Is the gulag humans modern society that dislodges us from the true sense of spiritus? what do we as a culture pine for? food, sex, clothing, money ( to consume and partake of all this...) but the only way out is through a disipline of yogic prinicple (the release from SAMASARA) ( )

A master book by a master writer. ( )

Respect the hustle. ( )

A short novel at just over 180 pages but a painstaking and laborious read which is probably fitting as the story is set in a Soviet labor camp in the 1950s and describes a single day in the life of ordinary prisoner, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov , He is innocent, but is sentenced to ten years in a forced labor camp.

The book's publication was an extraordinary event in Soviet literary history, since never before had an account of Stalinist repression been openly distributed and therefore the importance of this publication would have made this book an extraordinary piece of writing given the fact that Russia had hidden any details and accounts of what went on in the camps for years so I get how important
as a political tract and as a literary work this must have been at the time.

I read this novel as book club read and having read it a couple of years previously I knew that this was a difficult read and not because it graphic but more that it is stark and eventual read (for the reader) where a day in the life goes slowly by as you read the prisoner's daily routine from he gets up in the morning until the end of his day and yet what is uneventful for the reader is monumental in achievements for the prisoner and it is in understanding this that makes the book so important.

I adapted a different approach to this novel second time around and printed off the discussion questions for the book beforehand in order to read this one and get more from it than I did first time around and I can honestly say I read the book differently and understood it better having the discussion questions to keep me focused.

This was not an enjoyable or even an informative read for me, and I think readers who may not be familiar with Russian history, as you would have to have prior knowledge of Russian leaders and events or the history of these camps in order to read this book and connect with it in my opinion. I can understand the importance of the book and how it is still a book that is on many reading lists as it is a stark and realistic telling of a day in the life of an ordinary prisoner.

I liked the book but having read it now twice I can honestly say it is not one for my favorite shelf. ( )

Although this was initially a tedious read for me, as I got further into the book, I found it to be slightly compelling in a realistically dry way. I felt that the author's writing style was true to the life lived in such conditions, and that spoke to me more than a more gripping writing could have. After reading this, I feel like I have a deeper perspective on life during that time in Russia. ( )

Book 74
A Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Maybe next time I am thinking it's a hard day I should re-read this?
9/10
13/100 books that changed the world. ( )

This book is pretty much exactly what you'd expect. It's a day in the life of a man in a Soviet labor camp/gulag. I wouldn't say I enjoyed reading it, but it was fine. I'm not sure I really got much out of it since I feel like no matter what you can never *really* understand what it was these people went through. Like he said a warm man can never really understand a cold one. It was good, but I just can't really bring myself to be enthusiastic about it? This just feels like a book you'd read in high school to learn empathy and yeah I'm empathetic but IDK maybe I'm being too harsh. It was pretty good all things considered and I can see why it's historically important as well. ( )

First published in 1962, this was the first book that openly talked about life in the Soviet gulag system. The story is very simple, it follows a single day in the life of a former Russian solider, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, now serving 10 years hard labour in Siberia after being falsely accused of treason because he was an escaped German POW.

The authorities claimed that "he’d returned from captivity to carry out a mission for German intelligence. What sort of mission neither Shukhov nor the interrogator could say…. Shukhov had it all figured out. If he didn’t sign he’d be shot. If he signed he’d still get a chance to live. So he signed."

The thing about this book that really struck me was that nothing really happens and is almost devoid of any emotions. Shukhov is counting the days down to his supposed release date with no idea as to whether or not it will actually happen yet shows almost no discontentment at all. He just goes through the motions of his day, the same day he has had thousands of times before. In fact, he feels almost serenely fortunate at the end of it because he'd managed to get hold of some extra food and smuggle a piece of scrap metal back into camp that he will be able to fashion into a tool with which earn extra rations in the future. However, he also realises that tomorrow the daily struggle to survive will resume.

“The belly is a demon. It doesn’t remember how well you treated it yesterday; it’ll cry out for more tomorrow.”

