One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

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Summary: The Drudgery of the Gulag
Review: Ivan Denisovich Shukhov is a political prisoner in a Soviet gulag. He has been imprisoned for being a returning POW. The Germans captured him during their offensive in the Soviet Union during World War II. He escaped from German custody and was summarily imprisoned for being a spy upon his return.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn faced much the same situation as Shukhov. He was a war hero who was imprisoned in Josef Stalin's camps for having written something unfavorable about Stalin. He was turned in by the 'friend' whom he had written the letter to.

"One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" is Solzhenitsyn's account of an ordinary day in a Soviet prison camp. The story takes place during a Siberian winter. It follows Shukhov from the time he rises for reveille to the time when is rousted out of bed for a 'second count' just as he's about to fall asleep. Along the way Shukhov manages to get extra rations at both dinner and supper, builds a wall during his work detail, smuggles a hacksaw blade back into camp, and earns special favors from his fellow prisoner Tsezar Markovich for protecting the parcel of food he received from his family.

The amazing thing about "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" is that Solzhenitsyn captures the horror of the Soviet gulags by showing the prisoners during an ordinary day. Shukhov himself does not appear to be ill-treated at all during the day and he admits to himself that he has had much luck throughout the course of it. However, it is in what Shukhov considers to be lucky that we catch a glimpse of the unending drudgery that is the gulag.

Shukhov's one day may not be so horrible in and of itself; but, to live that one day over and over for ten years would be enough to beat down even the strongest man. Every prisoner's only goal is to survive. When a man's only goal is meer survival though, it drains the humanity from him and makes him an animal. Shukhov has spent eight years in the gulag system and the effects are telling. He doesn't become a rat or a thug; but, he recognizes the difference in himself now as opposed to when he was a boy back in his village.

While "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" brings to light the nature of the Soviet gulags, it should not be confused with high art. The story is readable but lacks the artistry of political works like "Les Miserables" and "1984". This may be because of the translation; but, other Russian works translate well into English. Whatever the reason, you will most likely come away feeling that the political side of the book holds up much better than the artistic aspect

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Summary: The Sickness of Communism
Review: "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich," by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, is one of those books that look deceptive. It isn't that long, and it's a little mass-market paperback that would blow away with the wind. Even the cover design really doesn't convey what lies inside. What we have with this book is a worthy contribution to the annals of Russian literature. Solzhenitsyn finds himself in the ranks of Tolstoy, Turgenev, and Gogol with this gripping tale of the Stalinist Gulag system. Solzhenitsyn went on to write a massive indictment of the Gulag system in a three-volume work called, "The Gulag Archipelago." Solzhenitsyn won a Nobel Prize for Literature and found himself exiled, forcibly, from the Soviet Union for his writings. He returned to Russia after the collapse of Communism.

As the title indicates, the story covers one day in Ivan Denisovich's ten-year prison sentence. Ivan is a peasant who runs afoul of the authorities when the Germans capture him during the war. When he finds his way back to the Soviet camp, the authorities charge him with treason and sentence him to the camps. Denisovich is luckier than many of his fellow convicts; they are serving 25-year sentences. This day is better for Ivan than most; he ends up getting a better work assignment, a member of his squad gets a parcel loaded with food, and Ivan manages to get extra food rations. He even scores some tobacco, his only weakness.

Ivan lives day by day; it is the only way he can survive the camps. What is most shocking about this book is the matter-of-fact way in which the story is told. All of life is reduced to acquiring food and staying warm. Following the rules and avoiding punishment is just as important. Woe to the man who ends up in the guardhouse cells for ten days. I was nauseated by how hard Ivan worked on the power plant. Here's a guy who is a prisoner, forced to lay bricks in the middle of winter, and he is busting his hump to do a good job. But in a way, this can be uplifting, too. Ivan refuses to give up to the brutality of his condition. Every day is a struggle, but Ivan never grouses or causes problems. He accepts everything camp life throws at him and triumphs. You get the impression that Ivan is going to make it out of the camp no matter what.

This is an excellent book that exposes the real face of Communism. No matter how brutal Communism is (or was) as a system of government, it failed to crush the spirit of humanity. I recommend reading this book in conjunction with Arthur Koestler's "Darkness at Noon," another book that exposes the sickness of Communism.

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Summary: Wonderful!
Review: I am a college student and had to read this book for my Russian Politics class. I was not looking forward to the prospect of reading it; I thought it was going to be another boring book by another dry author. I loved it! It was so good I couldn't put in down and read it in one afternoon (it helps that it's short too). Not only does Solzhenitsyn levy a stinging criticism of the Stalinist labor camps, but he weaves a good story to boot.

