Rating: 
Summary: A voyage through hell
Review: "The line between good and evil runs through the heart of every human being."
This abridged edition of Solzhenitsyn's hauntingly intimate portrait of his own arrest, interrogation, imprisonment, rebellion, and eventual release during Stalin's purges is a book like no other. This book, written by a constantly watched and persecuted dissident - bent but not broken by the brutality of Stalinist work camps, shares the author's (and his other inmates') personal experiences falling into this dark, usually fatal, abyss. Solzhenitsyn's original work was published in 1971 and produced an absolutely damning indictment of communism in Russia. Indeed, the stunning quality and importance of his writing earned him a Nobel prize.
Besides his own experiences, Solzhenitsyn collected personal stories from hundreds of his fellow inmates. The sadism of interrogators, the cruelty of guards, the indifference of neighbors, the paranoia of the public, the betrayal of stoolies, and the true comradery of innocent inmates are presented in vivid, factual detail. In addition to this, the author also presents an encyclopeadic knowledge of the entirety of the gigantic Stalinist security apparatus (normal labor camps, special labor camps, transfer camps, railroad transfers, prisons, holding cells, interrogation cells, NKVD, SMERSH, commissars, exile communities, and still more).
But at the heart of it all, the book remains an unforgettable journey through man-made hell. Stalin meant to destroy every man, woman, and child arrested, regardless of their innocence, and he largely succeeded. But survivors like Solzhenitsyn did truly 'tear down the wall' and made this world a far better place to live in. We all owe him a huge debt of gratitude!
Rating:
Summary: Communism exposed
Review: Solzhenitsyn's portrayal of life under Stalin and indeed the whole communist regime is a reminder to those of us who live in democratic nations about the importance of freedom, especially the freedom of speech and association.
Solzhenitsyn looks back into his past and into the histories told him by other survivors of this Russian `holocaust' to reveal to us the great suffering endured by those who lost the best years of their life to a dream gone wrong.
Much of the narrative is recollections from Solzhenitsyn about his days in interrogation, the transports and the labor camps. It is a very personal and at times moving account of lives forgotten by the world but now remembered. At times the constant repetition of the countless stories does get a bit tiring, not because it's boring but because it seems impossible that such things could happen in this modern world.
I came away from this book learning a lot of personal lessons about life, lessons that, thanks to Solzhenitsyn, I have avoided learning the hard way. For example, that when we hold on to things too tightly we sometimes cause unnecessary suffering by worrying about them. It would be better to be less tied up in our material possessions and give more thought to the weightier matters in life such as our relationships... it sounds clichéd I know, but when you are told this lesson by someone whose idea of a possession was one item of clothing on his back, then you begin to gain some perspective.
The style of writing is not very inviting at first, it's almost as if it was stream-of-consciousness writing so at times he may be longwinded and reminisce about one incident for a long time and then suddenly jump to something else that seems completely different. It took me awhile to get used to this, but I promise you, after you get half way and get used to this style of writing, you will be glad you persevered. I would highly recommend this first work to anyone interested in the history of the Soviet Union, a different (human) perspective on Communism or just a great autobiographical work.
Rating:
Summary: One of the greatest works of twentieth century writing
Review: This book is a courageous act of witnessing. It is one of the outstanding works of twentieth century writing. It is a description in tremendous detail of a world which did everything to keep itself being described. The writing of it was the heroic act done at risk to his own life of a former inmate of the Gulag who told the truth of Stalin's nightmare world and portrayed the suffering of millions. This ' breaking of silence' had historical as well as literary significance and may have been a key element in the fall of the Soviet Empire.
There is a point where Solzhenitsyn apprehended by the KGB and taken to the Gulag asks himself why he did not scream out. He says that he wanted to scream not so that one or two would hear. But that he wanted to scream for the millions so the millions would hear.
In this tremendously moving work he does this.
Rating:
Summary: An Incredible Work of Non-Fiction
Review: How thin is the veil we call Civilization!! This book is indeed a tedious read by virtue of its length. However, Solzhenitsyn's history is written with the prosaic style of a Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a Captain in the Soviet Army as it charged through Nazi occupied Poland when he was arrested on trumped-up charges in February 1945. Thus began his odyssey through Gulag, "the country within a country". The perpetually weak economy of Communism could not survive without the forced labor of millions of is own citizens who became prisoners for one reason or another, or no reason at all. Solzhenitsyn relates his own experiences as well as those of other prisoners with whom he became acquainted while incarcerated. He relates how ordinary Russians were arrested and charged with fraudulent charges (if charged at all), interrogated, tortured and forced to confess under extreme duress, and sent off to labor for the good of the Motherland.
Throughout the book, Solzhenitsyn asks the reader incredulously, "how did we let this happen?" That is no doubt one of the most important questions posed in all of human history. If we study history in order to prevent the repetition of our mistakes, then Solzhenitsyn's work should be required reading of all residents of Planet Earth.
Rating:
Summary: this book changed my life
Review: It is a marvel to flip through this book again, though the abridged version is nothing compared to the original 3-volume trilogy. Though it is very difficult to get into - in the original v1 there is a long abstract section on gulags as a sewage system in turbid prose - once the reader gets swept into thos narrative of suffering there is no other reading experience like it. Solzhenitsyn spent his youth as a gulag prisoner for having criticized Stalin on a postcard. V1 covers his arrest and interrogation and transport into despair and disillusionment. What he experienced, from his start as a strong and idealistic young war leader, can only be described as hell on earth. Only Hitler's death factories could compare, and yet Stalin's slave labor camps were being held up as marvels of social policy and redemption. The cruelty of treatment, the insights into the astonishing characters around him, and the compilation of other people's stories - Solzhenitsyn describes his experience as only one gulp from an ocean of bitterness and shattered lives - are unequalled in the modern literature on totalitarianism. My experience was to be utterly transported into this realm, to look at my life and values and think about what mattered most to develop within myself. No other book ever had a deeper impact on me. That makes this, in my opinion, essential reading to understand the last century at its very very worst. The second volume follows Solzhenitsyn as he becomes a hardened and grief-stricken prison slave, indifferent to whether he is killed by a stray bullet during riots and abandoning his faith in communism. A central pert of the book is his religious conversion - the only one I ever read about that I truly understood on an emotional level - at the deathbed of perhaps his greatest freind. V3 covers his relesase from prison and his attempts to rebuild his life. All three volumes offered to me the experience of living totally outside of myself and in the reality of a totalitarian state. I first read these in EUrope when they appeared, and the debates on the merits of the communist sytem were very much alive at the time. Now they are only of historical interest, but I still think they are must reading for anyone who wants to understand the worst of one of the most tumultuous centuries in the history of mankind. Highest recommendation.
|
