One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (FSG Classics)

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Harry Willetts (Translator)

FROM THE PUBLISHER OF THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO - THE OFFICIALLY APPROVED TRANSLATION OF SOLZHENITSYN'S SEARING DEBUT NOVEL

The Gulag, the Stalinist labour camps to which millions of Russians were condemned for political deviation, has become a household word in the West. This is due to the accounts of many witnesses, but most of all to the publication, in 1962, of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, the novel that first brought Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to public attention. His story of one typical day in a labour camp as experienced by prisoner Ivan Denisovich Shukhov is sufficient to describe the entire world of the Soviet camps.

Translated from the Russian by H. T. Willetts

• ISBN10: 0099449277
• ISBN13: 9780099449270
• Publish Date: 1 January 1996 (first published 13 August 1970)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Vintage Publishing
• Imprint: Vintage Classics
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 176
• Language: English

Reviews

[clq]

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is the story of… well… one day in the life of Ivan Denisovich, a political prisoner in a Russian labour camp. I think the most extraordinary thing about this book is how ordinary it seems. One would think that Ivan would be bitter. One would think that he would be (rightfully) complaining about the situation he is in. One would think that he would spend his time being angry about the hopeless circumstance he finds himself in. But he doesn't, and he isn't. Instead he has accepted and adapted to the situation. Prison is his life now, and its brutality and hopelessness has become the norm for him. A day can be good or bad depending on whether he manages to salvage some extra food or not. The monotonous daily routine has become a game in which the prisoners find ways of bending the rules in order to benefit themselves or their fellow inmates. The slave labour they are forced to do has become work Ivan takes pride in.

I really, really, liked this book. There is something about the way the story is told that makes it seem extremely realistic, and therefore very uncomfortable. It reads like a viable account of the thoughts going through the head of someone sitting in a Labour camp, and it is made all the more viable by the fact that the author himself spent almost 10 years in a labour camp. It ends on a somewhat surprising note. Not in a moralistic way, but with more of an open philosophical question. One that I have found myself thinking about more than once during the two weeks since I finished the book.

I strongly believe that this is a book everyone should read. It might not be to everyone's taste, but it can be read in a day, and it gives a unique insight into the mind-set and life of someone experiencing what millions of people have gone through. Go on. Read it.

[cherryblossommj]

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My edition is MMP, but has a different cover. Will try to remember to take a picture.

[mbtc]

Well-written. Not a fave, but I learned some things through it.