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Summary: excellent
Review: This was an awesome book--and only a chapter long!
:)
excellent example of fine Russian literature. I read this in high school, so it wasn't too intimidating a read, either.
An average soldier gets put into a work camp during the "do so much as scratch your hand wrong and get sent to a work camp" phase of Russian history. He simply tells what goes on during an average day of his life there. The story begins when he wakes up, and end when he goes to bed. In between, you are introduced to characters who are normal, interesting, and have just as much reason to be in the work camp as Shukhov, the protagonist.

ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVICH was wonderful. Solzhenitsyn did an excellent character study and did a fine job of portraying the senselessness of the work camps and the simplicity of surviving in hopeless circumstances.

Really, really a great read. It's short, sweet, easy to read--and a quality read at that.

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Summary: Worth the Read.
Review: This book is a well-written tale of life inside a prision camp. It is written from one prisoner's perspective and it pulls you into his world both mentally and visually. I found it quite interesting. I would now be inclined to read other books by this author.

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Summary: Praise for Ivan Denisovich!
Review: Solzhenitsyn's novel "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" is five star reading for many important reasons. For one, it offers a real account of Siberian prison camp life but also gives the reader a good dose of fiction that is in perfect sync with fact. This book never tries to over-exagurate or over-dramatify events that are just simple tasks (like F. Scott Fitzgerald does). It is artfully written and short, but complete. BUT, the title does not accuratly explain the book. It is not just one day, it is many of them, but that was a logical step. Such a mistake is excusable. When you read this, keep in mind you're getting history, and a brillant story. MOST ENJOYABLE!

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Summary: A better read for history buffs than literature fans
Review: I'll give it this - the novel is an interesting and informative account of the hardships endured in Soviet workcamps. It illustrates a stripped-down existence in which survival is the chief concern and paranoia and irrational abuse of power are dominant. As historical record, it is important. As a novel, it lacks a great deal. Characters are poorly defined and two-dimensional, interacting seldomly and incapable of complex emotion. The plot is slow and languid. The work is little more than a protracted description (vivid though it may be) without any moments of heightened tension or development. I respect the author's experience leading to this work, but surely he must have witnessed some greater conflict, some change of emotion, something to make for a better story. This novel wants badly for artistry. I found myself wondering throughout why he bothered fictionalizing this account at all before going on to write his non-fiction opus on the same subject.

To Solzhenitsyn's credit, I suppose it is necessary to say that he must have known what he could get away with and what he couldn't, in order to obtain clearance from Khrushchev's censors. This anxiety likely forced him to steer clear of more controversial elements that might have made this novel a stronger work of art.

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Summary: a masterpiece
Review: A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is just that - a detailed description of one day in the gulag: the humiliation, the struggle to survive the elements, the mindless labour, the petty indignities one suffers and the mistrust one has for your fellow inmates. It is a quick read - it really only takes an hour or two, but the mental and psychological toll it takes is tremendous - especially after you realize that what you have read is only one day of many, one day of perhaps years that will be spent in an identical manner. After reading the book, you are literally drained emotionally; this above anything else makes it a masterpiece. There are no riveting characters, the plot is simply survival. Yet you empathize with Ivan and his fellows, as you empathize with Solzhenitsyn, who wrote this book largly based on personal experience. While I heartily recommend this book, I caution you not to read it if you are in a sunny disposition.

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Summary: Superb grim account of life of Soviet political prisoners.
Review: This short novel is much more readable than many of Solzhenitsyns other works. I have read all three volumes of Gulag as well as The First Circle; this is by far the most approachable. Gulag is, of course, a work of non-fiction with a scattered encyclopedic style. The First Circle is like many other Russian novels with a huge cast of characters whose lives intertwine in ways that are difficult to keep straight. One Day in the Life, on the other hand, is short and to the point. The unrelenting hopelessness of the prisoner's lives and the bestial conditions they try to survive are described in a matter of fact way. Life for Ivan Denisovich and his fellow prisoners consists of a struggle to survive. Nearly every minute of their waking hours are spent occupied in getting enough food to keep from starving and with staying warm enough to keep from freezing while working as slave labour from dawn to dusk. All the while they must take care to avoid the random punishments and brutalities of prison life. It is as if this hopeless situation is all that exists in the world. Solzhenitsyn imples that there is no hope for improvement in the future. The prisoners have lost their faith in better days to come; they can't even look forward to the end of their terms. Prison sentences are frequently arbitrarily extended. Those who are released are more often than not condemned to exile in Siberia and cannot return to their homes. This makes for a reality much bleaker than the fictional horrors depicted in such novels as Nineteen Eighty Four.

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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.