Solzhenitsyn writes from personal experience, he spent eight years in the gulag. The simplicity of this tale makes it a remarkable piece of powerful writing that shines a spotlight on an important piece of social history as well as being a history maker in itself. As such it deserves to be regarded as a classic. ( )

I read Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago not that long ago, so although One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a fictional novel I had a fair idea of what to expect. As with the Gulag Archipelago, what's startling in Solzhenitsyn's writing is that there's never any sense of self-pity, and black humour is always bubbling just below the surface.

This novel does what it says in the title. There's little reminiscing by the protagonist of life before the camp, nor wishing away the days to freedom (for as Ivan Denisovich knows, freedom may never come, with exile likely after he finishes his ten year sentence, if indeed another sentence isn't landed on him before that one finishes). The slim novel focuses on a regular day in this inmate's life in camp and is a glimpse into the reality of what millions of Russians endured - harsh work in extreme sub-zero temperatures in inadequate clothing with a belly half-empty from meagre food rations.

Given the extreme conditions that Solzhenitsyn writes of, his style intrigued me in this novel as it did in the NF Gulag Archipelago. Such is his protagonist's lack of self-absorption in the misery that's been inflicted on him, it's not a novel that left me with a profound sense of horror about the conditions the prisoners lived in. What sticks with me more is the grit and mental toughness of Solzhenitsyn (for this novel is undoubtedly based on his own experience as a prisoner). The novel even ends with a positive reflection by Ivan Denisovich, as he lies in his cold bunk with ice on the ceiling and his legs shoved into his coat sleeves, of all the things that had gone right that day, from not falling ill as he'd thought he would at the start of the day, to some extra rations for favours and his team not getting put to the worst of the work. It's remarkable, and perhaps that's the biggest insight of all - that those who survived were the people who were able to sustain the right mentality attitude and focus throughout these long sentences.

4 stars - an enjoyable read. Perhaps it would have been more shocking to me if I'd not read Gulag Archipelago relatively recently. ( )

The publishing of this condemnation of the Stalinist gulags in 1962 (possible only because it fit with Krushchev's anti-Stalinist line) was a huge event in Soviet Russia. A parallel might be found in America in the publishing of the 9/11 Commission's report, which hit the top of bestseller lists and even surprisingly won some literary acclaim. Both works sought to shed light on a monumental national tragedy infused with politics, and touched a deep nerve in their respective publics. Solzhenitsyn's work has the advantage of brevity at about 160 pages versus about 560, a narrow focus, a novelist's sharp pen, and the ability to make us shiver in the freezing Siberian morning.

Bonus from reading: understanding the reference when your favorite right-wing intellectual hysterically claims that an Obama administration will turn the American people into zeks.

( )

I ran across this slim novel while doing some book organizing and in light of Navalny's death, thought it would be a good time to finally read it. The 182 pages pack a powerful punch, and the book does exactly what it says on the tin - describes what it's like from when he wakes up to when he puts his head down after a long day of surviving in a Siberian hard-labor prison camp. I felt the cold, I felt the hunger, I felt the pleasure of a job well done after bricklaying, the pleasure of an extra serving of bread, the last smoke from the gift of a dying cigarette. ( )

What was life like for political prisoners in Stalin era Soviet labor camps? You could read a memoir and let a former prisoner tell you. Or you could read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and let Solzhenitsyn show you. Readers follow Ivan Denisovich Shukov through a typical day sometime in January from morning to evening roll call. Shukhov and his fellow prisoners exist in the bottom tier of Maslow’s hierarchy, and it’s painful to experience even vicariously.

I’d like to think that the Soviet labor camps are a thing of the past and that what’s depicted in this book would not be possible in the 21st century. I’d like to think that, but human nature hasn’t really changed in the seventy-some years since Stalin’s death. ( )

True danger that comes with human humiliation is not humiliation itself - this goes and passes - but changes done to human psyche after days, months and years of humiliation. And this is what we are shown here.

