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dom_jones's review against another edition
3.0
“(We)would like to take our anger out on those who are weaker, those who cannot answer. It is a human trait.”
Don’t think I can give it a proper review after really losing track with it last year, and only picking it back up in the last few weeks, but I think this is an example of an important historical text not being a great book.
Quite rambling and repetitive, synthesising and retelling individual experiences without significantly organising broader narratives, or putting them into a wider structure.
Saying this though, some beautiful and important points about humankind’s capacity to hope, in the face of impending personal disaster.
Don’t think I can give it a proper review after really losing track with it last year, and only picking it back up in the last few weeks, but I think this is an example of an important historical text not being a great book.
Quite rambling and repetitive, synthesising and retelling individual experiences without significantly organising broader narratives, or putting them into a wider structure.
Saying this though, some beautiful and important points about humankind’s capacity to hope, in the face of impending personal disaster.
mj470's review against another edition
5.0
Nothing in this is for the faint of heart. I started reading it years ago and it filled my head with terrible dreams. It's maybe the most graphic book I've ever read, but it's the most excellent condemnation of communism ever written. Solzhenitsyn lays out chapter by chapter topics like interrogations and gives a detailed and cold accounting of terror after terror. It's very difficult to stomach. Then his personal thoughts on the reliance of the human spirit and the testaments of faith shines through in truly excellent prose.
These books are required reading for every school in Russia. It should be everywhere. He lays out exactly where ideologies lead to violent authoritarianism. He has a very interesting chapter on how the smartest engineers were rounded up and sent to the Gulag because they criticized the regime. It's his opinion that Russia never recovered technologically from that. The scale of death that went through Russia and Eastern Europe during this time is clearly one of the longest and bloodiest periods in our modern age. The West was sadly very complicit in letting the "meat grinder" (as they call the Soviet run areas of Eastern Europe and Russia) destroy so many people. Solzhenitsyn makes that point from his perspective as a soldier who was sent to the Gulag after the war.
It's a heavy read but very based and worth the challenge.
These books are required reading for every school in Russia. It should be everywhere. He lays out exactly where ideologies lead to violent authoritarianism. He has a very interesting chapter on how the smartest engineers were rounded up and sent to the Gulag because they criticized the regime. It's his opinion that Russia never recovered technologically from that. The scale of death that went through Russia and Eastern Europe during this time is clearly one of the longest and bloodiest periods in our modern age. The West was sadly very complicit in letting the "meat grinder" (as they call the Soviet run areas of Eastern Europe and Russia) destroy so many people. Solzhenitsyn makes that point from his perspective as a soldier who was sent to the Gulag after the war.
It's a heavy read but very based and worth the challenge.
grantj00's review against another edition
4.0
Should go without saying that this is a heavy, heavy read. Taught me an innumerable amount relating to 20th century Russian history. Great writer, but very drawn out. At the time of release, denoting every little thing that was happening was necessary; however, from a current lens readers would be better off reading the abridged version.
mtnmama's review against another edition
4.0
I wouldn't say I enjoyed reading this, but I found it worthwhile, although at times difficult keeping up with all of the Russian names and agencies. I also realize that my version contained only books one and two, and I doubt I will read the remaining portions.
depcrafter's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
4.5
Finally finished after 3 months! Should have read the abridged version, there’s just wayyyy too much detail. Should be mandatory reading
speranta's review against another edition
5.0
In a lifetime there are some books which mark you forever, changing your perspective on the world. The Gulag Archipelago is most certainly one of them.
harlando's review
3.0
This was really long, and I will admit to skimming a page or two. I liked it and learned a lot about Soviet repression, but it does go on for a while. Do Russians write longer books than Americans, or does it just seem that way? I think Nabokov wrote Lolita in the US at roughly the same time, but it wasn't even close to the length of Gulag Archipelago. Solzhenitsyn also had to hide his notes and manuscripts, which I think would cause a bias towards brevity, but that is clearly not the case.
I was most struck by the passivity of the Soviet political prisoners. Solzhenitsyn is arrested on the battlefield. he was an artillery captain and was walking around armed. One would think that there would be at least a little resistance. Solzhenitsyn spends a lot of time on the topic and also seem at a loss to explain exactly why there was so little resistance to arrest and exile. Modern America also arrests a lot of people, and some of those people are mistreated but not summarily executed. It seems that American police experience much more resistance from criminals than the NKVD received from politicals. There also seemed to be very few escapes even though the chaos of the war years would seem to have made escape an option.
Solzhenitsyn spends less time on the resources the state devoted to repression, but that is another thing I find fascinating. Between the arms race, bribing client states in the third world, and repressing millions of soviet citizens it is remarkable that the USSR had resources left over to do anything else.
I liked the book and I am glad I soldiered through it, but I am not in a hurry to pick up volume II.
I was most struck by the passivity of the Soviet political prisoners. Solzhenitsyn is arrested on the battlefield. he was an artillery captain and was walking around armed. One would think that there would be at least a little resistance. Solzhenitsyn spends a lot of time on the topic and also seem at a loss to explain exactly why there was so little resistance to arrest and exile. Modern America also arrests a lot of people, and some of those people are mistreated but not summarily executed. It seems that American police experience much more resistance from criminals than the NKVD received from politicals. There also seemed to be very few escapes even though the chaos of the war years would seem to have made escape an option.
Solzhenitsyn spends less time on the resources the state devoted to repression, but that is another thing I find fascinating. Between the arms race, bribing client states in the third world, and repressing millions of soviet citizens it is remarkable that the USSR had resources left over to do anything else.
I liked the book and I am glad I soldiered through it, but I am not in a hurry to pick up volume II.