About this title: In this, the only English translation authorised by Aleksandr Solzhenitzyn, ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVICH stands as a classic of contemporary literature. It is an unforgettable portrait of the world of Stalin's forced work camps, and remains one of the most extraordinary literary documents of its time. It confirmed Solzhenitzyn's stature as "a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy".
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: Study Guide ed.
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Sparknotes
Date Published: 09/2003
ISBN-13:9781586638320ISBN:1586638327
Description: Fine Like New, Unread, not previously owned. May show signs of wear including remainder marks or stickers on book or cover. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 66 p. read more
Edition: Study Guide ed.
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Sparknotes
Date Published: 09/2003
ISBN-13:9781586638320ISBN:1586638327
Description: Fine Like New, Unread, not previously owned. May show signs of wear including remainder marks or stickers on book or cover. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 66 p. read more
Edition: Study Guide ed.
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Sparknotes
Date Published: 09/2003
ISBN-13:9781586638320ISBN:1586638327
Description: Fine Like New, Unread, not previously owned. May show signs of wear including remainder marks or stickers on book or cover. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 66 p. read more
Edition: Study Guide ed.
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Sparknotes
Date Published: 09/2003
ISBN-13:9781586638320ISBN:1586638327
Description: Fine Like New, Unread, not previously owned. May show signs of wear including remainder marks or stickers on book or cover. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 66 p. read more
Edition: Study Guide ed.
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Sparknotes
Date Published: 09/2003
ISBN-13:9781586638320ISBN:1586638327
Description: Fine Like New, Unread, not previously owned. May show signs of wear including remainder marks or stickers on book or cover. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 66 p. read more
Edition: Study Guide ed.
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Sparknotes
Date Published: 09/2003
ISBN-13:9781586638320ISBN:1586638327
Description: Fine Like New, Unread, not previously owned. May show signs of wear including remainder marks or stickers on book or cover. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 66 p. read more
Edition: Study Guide ed.
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Sparknotes
Date Published: 09/2003
ISBN-13:9781586638320ISBN:1586638327
Description: Fine Like New, Unread, not previously owned. May show signs of wear including remainder marks or stickers on book or cover. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 66 p. read more
Edition: Study Guide ed.
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Sparknotes
Date Published: 09/2003
ISBN-13:9781586638320ISBN:1586638327
Description: Fine Like New, Unread, not previously owned. May show signs of wear including remainder marks or stickers on book or cover. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 66 p. read more
Edition: Study Guide ed.
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Sparknotes
Date Published: 09/2003
ISBN-13:9781586638320ISBN:1586638327
Description: Fine Like New, Unread, not previously owned. May show signs of wear including remainder marks or stickers on book or cover. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 66 p. read more
Edition: Study Guide ed.
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Sparknotes
Date Published: 09/2003
ISBN-13:9781586638320ISBN:1586638327
Description: Fine Like New, Unread, not previously owned. May show signs of wear including remainder marks or stickers on book or cover. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 66 p. read more
Edition: Study Guide ed.
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Sparknotes
Date Published: 09/2003
ISBN-13:9781586638320ISBN:1586638327
Description: Fine Like New, Unread, not previously owned. May show signs of wear including remainder marks or stickers on book or cover. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 66 p. read more
Edition: Study Guide ed.
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Sparknotes
Date Published: 09/2003
ISBN-13:9781586638320ISBN:1586638327
Description: Fine Like New, Unread, not previously owned. May show signs of wear including remainder marks or stickers on book or cover. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 66 p. read more
Edition: Study Guide ed.
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Sparknotes
Date Published: 09/2003
ISBN-13:9781586638320ISBN:1586638327
Description: Fine Like New, Unread, not previously owned. May show signs of wear including remainder marks or stickers on book or cover. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 66 p. read more
Edition: Study Guide ed.
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Sparknotes
Date Published: 09/2003
ISBN-13:9781586638320ISBN:1586638327
Description: Fine Like New, Unread, not previously owned. May show signs of wear including remainder marks or stickers on book or cover. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 66 p. read more
"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."
"I have a spate of reviews I will be writing months after reading certain books. I don't know if the elimination of my usual knee-jerk response panders to the positives of deeper, long-term reflection or to the negatives of misremembered reactions. Either way...
