Rating: 
Summary: Ivan is everyone under the boot of tyranny
Review: "One Day" appeared early on in Khrushchev's "De-Stalinization" program, but it has outlasted him and the whole USSR. The book is timeless and in the post Cold War world bears reading again. The USSR may be dead, but totalitarianism is still alive, just waiting for the right moment to return in horrible force. I can never eat vegetable soup without thinking of Ivan's day.
Rating:
Summary: Something Everyone Should Read
Review: I was assigned to read this book in a Russian History & Lit Class. I found it impossible to enjoy because I hated the class so much. However, this year in a World Lit class I've re-read it and discovered how wonderful it is. It tells of a story that very few people actually experience in a lifetime. If one is at all interested in history, psychology, literature, censorship, or the Russian way of life under Communism, I strongly recoment this novel
Rating:
Summary: How would you survive in a Stalinist Siberian prison camp?
Review: The era of the cold war may have ended in the 1990's, but
we must always remember what occured behind the iron
curtain. Solzhenitsyn tells of the conditions of a gulag
camp in Siberia based on his own experience in one by
detailing the events of one day of a prisoners life. Through
the first person, Solzhenitsyn allows the reader to climb into the mind of Ivan. The novel makes the reader think about what he has in a free nation and how he would
cope if he was in the same position as Ivan Denisovich.
Great for both the historian and the curious within each of us.
Rating:
Summary: shivering!
Review: THEME: Personal struggle for survival in a Stalinist concentration camp. A more literal translation of the title from the Russian would be "The Day Of Ivan Denisovich". This "one day" is seen through the eyes of the hero Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, a humble peasant who during WWII was captured by the Germans. After his escape he came back to the Russian lines where he was arrested, accused of being an enemy spy (forced by Soviet counterintelligence officers to sign his own "confession"), and sentenced to ten years hard labor.The story follows the routine details of Shukhov's life: jolted out of a frozen slumber at 5 a.m.; a breakfast of slop and boiled gruel with fish skeletons floating next to rotten cabbage leaves; roll call in the polar frost, followed by a ravenous-dog-escorted march to work where prisoners mix cement and build walls in the utter desolation of the Northern steppe. The author's depiction of this ceaseless slavery is literally mind-numbing. On the way back to the barracks the men are meticulously searched for anything they may be attempting to smuggle in. Shukhov privately revels over a piece of wire and a string that he has managed to sneak past the guards. After all, who knows how vitally necessary these items may be "one day"! At the end of this particular day's near-deathly labor, Shukhov actually feels fortunate that he has managed to finagle an extra bowl of skeleton soup, get some shreds of tobacco, and keep from being thrust into solitary confinement for any one of the million minor offenses of the camp. The story ends: "The end of an unclouded day. Almost a happy one. Just one of the 3,653 days of his sentence, from bell to bell. The extra three were for leap years." The final point reminding us of the Gulag system's merciless punitive accuracy. A world of no parole... and no reprieve. The reader is chilled by this book. It is shivering. Do we pick up anything by Solzhenitsyn for its "warmth and fuzziness"? Most definitely not. We pick him up to come face to face with mankind's capacity to methodically inflict cruelty and despair upon others. In the process, we are always afforded a very important glimpse of what those "others" can endure. And we set Solzhenitsyn down, thankful that we are none of his characters... even as we realize that some very real people (including the author himself) did not have that luxury.
Rating:
Summary: A literary and historical landmark
Review:
This small work helped wake the West to the long oppression of the Soviet Gulag. It would be followed years later by the author's major work describing that Gulga Archipalego in great detail. This work tells the story of one day in the life of a prisoner. But that one day in its dreariness and monotony, in its small battles for survival, tells the story of a whole world. The cold, the hunger, the sickness, the pain all are parts of the struggle. But the struggle with the world without, the oppression of the world without are only part of the prisoner's struggle. The struggle within himself in which he finds a kind of freedom which no one outside can take from him, is another theme of the play. The person who others might think of as least free is free in his soul. This is one of the great themes of Russian prison literature from Dostoevsky to Solzhenitzyn. This work asks the question of what true freedom is , and what the real meaning of our life and struggle is. It also historically is a step in and toward the demise of that vast prison called the Soviet Union. This is both a work of true literature then and an important historical document.
Rating: 
Summary: A really great read...Light, Enlightening, Unique, Creative
Review: 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. You can really feel yourself AS Ivan. A great novel brings you into the mind of the main character...you become one with him while reading it. Second, its ability to throw you off. In more ways than one, this book strays from the usual, the expected, the standard way of writing. You often find yourself going back to the previous sentence, wondering how it managed to jump to the following sentence. The author takes you from one event to another down the road in an instant. It can get confusing, but it really is creative and keeps you on your toes. It also throws you off because it tricks you into believing that youre reading a novel when in fact you are following the mind of a man. The mind thinks much quicker and deeper than the common novel. The author has succeeded in bringing us through the mind of Ivan in a compelling way....he has managed to put into words how the common man thinks. You often find yourself thinking "hey, i was just taken through Ivan's thought process without even knowing it"...i dont know how to explain it any better than that. Just read it for yourself and get ready for a journey. A significant book, for sure. Oh...why not 5 stars? Because 5 stars are left for Dostoevsky and his counterparts that write beyond what is unthinkably possible.
Rating: 
Summary: Wouldn't really be worth your time, if it wasn't so short.
Review: I'd give this book 2 stars if it weren't for the historical and political significance it has accrued. Like a lot of "dissident" literature, Solzhenitsyn's work has become overrated. The narrative voice here changes abruptly from an erudite prose to "Shukhov" speaking colloquially, and back again. The political points made are as unsubtle as the characters themselves. And really, when you think about it, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov doesn't really have that bad of a day...just a dull one.
Rating:
Summary: Worth a read
Review: A novel relating a day in the life of a Siberian labor camp inmate. It lacks the gripping quality of books such as Journey Into the Whirlwind, but portrays well the details of an average prisoner's life and thoughts.
Rating:
Summary: Very enjoyable.
Review: 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 history.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing.
Review: If you liked "Brave New World," or "1984," you'll like "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich." The main character, Ivan, is imprisoned in a Soviet Labor camp, where he works everyday. It shows how their lives are run in a totalitarian manner. It shows how they must survive under totalitarian rule. There are things in this camp that are accepted, where in normal society they would be morally rejected. People have no second thoughts towards stealing and bribery. They do what they must to survive. When near nothing is given to them, they do what they must in order to live. The Soviets place no value on their lives for they are expendable. Ivan's day of survival will move you and make you happy that you're not in a Soviet Labor camp on the steppe.
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