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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich: A Novel [Paperback]

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (79 customer reviews)

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Paperback, Feb 1 1992 --   -- --
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Audio, Cassette, Audiobook CDN $40.60   -- --

Book Description

Publication Date: Feb 1 1992
The only English translation authorized by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

First published in the Soviet journal Novy Mir in 1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich stands as a classic of contemporary literature. The story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, it graphically describes his struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. An unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalin's forced work camps, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is one of the most extraordinary literary documents to have emerged from the Soviet Union and confirms Solzhenitsyn's stature as "a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dosotevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy"--Harrison Salisbury

This unexpurgated 1991 translation by H. T. Willetts is the only authorized edition available and fully captures the power and beauty of the original Russian.

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Solzhenitsyn's first book, this economical, relentless novel is one of the most forceful artistic indictments of political oppression in the Stalin-era Soviet Union. The simply told story of a typical, grueling day of the titular character's life in a labor camp in Siberia, is a modern classic of Russian literature and quickly cemented Solzhenitsyn's international reputation upon publication in 1962. It is painfully apparent that Solzhenitsyn himself spent time in the gulags--he was imprisoned for nearly a decade as punishment for making derogatory statements about Stalin in a letter to a friend. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich yields, more than anything else, a beautiful sense of its author as a Chekhovian figure: simple, free of literary affectation, wholly serious."--The New Republic
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THE HAMMER BANGED reveille on the rail outside camp HQ at five o'lock as always. Read the first page
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars An Extraordinary Book Jan 23 2012
By Daffy Bibliophile TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
The Gulag swallowed millions of human beings, it was a machine designed to dehumanize, demoralize and debase anything that it touched. Alexander Solzhenitsyn was thrown into this machine after being charged with making disparaging remarks about Stalin while serving with the Red Army during the Second World War. His arrest led to this book, a look at just one day of just one of the millions thrown into the maw of the machine known as the Gulag.

"One Day..." begins when Shukhov, a prisoner who had been sent to the Gulag as punishment for being captured by the Germans, is woken by the clanging of a metal bar, the wake up call in the camp he is in. The book ends when he lies in bed that night reflecting that he had had "almost a happy day" because he hadn't been sent to the punishment cells, he'd gotten some extra gruel and bread for himself and his work team had gotten a relatively cushy job building a brick wall in minus 27 degree weather - a good day for a zek (a prisoner)! In between the reader follows Shukhov around the camp and the work site as he manages to survive another day.

Solzhenitsyn's writing style flows easily and I sometimes felt that I was being drawn into that hellish world created by Lenin and perfected by Stalin. I couldn't help comparing the treatment and living conditions of Shukov with that of Dostoyevsky's prisoner in The House Of The Dead. I think Russian prisons, as harsh as they were under the Tsars, were nowhere near as bad as they were under the Bolsheviks. Finally, another book that I can recommend to help people understand the horrors of the Gulag is The Forsaken.

Read "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" and be thankful that you have the freedoms that you have and marvel at the resilience of the human spirit.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Required reading Mar 13 2005
By SCOTT DIXON
Format:Mass Market Paperback
It is difficult to imagine a more horrific ordeal than life in a Soviet prison camp as described by Solzhenitsyn in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. While classified as fiction, many millions of people really were sent to such camps and of those most perished. From this book, it is not hard to see why: little sleep, back-breaking labour, horrible food and intense psychological stress. That anyone could conceive a system so terrible, and then consign innocent people to it, testifies to the brutality inherent in Man. That anyone could live nine years under such conditions and survive to tell about it, as Solzhenitsyn himself did, testifies to the power of human endurance and faith. I recommend this book to everyone, especially those who find reason to admire or otherwise support our modern Socialist dictators in China, the Middle East and elsewhere.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars The Terror of Pathocracy Jun 22 2007
By Harrison Koehli TOP 100 REVIEWER
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Solzhenitsyn distills his voluminous Gulag Archipelago into his magnificent novel, "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich". The book is almost mundane in its account of the dreary, repetitive, and dehumanizing life in a Soviet "work" camp. The circumstances leading to the arrest of thousands were doctrinaire and naive, corresponding perfectly with the personalities of those writing and enforcing such laws. The Soviet rule which first made use of such "concentration" camps can be accurately described, and is demonstrated perfectly by Solzhenitsyn, using the following analogy.

Imagine a social system in which the leaders are colour blind--they cannot distinguish between ripe and green tomatoes. However, they are not content to accept this fact; they must unrealistically force those who have functional vision to become like they are. They must cease to distinguish between green and ripe tomatoes. Under such leaders' supervision, they must even eat green tomatoes, pretending they are ripe. Such leaders, however, cannot rule without those who have some ability to distinguish colour. These are the middle men, caught between two worlds.

The phenomenon of Communism can be accurately described as pathocracy, a term created by Dr. Andrew Lobaczewski in his book Political Ponerology. In such a system psychopaths are the Daltonists; those who cannot understand the emotional inner life of the vast majority of humanity. They thus attempt the impossible, to stamp the conscience out of the rest of us. Solzhenitsyn masterfully captures the essence of life under pathocracy. It is absurd and horrific, and without knowledge of its true nature, it will continue to periodically destroy large portions of humanity.
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Most recent customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars One day in the life of a Siberian concentration camp!
"One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" is Alexander Solzhenitsyn's first book, a classic of modern Russian literature and the title that propelled him onto the literary world... Read more
Published on July 4 2009 by Paul Weiss
4.0 out of 5 stars Oddly Uplifting
This book would be horribly depressing if the main character wasn't so strangely calm about the entire thing. Read more
Published on Feb 9 2007 by N. Fehr
5.0 out of 5 stars Formidable read
Perhaps Russia's greatest living writer, Alexander Solzhenitsyn painted the picture of Stalin's gulag in this gut-revealing book that catapulted him in the West and became the... Read more
Published on Aug 30 2006 by Edward Tem
4.0 out of 5 stars A novel that sneaks up on you
This is an interesting little book regarded by many as a classic. It gives a picture of a single day in the life of Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, a prisoner in a Russian labour camp... Read more
Published on May 24 2004 by Paul A. Baggaley
5.0 out of 5 stars Ivan Denisovich is a symbol of bravery.
I love this book. Ivan Denisovich is a symbol of bravery of the human spirit in despair. This story is necessary for all of us who used to the living in a society that supports... Read more
Published on May 13 2004 by BK BAZHE
4.0 out of 5 stars A really great read...Light, Enlightening, Unique, Creative
There are a couple of things about this book that stand out. First, its ability to give you a real sense of presence. You can really feel yourself in that prison camp with Ivan. Read more
Published on May 11 2004 by A. Lacasse
4.0 out of 5 stars Very enjoyable.
This story gives you a overwhelming feeling of what it was like to be living in a socialist concentration camp and I thought it was a great read for people who are interested in... Read more
Published on Mar 17 2004 by J. Leong
5.0 out of 5 stars an amazing, subtle accomplishment
One Day is based on the real life experience of A. Solzhenitsyn, who was imprisoned for the better part of ten years (may have been more, can't remember) in a Russian hard labor... Read more
Published on Jun 18 2003 by J. Hill
3.0 out of 5 stars One Day in the Live of Ivan Denisovich
Its the early 1900's and your in Communist Russia. You've committed a crime and are in a prison camp for ten years. Read more
Published on May 18 2003 by william alchier
3.0 out of 5 stars One Day in the Live of Ivan Denisovich
Its the early 1900's and your in Communist Russia. You've committed a crime and are in a prison camp for ten years. Read more
Published on May 18 2003 by william alchier
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