"One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

I've had this book as a required reading in High School and never read it.  I always hated reading "required" readings. Then I saw it mentioned through many other books, not the least in Dan Simmons' works (sci fi, of all things!) and still didn't read it. Does that mean that I have some kind of resistance towards Russian writers, like many in the west (even without admitting it)?  Maybe, but maybe I was just lazy, and I was to busy reading the adventures of Geralt of Rivia, and wanting to be a Witcher, as a liberation from the chains of western industrialized society and the expectations thereof.

Finally, Dr. Peterson's constant reference to the works of Solzhenitsyn made me reach for the kindle version of Ivan Denisovich, since the multi-volume, thousands-of-pages, "Gulag Archipelago" seemed too intimidating to start, with family and work obligations and all that jazz.  It is a short book, but powerful.  It reads very easy in English translation, and I guess, the same is true for the Russian original.  It is a shocking book.  Ivan Denisovich Shukov is in a 'special camp' in Kazakhstan, working outside, with the other prisoners, 14 hour days in -40C temperatures, and they are only allowed to have a thin coat as a protection, bad boots, and no heating from a stove.

It all happens in one day, from waking up in the dark before dawn, to coming back to the barracks, long after dark.  The details are striking.  The thin stew that is the highlight of the day because everybody is trying to get more.  The way the prisoners wrap themselves in rags and pieces of discarded cloth just to protect from the instant frostbite, even though they never get to be really warm.  The random beatings, the "cells" where the rule breakers are sent, and which mean almost certain death from cold and starvation.  The real horror of the communist gulags is revealed without making any accusations, any argumentation, just plain describing the objective reality of the daily life in these degenerate products of the sick human minds.

The pleasure with which Shukov eats his food is described in such heart-wrenching detail, one instantly feels for the guy, whose only pleasure and hope in life consists of the bite of an occasional piece of dry sausage or sucking the juice from a fish bone.  It makes one think how ungrateful we are today just for the fact that our stomachs (for most of us) are always full.  Of course, Shukov is Solzhenistyn, who spent 10 years in a "special" gulag, after which he was exiled from the Soviet Union and wasn't admitted back until the SU fell apart.

This book is a definite verdict on the horrors of a communist society, however Solzhenitsyn was not treated all that well in exile in the West, especially the US.  The yanks expected that he will be eternally grateful and praise the US society to high heavens, but Solzhenitsyn was a man who speaks his mind without regard to any power that be, and his critique of western society and way of living was just as stinging.  He is famous for his address at a Harvard Commencement, criticizing the West for its materialistic ways and slavery to money.  It was not well received, and he was never invited back.