UBC: The Gulag Archipelago

[truepenny]

Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I. The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, I-II. [Arkhipelag GULag.] Transl. Thomas P. Whitney. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1973.

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This is only the first volume of The Gulag Archipelago, meaning of course that vols. 2 & 3 have been added to my infinitely expanding book list. It is, in no particular order: massive, passionate, funny, bitter, astounding, appalling, fascinating, heart-breaking. Periodically, especially in the chapters about Soviet trials, my suspension of disbelief would break, which is a really weird thing to have happen when you're reading nonfiction.

The universe has been conspiring recently to make me wish I could read Russian, and Solzhenitsyn only makes it worse; there are places in The Gulag Archipelago where I can SEE that something beautiful and clever and subversive is happening in the language, but English doesn't flex in the right direction to convey it.

Also, although of course Gogol was a Tsarist author, something about reading Solzhenitsyn made me understand him better.

And this is the epigraph for something, although I don't know what yet: "if you live in a graveyard, you can't weep for everyone" (584).

I do have less scattershot ideas about this book, but they aren't articulatable yet, so for now, this will have to do.

Comments

[danibel.livejournal.com]

If you're interested in reading more by Solzhenitsyn (aside from the rest of the Archipelago), I recommend the The Solzhenitsyn Reader: New and Essential Writings (http://www.amazon.com/Solzhenitsyn-Reader-Essential-Writings-1947-2005/dp/1935191551/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262628189&sr=8-1). It's a bit an encapsulation of his work in general, so it makes for great leisure reading. Also, my research advisor is one of the editors. :)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the recommendation!

[aedifica]

I thought I read The Gulag Archipelago in a high school world lit class, but if it's several volumes, I'm sure I didn't. I wonder what I did read! Excerpts, maybe? I certainly remember Solzhenitsyn's name.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

You might have read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which is also about the Gulag, and has the advantage of being a SHORT NOVEL, rather than a gargantuan nonfiction monument. I know I read it in high school--and it stuck with me. Or, as you say, excerpts.

[aedifica]

YES, that was it! Thank you. It probably said "By the author of..." and that made the other title stick in my head as well.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

If you had read it, you'd be certain. It has a certain . . . weight . . . that sticks with you.

Also, dense.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I admire your determination. I read through the whole thing, once, when it was fresh off the press. Took a while.

[hackerguitar.livejournal.com]

I read the books in graduate school as a bit of modern contrast to slave narratives, and was struck by Solzhenitsyn's ability to make the horrifying absolutely commonplace. An example: Early on in book one, he talks about how prisoners being led away to be executed would hand off their belongings, getting undressed as they walked through the snow, with a sort of defiant resignation. It was heartbreaking.

It brings the politics of dehumanization into very, very high relief in a way few other writers can match.

[finnyb.livejournal.com]

I've got this written down in one of my "Ohh...I just shelved this for a school/library (I work for a book wholesaler) and I want!" notebooks I've always got with me at work. Got some rather odd looks from co-workers who asked what I was writing, when I told them. (Most of my co-workers seem to dislike nonfiction, for some reason.)

[norseland.livejournal.com]

Bit of trivia: In reading Mark Bowden's book, "Guests of the Ayatollah" one of the American hostages talks about finding "The Gulag Archipelago" in the embassy library where they are being held, and how helpful it was to him in getting through the situation.

[marycatelli]

I think you might like La Russie en 1839 by the marquis de Custine

Or rather, whatever condensed translation you find -- no one seems to want to do the whole thing.

My edition has a foreword by someone on the staff of the American embassy, who recommended it as the best book to understand the Soviet Union.