Happy birthday to Gulag Archipelago

The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 I-II, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, was published on this day in France in 1973. He had won the Nobel Prize in 1970. Arrest followed the publicaiton of Gulag Archipelago, and years of exile … and eventual triumph and vindication … but still. So many horrors. Ted and I recently had a conversation about this book. I think it’s on his list to-be-read this next year. We both are a bit insane right now – trying to read SHORT books as the end of the year approaches – so that we can add books to our have-read-list for the year. Meaningless competition – but fun. Anyway, I read Gulag Archipelago years ago, every damn word of it. It’s huge, obviously – a huge book – but once you pick it up, it’s hard to put down. The prose is compulsively read-able. Once you start, you cannot stop. You cannot believe the detail he goes into. The intellect on this guy. (Here’s more information on him.) The years and years of imprisonment … honing his skills of observation to such a devastating degree that he is able to lay out the entire system, brick by brick by brick … how it actually worked, not just physically – but psychologically. It’s a truly stunning achievement, one of the most important books of the 20th century, certainly – if not ever. You want to know how things work? Even if it seems insane from the outside? This is the book to read. Here’s an excerpt and some of my blather on the book. And my observations here are relevant too, I think. Where there is silence … there is horror. Untold, unspoken, unshared. But the silence is louder than a scream. Solzhenitsyn spoke out of the silence, the institutional silence – the silence of exile and imprisonment – of hidden wars and famines, while the world looked the other way. Silence. Czeslaw Milosz, Polish poet who grew up under Communism – and eventually won the Nobel Prize – said during his Nobel Prize speech: “In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.” Solzhenitsyn was that pistol shot.

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2 Responses to Happy birthday to Gulag Archipelago

  1. ChrisN says:

    I may have to add Gulag Archipelego to my list for next year.

    When I was in college, I read Solzhenitsyn’s “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.” Gripping.

  2. red says:

    Chris – it’s well worth it, it really is. Great book. Good translation, too – it feels really talk-y. It;s hard to believe – because he’s describing enormous institutions and totalitarian structures, etc. – but it’s almost CHATTY. Lots of exclamation points, and snarky asides – The translation feels like it captured his tone very well.

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