One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch (Signet Classics) (Paperback)

However, it is more than all the above. "One Day" is actually a searching look at human nature. The biting wind, jagged wire, frigid climate, watery soup, and the warmth provided by an extra pair of mittens or an hour of hard physical labor all find matches in the colorful crowd of characters that parades through this narrative - from the prison guards to the prisoners themselves to the prison director to the turncoat prisoners who sold their integrity for the favor of their oppressors.

This is a book to be read, first of all, for its historical value - a tribute to those who were imprisoned but whose voices were never heard, and a silent plea to commit all our forces to the proposition that such vileness will never reach our liberty-loving shores. No less importantly, this is a book that should prompt us to turn our eyes inward and question ourselves whether, in our own way, we are capable of committing the same atrocities against our fellow man, and whether, if subjected to the same suffering, we would have the strength of character to find as much comfort in a bowl of soup as we do now in the transient, unfounded knowledge that such inhumanity will not touch us.

This is Solzhenitsyn's tribute to the millions of people lost inside the Gulag Archipelago. Unlike the mammoth Archipelago, which documents the evil prison camp system of the Soviets, this is an intimate story of just one man, Ivan Denisovitch, who is sent to the impossibly harsh camp because he returned as a prisoner-of-war and was thus by definition, a traitor.

The book takes place over one day in Ivan's life in the Gulag. He schemes for an extra ration of bread, he survives an inspection, he grasps the crumbs of existence that literally are the difference between life and death. At the end of this day, you feel as cold as the sub-zero Siberian air. This book is utterly brilliant and, though depressing, heroic. Ivan never sacrifices his humanity for a moment.

There was an actual biography (now out of print) by Victor Herman called Coming out of the Ice. He was an American caught in the Stalin purges and imprisoned in a Siberian gulag. He survived the deadly games of partial cannabalism and lived on rats he trapped. He eventually got out and was able to document his experience. It compares exactly to Ivan Denisovitch. (By the way, where did the gulags go after the fall of the USSR?)

Like anybody who's been in a highly structured and disciplined environment for a long time, Shukhov has developed his own individualized way of living day to day, bending the rules, avoiding punishment, and making life a little more bearable under the circumstances. Temperatures are commonly well below zero and the food is barely nutritional enough to keep the prisoners alive, but Shukhov has adapted well enough to know how to stay warm and make the most out of his meals. On this particular day, Shukhov's squad is forced to work construction; the novel describes how well Shukhov has honed his masonry skills as he expertly lays blocks and mortar building a wall for a building that will be used to hold future prisoners. Life at the camp has made him tough and independent; his only weakness is tobacco, for which he will beg, borrow, or steal.

The novel is based on Solzhenitsyn's own experience as a labor camp prisoner under Stalin's reign, and therefore it has a sincere, natural, brutal quality that not even someone like Orwell could imitate. More than anything, though, it portrays a man whose spirit is strong enough to triumph over the most extreme adversity. Case in point: There is another prisoner named Fetiukov, a sniveling weasel who cries about his harsh treatment. Shukhov observes that Fetuikov won't survive his imprisonment because he has the wrong attitude, which is why he can't help but feel a little sorry for the guy. This work is not only an indictment of the machinations of one of the twentieth century's most oppressive political systems; it also succeeds as a concise study in humanism.