One Day in the Life

In my quest to read more this year, and to read books I wish had been assigned during my high school or college days, I checked out One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich from the library. I guess I have been on a mini Russian kick the past two weeks. I played the Leningrad Symphony, e-mailed my friend in Minsk, Belarus (who wrote back saying not to worry about her), and read Solzhenitsyn's book for the first time. I couldn't sleep until I finished it tonight.

This account of an ordinary day in the Stalinist Siberian work camp is a testament to one man's ability to rise above his captors, maintain dignity, take personal pride in his work, help others, and keep his sanity through an insane situation. At the end of what we would consider a horrific day, he is able to recount the good things that happened and declare it "almost a happy one." And yet, in the very next sentence, the closing of the entire book, he notes that it is just one day out of 3,653 of his ten-year sentence. Just when you marvel how he could have made it through one of these ungodly days, you can't begin to fathom surviving one after another for ten years.

I liked his sparse prose. Sparse, like their meager food rations. Sparse, like their clothing allotment. And like the cold snowy landscape.

Solzhenitsyn is still alive, living back in Russia again since the collapse of the USSR. He signed a copy of this book for the library of the city of Chicago, who has chosen it for their spring 2006 "One Book, One Chicago" selection.