Author promised forensic research & pretty much delivers.
We all know the ending mind.
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Took me six months to grind through this lot and I feel the need to parade my erudition for the delectation of literally fucking no-one…
Perhaps if I’d read it in the original Russian that statement might even have some cringeworthy validity…
In the round this is a very choppy memoir of the vast, inhuman meat-grinder of a punitive slave colony that results from dogmatically implementing a hopelessly-unrealistic, utopian vision of a collective society onto a deeply dysfunctional actual society, conducted by a paranoid-schizophrenic dictator. It’s viewed through the lens of personal experiences spanning the 1920s to the 1960s, compiled and written by a man who fought bravely for his country only to be rewarded by betrayal, enslavement, and very nearly death… There is actually rather little personal narrative. The author - by dint of survivorship guilt - is rather self-effacing. Instead he tries to tell the tales of those he met along the way, only sometimes bridging the gaps with his own experiences.
Volume 1 was particularly hard-going: assimilating countless unfamiliar and unpronounceable place and personal names is never easy, and there is much need to refer to lengthy footnotes, longer end-notes, a substantial glossary, and not to mention, a map! The fact that Solzhenitsyn “wrote” a lot of this in his head while deprived not-only of liberty, but also writing materials, shelter, food, medical care, &c, &c, explains its propensity to zig-zag about while unintentionally pulsating in its intensity to no clear effect. It’s a disorientating read.
Volume 2 is easier, probably because what remains of one’s mind is ‘broken-in’ by then, and perhaps greater personal liberty of the author (“…paper and pen? what luxury!”) also smoothed the narrative flow. Volume 3 is a deceptive uptick in both style and content, but there is - as we well know - no happy ending…
In an early 1970s World surprisingly thoroughly deceived by Soviet propaganda The Gulag Archipelago came as a shocking read, and rang the death knell for the dregs of Western communism. In 2023, when the USSR’s murder and enslavement of its own former POWs is common knowledge, this book’s restraint sometimes seems tame to the point of squeamishness. Solzhenitsyn, caring only for accuracy and objectivity, restrains his bitterness and rage, clearly wary of producing anything that could be interpreted as a thriller, and ultimately it is the better for it. You feel that restraint in your viscera, and you know every word you read is the simple, unvarnished truth…
Today, its relevance persists in illustrating how the cycles of Russian history endlessly repeat themselves - delivering an ever-changing roster of paranoid, psychotic despots enslaving, torturing and slaughtering their own people far more effectively than Napoleon or Hitler could ever dream of. Only the names and the jargon really change…
It’s also a really useful reminder that culturally Russia has remarkably little in common with Western Europe and the US. Something which is often conveniently forgotten by both idealists and cynical, money-grubbing politicians alike…
To my surprise, following what was at times an exercise in stubborn-ness, I was genuinely bereft to actually get to the end of the final volume! You know something was worth reading when you cannot immediately imagine what the hell you can follow it with…
Amusingly, Volume 2 has a flyleaf dedication of “Happy Christmas, Cynthia, with my love, Clive.”. I can scarcely call to mind the unconstrained delight this thoughtful gift must have engendered in its lucky recipient. I should have liked to meet such people.
Now onto something infinitely lighter (in all senses):
At least the names are more familiar…
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Bravo. These days I struggle to make the time to read the stuff I’d actually like to get through. You make me feel guilty. Must try harder.
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God no! I deprive myself of much needed sleep ploughing through vast, dated tomes out of blind stubbornness! This is not an example to emulate: life is way too precious!
Read ‘…Ivan Denisovich’ - all the bits that matter are in there, it’s better written by far, and blessedly brief!
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I read Cancer Ward when I was a teenager
Never to be forgotten
From Wiki
Cancer Ward tells the story of a small group of patients in Ward 13, the cancer ward of a hospital in Tashkent, Soviet Uzbekistan, in 1954, one year after Joseph Stalin’s death. A range of characters are depicted, including those who benefited from Stalinism, resisted, or acquiesced. Like Solzhenitsyn, the main character, the Russian Oleg Kostoglotov, spent time in a labor camp as a “counter-revolutionary” before he was exiled to Central Asia under Article 58.
The story explores the moral responsibility of those implicated in Stalin’s Great Purge (1936–1938), during the murders of millions, sent to camps, or exiled. One patient worries a man he helped to jail will seek revenge, while others fear their failure to resist renders them as guilty as any other. “You haven’t had to do much lying, do you understand? …” one patient tells Kostoglotov. “You people were arrested, but we were herded into meetings to ‘expose’ you. They executed people like you, but they made us stand up and applaud the verdicts … And not just applaud, they made us demand the firing squad, demand it!”[6]
Toward the end of the novel, Kostoglotov realizes the damage is too great, there will be no healing after Stalin. As with cancer, there may be periods of remission, but no escape.[7] On the day of his release from the hospital, he visits a zoo, seeing in the animals people he knew: “[D]eprived of their home surroundings, they lost the idea of rational freedom. It would only make things harder for them, suddenly to set them free.”[8]
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There’s a couple of his "Letters to… " things of his I’ve not read, but despite that omission I think it safe to say “Cancer Ward” is the best thing he wrote. Not the most important, or the most readable, but certainly the best.
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Yes, the origins of a whole mythos but, and I guess I shouldn’t be surprised given when and where it was written, also eye-poppingly racist.
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Today’s chazzer present drawer scoop.
The family say I read one book a year, on holiday, here is this years effort, thicker than usual and few pictures. Kids have named it ‘The Bible’, as it’s a bit chunky.
@crimsondonkey @Myrman - the best part clears up the level of involvement others had in SOTT, great reading.
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Not got either of those, the one I’ve just read has set the scene much better for the material on the SOTT deluxe. Renewed my interest 
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Great book
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Such a great read - he was an amazing character.
Bring on The Empty Horses is pretty good too.
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