I am not sure if a sad bit of desensitization has befallen me or my generation (this from an avowed anti-electronic gamer and anti-other realistic virtual realities); but, survival accounts from the Holocaust, Khmer Rouge, Darfur, Kosovo and on and on seem to make this book's description of forced labor pale. If it is a question of harsh environments and stoic resistance, this book is not really a recommended read.... And yet I do recommend it, and strongly. So, what I take from this book is not necessarily how much or how intensely the protagonist pained and suffered to get through a day, but how he described the psychological development of his (and his bunkmates') imprisoned day.
The sensation I have when I think back to this book (and I finished it well over a month ago) is similar to the short story "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien or the story I once heard of a Russian refusnik prisoner who used the threads of his shirt to create his Hanukah menorah: the need to hold so desperately to something in order to give life meaning. Solzhenitsyn takes Denisovich's daily bread and makes it a work of art; Alyosha's bible becomes this character's Sinai. The cigarette butts Fetiukov manages to scrounge are hidden gems, and the act of scrounging is this character's raison d'être. And hand in hand with the need to hold onto something goes the need to philosophize the reality at hand: reasoning how and why everyone around you goes from point A to point B (and often back to point A); how conformist is man's nature versus how unique is each man's nature; how relative is joy, pain and every other human emotion; what gives life meaning.
This book was a lackluster portrayal of suffering (thankfully I did not really seek that), but an excellent portrayal of both our collective psychology and our separate attitudes. My only regret was reading an older translation. The 1991 translation by H.T. Willets received far more acclaim and the author's approval.
(By the way, I have no idea if the Hanukah menorah story is true or my fantastic 5th-grade imagination made this one up at the time the Russian Jews were being allowed to leave in somewhat reasonable numbers; the awe remains regardless.)"
"I shouldn't have waited so long to write something on this. Read it a month ago.
Luke handed it to me saying that it was a kind of shoddy translation, but I think I would have come to this conclusion myself. This has been a real feature in the Russian books I've read, but I'm not sure if it's that Russian doesn't play nice when made to English, or simply that Russian prose is not particularly pleasing to read, at least for a westerner.
But for its historical value, the book is well-worth it. It's practically autobiographical, Solzhenitsyn having spent time in gulags. The life is unimaginable. The day is centered around tiny achievements, miniscule nuggets of happiness won through wit and experience. A crust of bread, extra porridge. The day described is actually a good day as days in the gulag go, although the description is relative. Massively relative.
There's an interesting kind of conflict where the author is critical of his keepers and the system, but takes huge pride in his team and his work at the gulag. There are pages that read like communist propaganda praising the man who works selflessly for his team, the "in this together" mentality. But the story as a whole, and the described histories that brought the men to the prison camp, are openly damning.
"A Day In the Life is amazing because it is a day in the life of a prisoner in a work camp in Siberia (I think). It is unique because Solzhenitsyn himself spent years in a prison camp FOR his writing, so he is writing with a personal perspective of what it is like to live a day amidst years of painful monotony and little hope of justice. Of course, that day is incredibly monotonous and yet the author manages to plumb the depths of the mind and emotions of the prisoner throughout the day. At the end of the book I put it down and decided it was a book about life, and life to the fullest. Even amidst the camp this man is industrious, ambitious, filled with longing and joys and satisfactions and pains. It's... actually quite inspiring. I think part of the point of the book is to celebrate the indomitable spirit of humanity. Despite oppression, poverty, sickness, and persecution, we can choose to live.
Solzhenitsyn fascinates me, particularly in comparison with another brilliant writer, Ayn Rand. Both left Communist Russia and condemned Communism, but with absolutely opposite premises. Their books both celebrate the human spirit, but they disagree completely about what that spirit actually is. Solzhenitsyn's exiled life in the US after his imprisonment and in the USSR is so interesting as well, because he kept himself surrounded by Russia even in the US. He never wanted to integrate and considered our society to be very corrupt, though in a different way than Russia. They were corrupt in the government, we were/are corrupt morally. When Solzhenitsyn could finally go back to Russia after Communism collapsed, still he struggled. He was certainly an idealist, but also a brilliant man, and a hero."
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