One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, translated by Ralph Parker, 158 pages
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich delivers exactly what the title promises - the description of an ordinary day in the life of Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, a prisoner in an Arctic gulag. During the course of the day, he manages to avoid any severe punishment for the numerous minor rule violations he is forced to make in order to survive, gets enough food to maintain his poor health, enough heat to avoid freezing to death, and is even able to secure some tobacco. Not of least importance, he is able to do all this without losing his self-respect and the respect of his fellow prisoners.
This is not a novel about overt horror and atrocity, but about steady, unrelenting oppression. Instead of genocide, the aim of the gulag - indeed, the entire Communist system - is rehabilitation through dehumanization, and resistance is a daily struggle.
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