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spav's review against another edition
1.0
Uf...qué peñazo aaaaaridooo!. A temática está interesante, o desarrollo moi complexo de ler (por aburrido).
dale_kooyenga's review against another edition
5.0
Stephen King couldn’t match the horrors inflicted in this book. The detailed account of the Soviet Gulag system is beyond my original understanding of the scope of depravity Stalin inflicted on his fellow countrymen, women and children.
I am glad I read the abridged versions. Three detailing the faces of the Gulags is a huge service to history but more than I would of wanted to fill my brain and time with considering the opportunity costs of reading other books on my to read list.
The author is a hero and he has served history well.
I am glad I read the abridged versions. Three detailing the faces of the Gulags is a huge service to history but more than I would of wanted to fill my brain and time with considering the opportunity costs of reading other books on my to read list.
The author is a hero and he has served history well.
austin_ch's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
4.0
jkarran_17's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.75
A shepherd in a fit of anger swore at e COW for not obeying: You
collective-farm wh-!" And he got 58, and a term.
collective-farm wh-!" And he got 58, and a term.
rkkmistry's review against another edition
5.0
WOW!!! EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ THIS BOOK!!! I think even the most woke of us have this sort of positivist idea of the world and even tho we know shit is fucked up we still have this sense that like conflicts are smaller and more controlled and "it's not like we're gonna have an all out World War III," but I think this book really hit home like how violence will work in the 21st century (hint hint it's behind closed doors and in concentration camps). I think it's just like important in understanding how violence on such a massive and mundane scale can be carried out almost administratively. And yes, I know that contemporary scholars think numbers are far far lower than Solzhenitsyn claims and I know that really this book is more of an oral history than an actual historical study, but I think we need that to like actually understand the devastation of the 20th /21st century. We're so inundated with images of violence and huge numbers, but this book really cut through the crap and had me like utterly horrified in the way that I feel it is important we all are. Like shit is bad yo!!! And I think that people that still believe in forms of communism or socialism shouldn't be afraid of this book, because the forms of state violence we see here are so familiar regardless of governmental structure. Overall maybe I'm sounding like a high schooler who just learned about racism, but like I think it's good to be shaken up a little every once in a while !!!
ben2then's review against another edition
5.0
This book is about the Soviet jail, gulag and exile system which the author experienced first hand. After returning from a German POW camp, rather than receiving a hero's welcome after his enormous sacrifice for the motherland, he was immediately thrown in jail, along with many other Russian war veterans.
His account of 'the archipelago', his metaphor for the soviet prison system, draws on his own experience as well as memoirs and letters he received from others after his release.
This book reminded me of 'This is a man' by Primo Levi in that both are accounts of the abject suffering and cruelty suffered and perpetrated by men in 20th century prison camps.
But the fates of Germany and Russia have been so divergent in the late 20th century and 21st century. This must be because Russia had no process of accountability whatsoever following the fall of the soviet union.
"In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations."
This is another quotation which struck me:
"Bless you prison, bless you for being in my life. For there, lying upon the rotting prison straw, I came to realize that the object of life is not prosperity as we are made to believe, but the maturity of the human soul."
His account of 'the archipelago', his metaphor for the soviet prison system, draws on his own experience as well as memoirs and letters he received from others after his release.
This book reminded me of 'This is a man' by Primo Levi in that both are accounts of the abject suffering and cruelty suffered and perpetrated by men in 20th century prison camps.
But the fates of Germany and Russia have been so divergent in the late 20th century and 21st century. This must be because Russia had no process of accountability whatsoever following the fall of the soviet union.
"In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations."
This is another quotation which struck me:
"Bless you prison, bless you for being in my life. For there, lying upon the rotting prison straw, I came to realize that the object of life is not prosperity as we are made to believe, but the maturity of the human soul."
solzhe_boy_nitsyn's review against another edition
5.0
This is a masterpiece. A treasure that should be read by everyone, and a history that we have to remember.
rollingfroth's review against another edition
3.0
70 hours of tourture and human cruetly is hard to get through...but we should.
nandin_rhodes's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
inspiring
sad
slow-paced
4.0