Customer Reviews

The Love Girl and the Innocent

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When we get annoyed at Solzhenitsyn's lack of insight in contemporary politics (for instance, when he applauds the Russian intervention in Chechnya), we can turn back to his depictions of life in the Soviet work camps and delight in the fact that he used to be different (when the ruling was an enemy suiting his conservative and slavophile ideas, as one is tempted to add).

'The Love-Girl and the Innocent' is a brilliant play about the inhuman world of the camps, that have their own rules, and where nothing of the world outside matters. The 'Innocent' is a newly arrived prisoner, who still bears idealism and is reluctant to adopt the camp techniques of survival. His love for Lyuba, one of the many women forced by circumstances to sell themselves for privileges and rations, tempts him to compromise with himself and betray his moral and emotional loyalties.

Having read "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich", I was intrigued when I found a copy of this play. As with many plays it may be easier to see this work performed than to read it. While it possesses many of the same qualities as "One Day ...", it has many more flaws.

The main plot shows Rodion Nemov, a new prisoner losing his idealism to Lyuba Nyegnevitskaya. As they fall for each other, the unanswered question is whether Nemov is willing to keep their happiness secret as Lyuba gains luxuries while living with a doctor. Even if this is the main story, it seems to occupy little actual text. The story is flooded with so many characters, it is often difficult to track who is doing what. Certainly, this sacrifices some of the nuances that Solzhenitsyn was trying to portray.

I really like the concept behind this "indecent proposal" storyline in a Stalinist labor camp. Unfortunately, it might be hard to tell the story in more widely scattered wreckage.

It is difficult to evaluate a play only from the written script, and even harder when that script is a translation, but I think the major points of this play show well enough to do this.

The play is set in one of the work camps of post-1945 Russia, and most of its denizens are political prisoners serving ten or twenty year sentences for violation of Soviet Penal Code Article 58 (basically treasonous talk, writing, or actions against the Soviet Union). This point is strongly emphasized by how the prisoners respond to roll-call, by citing the relevant section of this code (of which there are many) that they were sentenced under. How these political prisoners are treated is sharply different from what the normal (or as they are referred to here, the `pros' - professional criminals) prisoners receive.

The main story line deals with Nemov (the `innocent'), who at the start of the play is in charge of the production work force, and Lyuba (the `love-girl'), a supposed `secretary', actually bed-mate to the camp's hospital doctor. Nemov is shown early on to be naive in the ways of the camp, unwilling to make compromises or make deals to further his own ends, but it quickly becomes apparent that this is the only way to survive in these camps, and leads to his demotion to general labor. It is only after he meets and falls in love with Lyuba that he seems to understand the need for these deals, when he has something he truly wants.

There is a very large cast of characters, many of which are only spear carriers, but it is very difficult to sort these out from the important ones until fairly deep into the play. And as the portrayed environment and political culture is radically different from most Westerner's experience, the early portion of this play is quite confusing. Later it becomes much more obvious that Solzhenitsyn is criticizing how these camps are organized, the `production quota' system where the goals are subject to daily changes, the rating of various types of work being worth fixed amounts set by state agencies and having no relationship to the actual value, how essential goods and better jobs are allocated within these camps, and showing how these items lead to a near-capitalistic `black market' in goods and services.

As the environment and basic themes are very similar to that of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, his first published novel that has also been produced as a television play, comparison is invited, and this play comes up a very poor second to that novel. This play seems muddied and confused, with too many characters and a diffuse story line, to where its major points are almost buried, whereas One Day's simplicity and directness makes it satirical underpinnings deadly effective. Given that Solzhenitsyn did much of his writing during the late fifties, but couldn't publish them at that time, it would seem possible to me that this play was actually written before One Day, and suffers from writing inexperience. It is also possible that this translation is not the best, as the almost lyrical prose so present in One Day seems to be sadly lacking here.

Clearly not his best, and the reader would be better served by reading his more acclaimed works: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, The First Circle, Cancer Ward, and the Gulag Archipelago, all of which are more than deserving of a read.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)