Reading 1001 discussion

Review thread:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Is anyone interested in hosting this quarterly read?

Welcome to the 2nd Quarterly read for 2023, The First Circle by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Here is a bio for Solzhenitsyn edited down from the Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Center website:

Winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize for Literature, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was born in 1918 in Kislovodsk, Russia. He studied mathematics at Rostov University, while taking correspondence courses from the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature, and History.
During World War II, he served as a commander in the Soviet Army, was involved in major action at the front, and was thrice decorated for personal heroism.

In 1945 he was arrested for being critical of Stalin in private correspondence and sentenced to an eight-year term in a labor camp, to be followed by permanent internal exile. The experience of the camps provided him with raw material for One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which he was permitted to publish in 1962. It would remain his only major work to appear Russia until 1990.
Solzhenitsyn’s exile was cut short by Khrushchev’s reforms, allowing him to return from Kazakhstan to central Russia in 1956. He taught mathematics, astronomy and physics at a high school while continuing to write. In the early 1960s he was allowed to publish, in addition to One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, only four stories, and by 1969 he was expelled from the Writers’ Union. The publication in the West of the initial version of August 1914 (the first part of The Red Wheel) and of Gulag Archipelago soon brought retaliation from the Soviet authorities. In February 1974, Solzhenitsyn was arrested, stripped of his Soviet citizenship, and flown against his will to Frankfurt, West Germany.
After a sojourn in Zurich, Solzhenitsyn moved to Vermont in 1976 with his wife and sons. Over the next eighteen years, spent mostly in the quiet of rural seclusion, Solzhenitsyn would continue to write.

In May 1994, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn returned to his native Russia via the Pacific port of Vladivostok and traveled extensively. He continued to write prodigiously, and died in Moscow in 2008 at age 89.

Solzhenitsyn’s other works on the 1001 list are One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and Cancer Ward.

Pre-Reading Thoughts and Questions:

1) Have you read any other of Solzhenitsyn's work?
2) Have you seen the Canadian mini-series from the early 90's based on The First Circle?
3) The title The First Circle refers to Dante's Inferno and the first circle of limbo. How does the title
influence your thinking about the book before you launch into reading?

I have not read this offering and therefore will be reading and learning with you. I will post some initial questions soon and then hopefully will post further questions as we progress.

I've got the audiobook ready to go for April and excited to get into this one. I've been meaning to read it for years.

1) I've read 'A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" and thought it was good but not a standout book for me, but I've also read "Cancer Ward" which I thought was incredible.

2) I have not, but am pleased to know this exists now! Was just looking it up and it has Victor Garber Christopher Plummer in it (love them!) and also David Hewlett who is a favorite of mine from my days of watching Stargate Atlantis: definitely going to watch that now!

3) not going to lie, I did just look up the book a bit as I do before reading anything, and found out it is a reference to the circle of purgatory where 'virtuous' pagan philosophers who lived before Christ get to live comfortably compared to the actual inhabitants of Hell. Since the book is about 'zeks' -prisoners who live in relative comfort compared to gulag prisoners because they do research and assist in the spying for the state. It's a good parallel.

Thank you Gail for moderating for us:)

1) Have you read any other of Solzhenitsyn's work?
I have read both A Day in the Life and Cancer Ward. Both books were good.

2) Have you seen the Canadian mini-series from the early 90's based on The First Circle?
Do tell, I did not know there was a mini-series. I will have to check it out.

3) The title The First Circle refers to Dante's Inferno and the first circle of limbo. How does the title influence your thinking about the book before you launch into reading?

I wasn't planning on reading this book but I may get sucked into it.

Another pre-reading question:

What edition are you reading? The original translations were based on the earlier work that Solzhenitsyn edited down to accommodate USSR policies on writing. They run about 580 pages. Then in 2009 an edition called In the First Circle came out and it is 742 pages with 9 complete chapters that were taken out of the earlier work.

First half questions:
Sorry about the numbering issue...I have fixed it:

1. How does a sharashka differ from a penal labor camp (like the one in Ivan Denisovich). Did you find the image of the sharashka to be reflection of all Soviet society?
2. Each chapter possesses an intriguing title. Describe how the title influenced your reading and if it created anticipation for the narrative to follow.
3. Gleb is said to be largely the voice of the author. Did you feel this to be true?
4. The novel contains both fictional characters and historical personages.
What are the advantages and the disadvantages — or opportunities and limitations — of mixing them in a novel?

I'm 86% done the long-version audiobook right now, and I'm really enjoying it. Like other Solzhenitsyn works I've read, there is still something light and domestic and fully human about the story despite the bleak setting.

