as a result of his experience in prison and the camps.[33][34][35] He repented for some of his actions as a Red Army captain, and in prison compared himself to the perpetrators of the Gulag: "I remember myself in my captain's shoulder boards and the forward march of my battery through East Prussia, enshrouded in fire, and I say: 'So were we any better?'" His transformation is described at some length in the fourth part of The Gulag Archipelago ("The Soul and Barbed Wire"). The narrative poem The Trail (written without benefit of pen or paper in prison and camps between 1947 and 1952) and the 28 poems composed in prison, forced-labour camp, and exile also provide crucial material for understanding Solzhenitsyn's intellectual and spiritual odyssey during this period. These "early" works, largely unknown in the West, were published for the first time in Russian in 1999 and excerpted in English in 2006

I read this last year. It is a powerful book that really gives a sense of how hard it was in a Gulag.

I read it a year ago too, but will definitely reread it because it is short and incredibly powerful. The ending is the best.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed reading this book. I had not been looking forward to it as I felt that a description of life in the Soviet era camps would be so depressing. However, instead it was life affirming and I felt that although the camps were incredibly cruel and harsh that there were flashes of real humanity shared in them. Also, the writing itself was masterful in its ability to share with the reader this unimagined day in the life while never once pointing to itself and having the writing trump the characters. Although we are only given a day, within that day there was so much happening that was shared so clearly with the reader. There were the comparisons of the different survival strategies of the various characters, the way the characters had figured out how to best work within the system, the power struggles across the various hierarchies and the unbroken will of Ivan himself to maintain some dignity, some semblance of being an independent man while all the while unafraid to lower himself to servicing others if it would get him ahead. His pride in his brick laying was equal to his pride in being able to get a taste of sausage by standing in line for someone else who would get a package. I also found his thinking back on the day at the end almost breathtaking. He had had a relatively good day and was able to appreciate that good day without being consumed by bitterness or dwelling on what kind of life he might have had. The power of the book to condemn the soviet regime while maintaining the triumphs of the men without once having to spell it out to the reader was extraordinary.

Gail, that review agrees with my thoughts on the book. The book was surprisingly not depressing, but very powerful instead.

Agreed, very powerful. I now am thinking about reading his other work.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
4/5 stars

Alexander Solzhenitsyn is a former Soviet battery commander and is a survivor of the notorious Soviet Gulag. The story is fictional but clearly written by someone with first hand knowledge. The book is literally a day in the life of a prisoner in the Soviet hard labor camp. The story clearly expressed the challenges prisoners went through just surviving the day especially in the Siberian cold. Bread is an important component of this story and I will never look at a piece of bread in the same way especially the crusty bits. I also enjoyed the afterward by Eric Bogosian and the introduction by Yevgeny Yevtushenko.

“The ones that don't make it are those who lick other men's leftovers, those who count on the doctors to pull them through, and those who squeal on their buddies.”

“There is nothing as bitter as this moment when your go out to the morning roll call – in the dark, in the cold, with a hungry belly, to face a whole day of work. You lose your tongue. You lose all desire to speak to anyone.”

“Unlike Primo Levi's horrific account of the Nazi death machine (many features of his stories are almost identical to Solzhenitsyn's, right down to the manner in which the soup is ladled out), this was not a story of something that had happened in the past and now was thankfully over.”

I loved this one even more than all of you as you can see from my rating. More than a year ago I read it for the first time, and I still think about it often. That ending where he talked about how many days were left. That is what did it for me. That last page. I found it unbearably powerful

I read an abridged version of his four part Gulag Archipelago. He mentioned that they kept extending the length of his sentence, so that he had no idea when he was actually going to be released.

Rosemarie wrote: "I read an abridged version of his four part Gulag Archipelago. He mentioned that they kept extending the length of his sentence, so that he had no idea when he was actually going to be released."

Oh, wow. I wonder if that inspired this last page of this book... even though it was just pointing out the 3,600+ days in his 10 years ahead.

Started today. Lots to learn here. Glad this was picked.

Celia wrote: "Started today. Lots to learn here. Glad this was picked."

I am so glad you are reading it. Can't wait to hear your thoughts.

There is a film version of this book, from the 70s, which did an excellent job depicting the harsh conditions in the camp.

Rosemarie wrote: "There is a film version of this book, from the 70s, which did an excellent job depicting the harsh conditions in the camp."

A movie! I didn't know, thanks for the tip. Looks like I will have to watch it from Youtube as Netflix does not have and neither does my library.

Rosemarie wrote: "There is a film version of this book, from the 70s, which did an excellent job depicting the harsh conditions in the camp."

I had no idea! I would love to try and see it.

I am only partly finished with the book. I have learned much about a a Russian gulag already. How the zeks (prisoners) rely on each other for survival. I feel I am getting to know the author better too as he spent time in a gulag.

Celia wrote: "I am only partly finished with the book. I have learned much about a a Russian gulag already. How the zeks (prisoners) rely on each other for survival. I feel I am getting to know the author better..."

Yes this book is quite autobiographical. I can't wait for your overall reaction. I think the last page is the strongest ending I have ever read.