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dubstepworm3005's review against another edition
dark
funny
informative
sad
slow-paced
ilman002's review against another edition
5.0
Found this collection in my father's extensive library when I was 7 and skimmed through it. Perhaps it is the reason why I'm so 'awkward' today.
mhsenglish's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
katiescho741's review against another edition
3.0
I was surprised at how readable this book was. There are certainly sections that get a bit dry and heavy, but overall the tone is accessible. The author writes with a sort of dry/dark humour and often speaks directly to the reader.
I liked the way the book is set out, with each section being about one aspect of the Gulags. It was interesting that the opening chapters were about arrests and interrogations and so the reader is taken on a journey alongside the prisoners.
An important book and very readable.
I liked the way the book is set out, with each section being about one aspect of the Gulags. It was interesting that the opening chapters were about arrests and interrogations and so the reader is taken on a journey alongside the prisoners.
An important book and very readable.
greden's review against another edition
5.0
I read this in the hope that I would find some inspiration to take honesty more seriously.
Seek and ye shall find! But for a completely different reason than I expected.
His life was extremely challenging, eight years in tortious imprisonment, three years of exile, and six years of underground authorship, surrounded by secret informers constantly, what saved him was he could feel something was “off” with a fellow prisoner. By the first sight of their face and eyes, and hearing their voice, he would determine if he would open his heart to them or not. He called this an internal sensory relay, which is an inborn trait that is originally in all of us but is often neglected and undeveloped due to a disconnection from our instincts, due to the increasingly technological and rational emphasis of our age.
Solzhenitsyn writes that having a clear conscience, like a clear mountain lake, shines in your eyes. And your eyes, purified by suffering, infallibility perceive the least haze in other eyes, and can for example spot secret informers without fault. He writes that this capacity of his to spot eyes of truth was his secret weapon against the Soviet Remine, which was what allowed him to survive and write a book in a heavily paranoid authoritarian regime, swarmed by secret informers in every corner, and thus, he secured its downfall.
Think of it like this, master jiu-jitsu black belts can spot another master simply by looking, same with anyone who's mastered anything else. Likewise, the more honest you are, the more you are attuned to distinguishing trustworthy people.
Apart from that ... well ...
This book took me a long time to read.
I had to really force myself.
My mind found every distraction possible to stop reading.
Either when things got so terrible. Or when something was so inspiring ... either way it was hard to sit still with this book. I found myself grabbing my phone and watching feel-good videos of philanthropy in Africa, escaping the mental space the book was putting me in, and having me imagine how the children were put into the gulags.
Feels like I understand communism better now. I'm definitely more sensitive to it, and seeing this Anti-racist garbage pop up in America is not fun while reading this.
Some things I couldn't understand at first eventually dawned upon me.
I didn't understand why they had quotas for prisoners. Why, for example, they were missing quotas so they decided just to grab the woman who came to the police station to ask what she was to do with an orphan of a parent who got arrested.
Now it makes sense, they used prisoners for slave labor because communism doesn't make economic sense - having said that, Solzhenitsyn writes that the Gulag, ultimately cost more than it produced. Oh, so bitter.
The book fires inspiration in me and my hatred of totalitarianism and tyranny.
It's an inspiration to live more authentically in your everyday life, maybe to the degree that when a crisis hits you will stand up - and live in a way that if everyone else conducted similarly, totalitarianism would be impossible. And so if you refine your courage and honesty day in and day out, in matters trivial and serious, maybe, just maybe, you will have what it takes to make a stand against when something serious like this is at your door.
Some quotes haunt me from the book. Not only is it written by a true poet, it has so much moral inspiration. Essentially a Christian ethic, whose message is that there are things that are more important than the end-goal. The meaning of life isn't to achieve material prosperity, but to cleanse your soul. Freedom is a great source of happiness. But freedom of sin is the greatest joy of all.
Seek and ye shall find! But for a completely different reason than I expected.
His life was extremely challenging, eight years in tortious imprisonment, three years of exile, and six years of underground authorship, surrounded by secret informers constantly, what saved him was he could feel something was “off” with a fellow prisoner. By the first sight of their face and eyes, and hearing their voice, he would determine if he would open his heart to them or not. He called this an internal sensory relay, which is an inborn trait that is originally in all of us but is often neglected and undeveloped due to a disconnection from our instincts, due to the increasingly technological and rational emphasis of our age.