1) The sharashka seems more like the modern Western notion of a jail (albeit with more sophisticate jobs) than the concentration-camp idea of the gulag.

2 (3?) The sense of surveillance and scarcity probably was a reflection of things true of all of Stalinist USSR, but, I do like resisting the Western (especially North American) misconception that all of soviet life for almost 90 years was all like the most oppressive years of Stalinism.

3 (2?) I actually have not noticed this since I'm doing the audiobook on a program that plays the whole book without chapter distinction. So, it is all novel as it goes for me.

4 (3?) I definitely got the impression that Gleb is a stand in. All of the characters seem to pontificate (what else do they have to do?) in ways that honestly are really entertaining me, but Gleb does seem to reflect the ideas explored by the plot/novel itself. Can we also talk about how weird Gleb and Nadya's relationship is? I find their dynamic fascinating but the whole time the focus is on them I think 'are people really like this?"

5 (4?) The limitations of including both fictional and historical personages is that you do have to conform to what we know from the historical record and fit things around it (unless you do something faaaaar left field like Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter lol). But, when done well, like I feel it has been here, it can heighten the sense of realism in the fictional characters and their situations. It's been very neat to hear the perspective of the prisoners and then switch to Stalin and see how wildly different a reality they live in.

Can't wait to finish this one!

Well, clearly Amanda is going to need the rest of the questions well before I am done reading the book. Here are the final questions, although I do not yet know how pertinent they are to understanding the book. Answer those that appeal to you.

1) The chapter at the middle of the novel is entitled "The Ark." Describe how it forms a pivot for the plot.
2) The novel’s structure is polyphonic with various major and minor characters taking turns as the central voice for a chapter or more. How did you find this narrative technique? Did you think it served the themes well and did it allow you to see different sides of various issues?
3) Chapters 18-21 present an extended portrait of Josef Stalin. How does the author present Stalin and do you think that Stalin has made Russia into his own image and likeness?
4) Each of the characters; Rubin, Nerzhin and Sologdin are voices for a specific way of thinking about what it means to be truly human, especially in the Soviet Union of this time. Can you sketch out the various view points that they represent?
5) Solzhenitsyn expresses his disillusionment with the progress of the socialist regime by a direct attack on one particular institution: the Soviet legal system. There is a pervasive narrative fascination for the law. Did you gain a rudimentary understanding of the system that has abused so many of the novel's characters?
6) Volodin stumbles across letters from his mother – what do they represent to Volodin and to the author’s themes?
7) And finally, did you appreciate reading The First Circle and does it belong on the 1001 List?

I am approximately half way through the novel and largely appreciating it. I particularly find the chapters about the women to be interesting. A couple of the "free" woman have been promised equality and have largely gotten it in that they have good jobs with good pay. However, they are conflicted about their relationship to the zeks because they can see that these men are quite capable and not particularly "enemies" of the state. Also, Nadya's roommates represent a very interesting look at women during the soviet era. They are all going to graduate school, they all believed that they could contribute to their society and they are also conflicted about relationships with men, with the honor involved in reporting against others and if they will truly be allowed to graduate.

1. How does a sharashka differ from a penal labor camp (like the one in Ivan Denisovich). Did you find the image of the sharashka to be reflection of all Soviet society?
I am not seeing it as a accurate reflection of all of Soviet society but it does prompt some thinking on that topic given that there is a touch of meritocracy in the system even though they are prisoners.

2. Each chapter possesses an intriguing title. Describe how the title influenced your reading and if it created anticipation for the narrative to follow. I have enjoyed the titles and they do make me wonder about what is coming up next but then once I start reading I forget them...

3. Gleb is said to be largely the voice of the author. Did you feel this to be true? I do not necessarily read Gleb as being the voice of the author but I do see him as having a more fully sketched character. He is less of a representative of a particular point of view. We also see his relationship with his work, his colleagues and his wife while the others, at least so far, are not given that amount of time.

4. The novel contains both fictional characters and historical personages.
What are the advantages and the disadvantages — or opportunities and limitations — of mixing them in a novel?
The disadvantage is that the reader knows something of the historical characters and will compare and contrast this knowledge with the fictional presentation in the novel. That is also the advantage as it places the other characters into a world that the reader sees as "real" or "true".

Second set of questions #3 regarding Stalin:
I enjoyed the contrast of the life of this Leader of the People versus the life of the very people he was leading but I also thought it was a bit dangerous in that Solzhenitsyn made Stalin somewhat of a clown; a very dangerous clown, but someone that was not able to see himself with any clarity. I am sure that Stalin had difficulty seeing that killing millions of people was probably not going to help his legacy, but I also doubt that he was quite this ignorant of his own motives.

