Thread: Read this book!

I got a hold of a copy of "A day in the life of Ivan Denisovich" by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn translated by Robert Parker, and I can recommend it on the highest! It's remarkable not only in the story and the prose, but also that it past the censorship and Krushev himself made sure it was published... It's more than a book, it is a phenomenon.

I am sure the original in Russian is better!

That's all, have a nice day!

http://www.lib.ru/PROZA/SOLZHENICYN/ivandenisych.txt

I read it many many years ago; the thing I remember is that all he had to eat after a day's slavery was thin broth. You should try Cancer Ward. August 1914 was long and dull imo.

Wonderful book! I read it last year for my school's contest of who can read the most books and write the most reports.... I just read that one.

I love Solzhenitsyn's works - "Ivan Denisovich" was the first of his works that i read, and i remember how stunned by it i was! Since then i've read The Cancer Ward - which is good - and the Gulag Archipelago - which is facinating but incredibly exhausting to read: it took me about 4 months to get through, and after i completed it i felt like i was the one who deserved the noble prize!!

Likewise, though, i think the Russian would be better. My Russian isn't quite good enough yet (actually, my Russian is terrible)

The First Circle is also great. It was on Russian TV last year and is now on DVD (but don't know if you can get it outside of Russia).

JB: The First Circle is also great. It was on Russian TV last year and is now on DVD (but don't know if you can get it outside of Russia).

http://www.russiandvd.com/store/product.asp?sku=41951
В круге первом

Can you believe that Solzhenitsyn is 89 years old this year... not bad for someone who experienced the gulag and had cancer! I wonder what is he doing nowadays?

I read Gulag Archipelago in the early 80s. At the time, when left-wing politics was still pretty fashionable, I thought 'if only a quarter of this is true, that's appalling'. Er, it was all true.

What some people go through makes you really appreciate what you have now...

Originally Posted by kalinka_vinnie

Can you believe that Solzhenitsyn is 89 years old this year... not bad for someone who experienced the gulag and had cancer! I wonder what is he doing nowadays?

A far as I know he still writes ocasionally and was rewarded with something in 2006. I'm not sure but it seems he lives in Russia now.

His current views are not very popular, since after leaving USSR he became somehat disillusioned in the 'Western way', turning into 'anti-Western Russian nationalist', as Richard Pipes called it.

He continues to criticise virtually everything, but he's unexpectedly favourable to Putin. Here's his overview of three Russian presidencies in his interview to 'Spiegel' (2007):

Горбачёвское правление поражает своей политической наивностью, неопытностью и безответственностью перед страной. Это была не власть, а бездумная капитуляция её. Ответные восторги с Запада только подкрепили картину. Но надо признать, что именно Горбачёв (а не Ельцин, как теперь звучит повсеместно) впервые дал гражданам нашей страны свободу слова и свободу перемещения.

Ельцинская власть характеризовалась безответственностью перед народной жизнью не меньшей, только в других направлениях. В безоглядной поспешности скорей, скорей установить частную собственность вместо государственной — Ельцин разнуздал в России массовое, многомиллиардное ограбление национальных достояний. Стремясь получить поддержку региональных лидеров — он прямыми призывами и действиями подкреплял, подталкивал сепаратизм, развал российского государства. Одновременно лишая Россию и заслуженной ею исторической роли, её международного положения. Что вызывало не меньшие аплодисменты со стороны Запада.

Путину досталась по наследству страна разграбленная и сшибленная с ног, с деморализованным и обнищавшим большинством народа. И он принялся за возможное — заметим, постепенное, медленное, — восстановление её. Эти усилия не сразу были замечены и, тем более, оценены. И можете ли Вы указать примеры в истории, когда меры по восстановлению крепости государственного управления встречались благожелательно извне?

http://www.izvestia.ru/person/article3106464/?print

In that interbiew he also said that he has no problems with Putin's KGB past, since Putin was a foreign intelligence officer, and there's nothing wrong with it.
I must add that many people think he's a poor literator and he didn't deserve his Nobel prize

Yes, my reading of A Day in the life of Denis and the Gulag Archipelago didn't mark him out as a literary genius. I guess politics and/or bravery had an effect there.

I had to read it in high school. It takes something away from it when you are forced to read it, but I remember it was really interesting anyway.

I don't know, I read the book and I was taken aback with the great detail and prose, but it might be the translation of course, but you'd think it would be even better in the original Russian (yes, I know I should be reading it in Russian, but I found the book for $1 in a used book market )

When I think about it, it was probably more the story than the story-telling, which is just as important when judging literature... but the timing of the release is probably what gained him the prize...