Solzhenitsyn writes that having a clear conscience, like a clear mountain lake, shines in your eyes. And your eyes, purified by suffering, infallibility perceive the least haze in other eyes, and can for example spot secret informers without fault. He writes that this capacity of his to spot eyes of truth was his secret weapon against the Soviet Remine, which was what allowed him to survive and write a book in a heavily paranoid authoritarian regime, swarmed by secret informers in every corner, and thus, he secured its downfall.
Think of it like this, master jiu-jitsu black belts can spot another master simply by looking, same with anyone who's mastered anything else. Likewise, the more honest you are, the more you are attuned to distinguishing trustworthy people.
Apart from that ... well ...
This book took me a long time to read.
I had to really force myself.
My mind found every distraction possible to stop reading.
Either when things got so terrible. Or when something was so inspiring ... either way it was hard to sit still with this book. I found myself grabbing my phone and watching feel-good videos of philanthropy in Africa, escaping the mental space the book was putting me in, and having me imagine how the children were put into the gulags.
Feels like I understand communism better now. I'm definitely more sensitive to it, and seeing this Anti-racist garbage pop up in America is not fun while reading this.
Some things I couldn't understand at first eventually dawned upon me.
I didn't understand why they had quotas for prisoners. Why, for example, they were missing quotas so they decided just to grab the woman who came to the police station to ask what she was to do with an orphan of a parent who got arrested.
Now it makes sense, they used prisoners for slave labor because communism doesn't make economic sense - having said that, Solzhenitsyn writes that the Gulag, ultimately cost more than it produced. Oh, so bitter.
The book fires inspiration in me and my hatred of totalitarianism and tyranny.
It's an inspiration to live more authentically in your everyday life, maybe to the degree that when a crisis hits you will stand up - and live in a way that if everyone else conducted similarly, totalitarianism would be impossible. And so if you refine your courage and honesty day in and day out, in matters trivial and serious, maybe, just maybe, you will have what it takes to make a stand against when something serious like this is at your door.
Some quotes haunt me from the book. Not only is it written by a true poet, it has so much moral inspiration. Essentially a Christian ethic, whose message is that there are things that are more important than the end-goal. The meaning of life isn't to achieve material prosperity, but to cleanse your soul. Freedom is a great source of happiness. But freedom of sin is the greatest joy of all.
hadeanstars's review against another edition
4.0
I have plenty of thoughts about this work, which though abridged is still monumental in scope. Except for reading One Day in the Life many years ago, I'm not very familiar with Solzhenitsyn, and this book is powerful, but is he truly a great writer, or did he just pick an utterly compelling subject? It feels to me a little like those people who take a photo of a fantastic subject, the picture might be incredible, but are they truly a great photographer? Well, food for thought, but what AS does very well, is he exhaustively presents and re-presents the case, and how could he not? The camps of the gulags were horrendous. He makes frequent comparisons between Stalin's and Hitler's death camps and bemoans the German camps' celebrity status. I guess that is the result of Stalin finding himself on the side of the "good guys" after the war.
But for all the people who cite this as a the last word on the failures of socialism, try again. Stalinism is not socialism, and to use this book as final proof of the failure of collectivism (of any degree) is akin to citing the Spanish Inquisition as proof that religion has no value. Or that Pot Noodles prove the futility of cuisine.
All that aside, this is an important and amazing work, if only for the insight into a hugely under-appreciated corner of human misery, and it shines a light into that unhappy darkness all too well. It's a work of humanity and hope, but not, I would argue in the tradition of "great" Russian literature. I don't think Solzhenitsyn writes to that standard. But wow, what a trip all the same. Bleak and dreadful, but it actually leaves you counting your blessings, and that can't be a bad thing these days.
But for all the people who cite this as a the last word on the failures of socialism, try again. Stalinism is not socialism, and to use this book as final proof of the failure of collectivism (of any degree) is akin to citing the Spanish Inquisition as proof that religion has no value. Or that Pot Noodles prove the futility of cuisine.
All that aside, this is an important and amazing work, if only for the insight into a hugely under-appreciated corner of human misery, and it shines a light into that unhappy darkness all too well. It's a work of humanity and hope, but not, I would argue in the tradition of "great" Russian literature. I don't think Solzhenitsyn writes to that standard. But wow, what a trip all the same. Bleak and dreadful, but it actually leaves you counting your blessings, and that can't be a bad thing these days.