Pre-Reading Thoughts and Questions:

1) Have you read any other of Solzhenitsyn's work? I've read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and Cancer Ward and I liked them both
2) Have you seen the Canadian mini-series from the early 90's based on The First Circle? no
3) The title The First Circle refers to Dante's Inferno and the first circle of limbo. How does the title
influence your thinking about the book before you launch into reading? I did not know what to expect when picking up the book. I now know that it is about being in a level of prison for people with certain desirable qualities

I am reading The Fontana Modern Novels translated by Micchael Guybon. And I am listening to the audio book The First Uncensored edition, In the First Circle and it is read by Derek Perkins. So I think my book is the censored edition and the audio book is the newer uncensored edition.

I'm about 33% done with it.

Where have you got an audiobook? I couldn’t find it on Audible.

Pip wrote: "Where have you got an audiobook? I couldn’t find it on Audible."

I found it on Hoopla Digital which I get access through my library in Lee County Florida. It’s a great resource.

https://www.hoopladigital.com/#

1) The chapter at the middle of the novel is entitled "The Ark." Describe how it forms a pivot for the plot.

The chapter The Ark moves the novel from the introductions to all the characters to how they interact with each other in their separate spheres. What is described is the nature of being outside of society, away from family, and therefore dependent on their "friends" to understand their very prescribed world. This chapter is told from the point of view of the author or omnipresent narrator rather than one of the characters.

2) The novel’s structure is polyphonic with various major and minor characters taking turns as the central voice for a chapter or more. How did you find this narrative technique? Did you think it served the themes well and did it allow you to see different sides of various issues?

I appreciated the various voices, the differences in their nature, the commonality and the differences of their back stories and the way they managed to survive. I do not know that it allowed me to see different sides of various political issues, rather it seemed to be about illuminating the differences in the characters as each chapter was seen from a different character's point of view.

3) Answered above.

4) Each of the characters; Rubin, Nerzhin and Sologdin are voices for a specific way of thinking about what it means to be truly human, especially in the Soviet Union of this time. Can you sketch out the various view points that they represent?
Rubin is a committed communist and a committed supporter of the USSR. He really just thinks that the troubles the country is going through are growing pains and deviations from the path that will be ironed out in time. He does courageously fight against these deviations however. He is the most optimistic of the group as he believes his fight is worthwhile. Nerzhin is focused more on the nature of human beings rather than the social construct of a government. To him it is all about the nature of the inner self and how that inner self articulates its morals out in the real world. For Spiridon, it was all about his family and the land. I really thought his story was incredibly interesting. Sologdin represents a kind of "christianity" where by one is saved by faith alone.

5) Solzhenitsyn expresses his disillusionment with the progress of the socialist regime by a direct attack on one particular institution: the Soviet legal system. There is a pervasive narrative fascination for the law. Did you gain a rudimentary understanding of the system that has abused so many of the novel's characters?

I did research Article 58. In many governments, where the leader has almost unlimited power, the letter of the law is often interpreted so broadly that there is no real law. However, the Soviet Union at this time, according to this book, did attempt to stand up for the law of the people. Law and order seemed to be the watch words at the time. Unfortunately, it was incredibly difficult to support individual legal rights when the government saw itself defending the overall rights of the people. For example, it was better to throw two possibly guilty people in jail than to wait and prove which of the two was really guilty.

6) Volodin stumbles across letters from his mother – what do they represent to Volodin and to the author’s themes?

Volodin's story becomes the framing device for the novel. He acts according to a moral imperative but then realizes he has wasted his act. His mother's letters remind him of his contemplations of Epicurus.

7) And finally, did you appreciate reading The First Circle and does it belong on the 1001 List? I did enjoy reading this book but also found it to be rather broad in its focus and it had relatively little plot or specifically plot driven drama. There was movement but most of the book was about ways of thinking rather than acts derived from ways of thinking. It was a good read but I preferred other of his books.

1. How does a sharashka differ from a penal labor camp (like the one in Ivan Denisovich). Did you find the image of the sharashka to be reflection of all Soviet society? the people in Sharashka had certain privileges and did not experience the hardships of a penal labor camp or the environment of Siberia. They did experience separation from family and friends and from society.

2. Each chapter possesses an intriguing title. Describe how the title influenced your reading and if it created anticipation for the narrative to follow. my book did not have chapter titles and I don't think the audio did either.

3. Gleb is said to be largely the voice of the author. Did you feel this to be true? Yes, I believe he was writing from some experience.

