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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Start date: August 1, 2019

Finish date: August 31, 2019

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Jan 11, 2018 Kelly_Hunsaker_reads ... rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-the-world, read-the-world-2018-2020, read-in-2019, read-in-2022, classics, 1001-books, russian-lit

Solzhenitsyn wrote a really good novella that effectively showed the horrendous life of people in the forced labor camps run by the Soviet government. He showed the dreariness and sameness of the days, which must have led to so much boredom and even mental breakdowns. He allowed the reader to feel the cold seep into their bones. He made me hungry. I was completely immersed in the story and longing for a way to break the pattern. And then as the book wound to an end he brilliantly told of the tho ...more

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Sep 04, 2019 Celia rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, group-bom, 1001-challenge, ten-year-challenge, russian-lit, reading-the-world-read, reading-the-wrld, translated, 2019-read

Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, a prisoner in Camp HQ, is the main character of this story. He has been imprisoned in this gulag for 8 years of a 10 year sentence. He is innocent of the charges against him, but still here to serve a sentence on a work team.

On this day, he does not feel well so sleeps in. He is almost thrown into solitary detention. He tries to get out of working in the biting cold, but is told the quota for excused absences has been met. So..he works very hard at the construction site ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

Jun 13, 2017 Jim Townsend rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Excellent bok about the absolute despair of the Soviet gulags, it was used by Nikita Kruschchev to denounce Josef Stalin. Who knew how such mundane things such as food, sleep, and a smoke could take such a role in such desolate circumstances?

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