Interned into "special camp" for various reasons - majority, if not all, being sham in order to do political purge - we follow camp prisoners and our main protagonist Ivan Denisovich as they just try to go through the single "work" day.

Denisovich is not heavyweight political figure, he is ordinary man from the country that became inconvenience to the government (because he managed to escape alive from German POW camp) and was sentenced to max penalty because of this transgression. No reason whatsoever to put him in political special camp but he is placed there because he is seen as an enemy of the regime (whatever that means - Russia in this period was quite a schizophrenic society totally controlled by terror that could be turned against anyone in the second for any reason conceivable and once punished there is no rolling back the penalty - state is never wrong!).

Denisovich is sick, clothed in rags and forced to yet another mission impossible construction work in January in Northern reaches where temperature of -20 Celsius is treated as rather warm day. He needs to survive the guards (ever present bureaucrats with machine guns, that know only to count the prisoners 'til end of time, give them nebulous rules they know nobody normal can obey so they sadistically wait to punish disobedience - like that rule for moving stair at the time or there will be no food), other prisoners (outside his own close knit team) who are ready to dispose of him in order to gain upper ground (any advantage in this bleak place is a difference between life and death), doctors who are not doctors but yet another bureaucratic level that aims to crush the prisoners, civil contractors who treat prisoners as slave labor, and finally merciless nature of the far North where even summers are not friendly to any living thing, hungry and sleep-derived prisoners in particular.

Denisovich himself shows how easy it is to live on scraps, sleep very little and expect nothing but surviving the day (it is so sad to see how good he feels because he is hard working man, because he manages to do whatever it is put in front of him). Because after a while one accepts his fate and just blends in, does not expect anything better, there is no future just mythical end of sentence that they all conscientiously know will never come. But this makes prisoners go day after day until their inevitable demise.

Days old bread saved into bed under sawdust is treasure same as boiled water (where fish was just dipped into) is specialty, ability to sleep even few hours - after continuous counting and recounting by the guards in the night, programmed to break sleep - and ability to have one Sunday off in a month (even if it is again drudgery because guards need to maltreat prisoners) is a bloody holiday. Entire goal is to bring people to the very bottom, taking everything from them so that they decide to live in poverty of mind and body. Only viable option to get out of this sadistic situation is to end ones life (by suicide, trying to escape or fighting the guards) but lets be honest nobody will choose that - and this is where perversity of this mind messing shows its true colors. People decide to become prisoners willingly, bottom scrapers, only to live, does not matter how - their torturers know they wont live but enjoy giving them just enough hope for the sadistic pleasure of seeing people degrade themselves to survive and die without dignity.

One of the reviewers said that all horrors aside Danisovich's life is not that different from our current times working class (in terms of work hours, life-work balance etc. I do not think that anyone works under this type of control and torture).

I agree - I also have cases of mythical Sundays or longer sleeps - but there is a huge difference. People that are not caged in can change their life, leave abusive work, break the bad habits and gain control of their lives.

For prisoners (stationed in prisoner camps or those living under imposed prisoner way of life because of whatever reason, usually for the greater good) things do not go this way. So when you start feeling you are getting slowly imprisoned in your societies (and this never happens all of a sudden) and your liberties, and general ability to make life's choices are slowly but obviously fading away - it is time to stop, look around and see what is going on.

Excellent book. Dystopian to the core, but although fictional it is based on true events and as such needs to be taken as a warning. Only by observing the world around us we can become aware of dangers lurking in there and work on defeating them.