4. The novel contains both fictional characters and historical personages.
What are the advantages and the disadvantages — or opportunities and limitations — of mixing them in a novel? it's all good, done sometimes in historical fiction. I didn't mind it but I am sure it made it a more dangerous book to wirite.

1) The chapter at the middle of the novel is entitled "The Ark." Describe how it forms a pivot for the plot. not sure, but an ark is a place of safety, a place where you are set aside so you can survive. So is this prison a place of safety if you give what you are asked to give.

2) The novel’s structure is polyphonic with various major and minor characters taking turns as the central voice for a chapter or more. How did you find this narrative technique? Did you think it served the themes well and did it allow you to see different sides of various issues? I think this may have made it hard for me to stay focused.

3) Chapters 18-21 present an extended portrait of Josef Stalin. How does the author present Stalin and do you think that Stalin has made Russia into his own image and likeness? Stalin was a self centered man

4) Each of the characters; Rubin, Nerzhin and Sologdin are voices for a specific way of thinking about what it means to be truly human, especially in the Soviet Union of this time. Can you sketch out the various view points that they represent? Nerzhin is in the middle and looks to Rubin (Marxist) and to Sologdin to Christianity.

5) Solzhenitsyn expresses his disillusionment with the progress of the socialist regime by a direct attack on one particular institution: the Soviet legal system. There is a pervasive narrative fascination for the law. Did you gain a rudimentary understanding of the system that has abused so many of the novel's characters? yes, I did and I think it rings true today.

6) Volodin stumbles across letters from his mother – what do they represent to Volodin and to the author’s themes? I liked what Gail said above as Volodin being a framing device. I also think his reference to Epicurus believed that there was no punishment after death.


7) And finally, did you appreciate reading The First Circle and does it belong on the 1001 List? I did. I wish it was mandatory reading for all the proponents of progressiveness.

Gail wrote: "Well, clearly Amanda is going to need the rest of the questions well before I am done reading the book. Here are the final questions, although I do not yet know how pertinent they are to understand..."

I guess not lol, I did finish the book last month, but just getting to the questions now.

1) I don't know! I listened to the audiobook and it didn't seem to say chapter titles before starting, or it happen so quickly I didn't take note of them.

2) I think that narrative technique worked great for a story like this. Prisoners are often reduced to an inhuman mass, but they are are unique people with different lives and stories and identities and beliefs. It also worked very well in creating a complex narrative about the different attitudes toward the Soviet Union in this period (from supporting, to socialists that don't support Stalinism, to tsarists that are completely against, to the apoliticals who just survive without thinking about it).

3) I found the parts about Stalin fascinating in how the author seems to draw a sensitive line in criticism without full condemnation given this was written post-Stalinism in the Soviet Union. One way this happens is in his characterization of not fully understanding his own rationale for why he does some of the more brutal things he did.


4) I thought each of these characters was interesting in how they represent different types of 'true believers': to communism itself, to their sense of ethics against the regime, to their own freedom/private rights, respectively.

5) I didn't really learn more beyond what I already knew about the culture of reporting and kangaroo courts, but I thought this aspect was portrayed in a very realistic feeling way.


7) I really did appreciate this book overall, particularly Solzhenitsyn's ability to find the real and mundane and human in everything, and make the bleakest things more moving and evocative because of it. I ended up giving it 4 stars and would likely keep it on the list.

1) Have you read any other of Solzhenitsyn's work? Cancer Ward

2) Have you seen the Canadian mini-series from the early 90's based on The First Circle? Didn't even know it existed

3) The title The First Circle refers to Dante's Inferno and the first circle of limbo. How does the title influence your thinking about the book before you launch into reading? It didn't really

1. The inmates have a lot of freedom compared with what I expected them to have. They are allowed this freedom because they have expertise that Stalin needs and are involved in secret projects.


2. My book does not have chapter titles unless you count Chapter 1 - Chapter 87 as interesting LOL

3. Being honest I lost track of characters

4. I like a mix of real and fictional characters for me it makes history more accessible and interesting. The limitations are the non fictional characters have to be governed by what history knows they said and did.

1) Missed that as I have no chapter names.

2) I like switching narratives it gives a different perspective on the same events. I especially liked the female chapters as a counterpoint to the male and to see how life is outside of prison but still imprisoned by suspicion.

3)

4)

5) The understanding that I gained was that the law is arbitary and those in authority can essentially do what they want. There is no justice or rehabilitation just punishment.

6)

7) I would say yes it does belong on the list but I personally was not the right audience for this book. While reading I appreciated it but now a couple of days later my mind is blank and I have no idea what I read.

I'm behind, I'm always behind in my reading🤷‍♀️.

