Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #291513 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 752 pages

Customer Reviews

One of the must reads of the Soviet Era
This is a Monumental work by a Monumental Writer. With a Surgeons meticulousness of dissection, Solzhenitsyn lays bare the entire anatomy of the Oppressive apparatus, laying bare the workings at an Ideological, state and individual level. He uses hundreds of examples of individuals and groups of individuals experiences of the Soviet oppressive 'Organs' to create a vast network of suffering interlinked by time, place and person.
It is an unrelenting and heavy read. It demands by the nature of its grave subject deliberation and slow digestion.
The Soviet process of arrest, interrogation charge and sentencing are each painstakingly laid out. The Politicohistorical background of the (in)justice system is similarly dissected apart with reference to historical events.
It is dry writing, blisteringly sarcastic with an understanding sympathy for the forces of oppression that is unrelentingly ironic.
It is an extraordinary piece of work, immense in scope, rich in ironic understatement that can leave the reader exhausted. Stunningly detailed, and essential reading for any serious student of the Soviet era.

Everyone should read this
Sometimes horrible, sometimes funny, mostly just unbelievable that a nation could plunge to such depths. Sadly it has to be believed. What shrines through, and makes even the stories of people's deaths almost funny is Solzhenitsyn's black sense of humour and sarcasm that's there on every page. He writes about how the guards didn't feed prisoners for sometimes days at a time, but talks about the hapless guard's with so much sarcasm and of how they were poorly paid and what a thankless task it was that you almost end up feeling sorry for the evil devils.

It's this sarcasm I think that allowed him to survive his eight years and made him from a little cog in a giant faceless machine to a man who stood tall over the entire country.

What ever your view of Stalin and Russia, this book needs to be read,....must be read.