By Alexander Solzhenitsyn
I have been interested in Russia lately, the prisons in particular and the whole era of the gulags. This book is an essential read in the genre. The author literally chronicles one day of the prisoner Ivan Denisovich. Jimmy described it as claustrophobic. I agree, in so much that it is confined (a necessary feature of prison literature), but also condensed, which is not usually characteristic of prison literature since the long expanse of time is often being emphasized. Solzhenitsyn doesn't emphasize the brutality or horrific conditions within which the prisoners live or the common inexplicable reason why they are there; instead, both the injustice of being there and the inhumane conditions under which you live in a daily basis are so normal, so impossible to fight that to survive you just have to accept it and take each of the daily challenges that come your way in stride. Just as Ivan does.
Book 70
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