Pre-Reading Thoughts and Questions:

1) Have you read any other of Solzhenitsyn's work?
I have. I read Ivan Denisovich in high school and remember enjoying it so when it came up as a group read (can't remember which group) I reread it.

One of the bizarre things I remember from my childhood (before my parents divorced when I was 10) was that my father had a copy of Gulag Archipelago beside his chair. I never saw him reading it but I vividly remember the dust jacket with the picture of Solzhenitsyn on the back. Strange thing to remember.

2) Have you seen the Canadian mini-series from the early 90's based on The First Circle?

No, but I'm going to look for it after I read the book.

3) The title The First Circle refers to Dante's Inferno and the first circle of limbo. How does the title influence your thinking about the book before you launch into reading?

I'm not sure it does influence my thinking as I know nothing about this selection in the least.

What edition are you reading?

I've got a 2012 edition e-book that says "The First Uncensored Edition"

Welcome Gem, don’t think of it as being behind, just think that you are on a unique personal schedule.

Found this piece on the book from the Solzhenitsyn center website, that I felt like had some morsel in it:

"The intense but respectful conversations among these three intellectual inmates advance the central theme of the novel, namely, what it means to become a truly human . Rubin, far from being a stick-figure representation of a viewpoint, is a fully realized character who receives about as much space as Nerzhin. Despite his blind fidelity to Marxism, Rubin is a man of conscience. He cares deeply about humanity and is a true friend to Nerzhin. Rubin’s presence underlines the moral appeal of Marxism. Sologdin’s critique of collectivism is grounded in his hearty commitment to Christianity. As he watches Nerzhin moving away from Marxism, he confidently predicts that Nerzhin “will come to God”—not God in a general sense but “a concrete Christian God”—and to an acceptance of every Christian dogma, including the Trinity and the Immaculate Conception.

Nerzhin resists all ready-made worldviews; his characterization features his quest for a point of view of his own, a process that emphasizes actively cultivating one’s own soul. Nerzhin now denies that justice is relative or merely class-based and asserts, instead, that justice is “the foundation of the universe” and that we are “born with a sense of justice in our souls.” Although giving thought to absolutes and universals suggests some movement in Sologdin’s direction, Nerzhin stops short of embracing Christianity. An erstwhile Marxist, he examines the appeal of the longstanding Russian idea that wisdom resides in the peasantry, who in this view are the purest repositories of the Russian spirit. He befriends Spiridon, who embodies, just as Ivan Denisovich and Matryona do in their eponymous stories, “the people” to whom Nerzhin considers going for wisdom . Yet Nerzhin has learned from observation that the peasants are not in all ways morally superior, and so he decides that his only path to becoming a fully actualized human being is to think for himself and in that way to fashion his own soul. Nerzhin’s odyssey holds promise of further growth; it also remains open-ended."


I especially like the point in there about the urge to often pedestalize peasants (instead of God or a monarch) in communist thought, and I did appreciate how, in the book, Nerzhin rejects this ideal. As does the book itself. It's something I've thought of too, and I liked how this narrative seems to settle closer to "imperfect non-saintly people still deserve a quality life" version of Marxism than a "fetishization of poverty and the lower classes" one.

Thanks for sharing, Amanda. It is very interesting.

1. I have read and admired Cancer Ward and The Gulag Archipelago and have apparently also read A Day in the Life, but have no memory of it - so perhaps I only thought I did!
2. No
3. I thought that the characters would be in a kind of limbo because they were incarcerated.
4. I read a Kindle version of 592 pages

1. A sharashka is a special research facility where prisoners, who often have STEM degrees, are forced to work on projects which are deemed to contribute to the state. They have some privileges and may continue their own research. In contrast a penal labour camp has cruel conditions and prisoners are forced to do hard labour as a punishment, are forced to endure re-education.
2. Sadly, my Kindle edition did not include chapeter titles so I missed this anticipation.
3. Gleb's character may reflect Solzhenitsyn's own beliefs but I really don't know enough about these to be able to comment.
4. Real people such as Stalin are portrayed in fictional scenarios which allow Solzhenitsyn to comment indirectly on historical events. The fictional characters, which may be based on people the author knew, allow the author to explore differing perspectives and themes - very effectively in my opinion.
5. Rubin is pragmatic. He focuses on survival and is willing to compromise his principles for privileges. Nerzhin is more idealistic. He struggles to stay true to his beliefs while negotiating the realities of the immorality of the government. Sologdin is a true believer in communism, who is willing to subsume his personal desires for the greater good, By contrasting these characters Solzhenitsyn is able to portray the complications and contradictions of human nature in general, and the way it is changed by an oppressive system of government.