Highly recommended. ( )

A great book when considered in context of where and when it was released. It lets you see into a world that was, at the time, barely known and only seen by those who were trapped in it. Definitely for people interested in history. ( )

This is a low pick for me. It’s not that the story isn’t impactful, being autobiographical fiction about a day in a Russian prison camp in the 40s. It’s more so that the writing style made the story drag, even though it’s only 140 pages. Nonetheless, I do feel that this was intentional. After all, time must be experienced differently in a prison camp like this, especially when one expects exile at best upon release. In the end, strong stuff. ( )

About the bitter life in a Soviet prison camp, well told. ( )

I discovered "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" through my work book club, which continues to introduce me to books I might not have come across otherwise. This novella by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn captures the events of a single day in the life of Ivan Denisovich, a man who has spent ten years in a Russian gulag due to a wrongful accusation of espionage—an accusation shared by many of his fellow inmates, though only one among them might truly be guilty.

Approaching the book, I anticipated a narrative steeped in brutality and devoid of hope. While these elements do make occasional appearances, what truly sets this novella apart is Solzhenitsyn's skillful portrayal of the daily routines, struggles, and hardships endured by the prisoners. He effectively depicts their constant battle for survival in the face of freezing temperatures, grueling labor, and ceaseless surveillance by the camp authorities. Without revealing too much, I believe this short novella — clocking in at just 142 pages — is certainly worth reading. Despite being written in the 1960s, its exploration of themes such as humanity and dignity remains strikingly relevant today.

What is it about summer that always makes me want to re-read the historical novels and memoirs that took over my life during the crammed summer session at UVIC of 2009? I’ve largely forgotten most of the 20th century Russian history that we covered and you couldn’t pay me to remember what my final papers were about for that course, but Ivan Denisovich’s day (of a life) in a Russian prison camp (gulag) has always stuck with me. Solzhenitsyn himself spent time in these prisons for his seditionary writing and this novel, while fictional, helped shed light on the political and social climate of Russia during the author’s lifetime. His prose is sparse, almost apersonal, as he describes the minutiae of Denisovich’s day from dawn to dusk, with the essential quest for scamming more food, the prisoner’s need for his work to have meaning, and the inner workings of camp politics looming as predominant themes. For all its simplicity, the story is somehow still engaging as we see ourselves walking the day in the prisoner’s shoes through a largely barren, but still lived, landscape. Do we sense a flicker of hope that he will one day be freed, a sense of warm camaraderie with his fellow work gang, a small satisfaction in a brick structure well-built by ingenuity and everyman-skill? Possibly. Solzhenitsyn has played his audience well in this missive, which on the surface seems like an exploration of monotony, but when imagined as a continuity for the protagonist we can see how the small details and choices made can change a day entirely. One day, indeed. ( )

This account of life in the gulag isn't as harrowing as I had expected: rather, it details the small tricks and loopholes the prisoners exploit to survive and maintain some level of humanity. Forced to lay bricks in the miserable Siberian winter, the narrator plays the system the best he can to obtain more gruel, favors from his gang boss, and scraps from other prisoners' care packages. These little dramas add a note of gritty realism - and the idea that this day is repeated indefinitely is where the true horror lies. ( )

1/25/23

Interesting and bare. Enjoyed it very much. ( )

Gritty book about life of a captive in a Stalinist labor camp. ( )

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The real significance of this novel lies in its exposure of the political system that fostered and supported the gulags of Soviet Russia. The writing is stark and matter-of-fact, just like the life of the gulag. It is weighty and yet there is no despair in the character of Shukhov. He brims with hope and appreciation. He is grateful when the weather is warm enough that the mortar doesn’t freeze. “It is a good day for bricklaying” he says.

What offence lands a man in such a prison? Very small infractions or none at all can draw a ten years sentence, and frequently that is extended, again without any explanation or reason. The injustice of the system is paled against the suffering inflicted in the camp, being worked at hard labor in freezing conditions, without proper clothing, with little food, and without any possibility of escape or rescue.

Perhaps the saddest thing is that prisoners become used to this life and come to value the small bits of joy they can squeeze from a crust of bread or a tobacco butt passed to them by a more fortunate inmate. And yet, that is what speaks to the spark of humanity that even these kinds of conditions cannot stifle...where there is hope there is life, without it how could any of them endure even a "good" day.
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Well-written. Not a fave, but I learned some things through it. ( )