A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch a Second Time

In the last two or three weeks I have been re-reading A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch and I barely remembered any of it. I had read it two or three decades ago and I read it again recently. The first thought this time, after reading Gulag by Applebaum, and other history books, is that it’s quite tame compared to other books. The other thing I noted is that it ends with him thinking that he has had a good day.

The hardships in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch are tame compared to what he writes in The Gulag Archipelago and Applebaum writes about in Gulag. He writes about one day, when the hardships of Gulag life are routine, rather than the arrest process torture and more. Applebaum wrote about systemic rape, but she also wrote that “if we held people to account for the Gulags, we’ have to hold everyone accountable because of how entrenched it was.

It’s interesting how food and delayed gratification play a role. The piece of bread that should be enjoyed a few hours after a meal. The soup that is just water for some, and has actual substance for others. It speaks about not licking bows clean, before eventually reading “because you might get beaten up” or something to that effect.

It speaks about work and how the system ensured that the workers themselves policed each other. Work hard, and you get a reward, slack off and you get nothing, and that nothing can become a death sentence.

The first time I read this book I read it in a single day, and this time I read it over several nights so I had time to digest what I read, and appreciate it differently. The first time I had less context. I’ve read around the subject since then.

It’s worth linking to L’Axe du Loup by Sylvain Tesson, which I am currently reading. In this book Sylvain Tesson explores the hike taken by some to flee the Gulag, walking from their camp through various countries before eventually ending up in India, and from there returning to freedom.

It’s interesting to read about dealing with the extreme cold when we’re dealing with wave after wave of heat waves.

There is the image of people sowing a pocket into their clothing, of using rags on their feet rather than socks, and if their shoes suffer damage then they are stuck with them for months.

The drying of boots is another topic, drying every third day, and roll call without shoes, of wearing layers and layers of clothing, of being searched and undoing those layers, letting in the cold. There is the notion of counts, and recounts, and falling asleep where it is warm, and then being punished.

The topic of sleep deprivation is there. Going to sleep late, and being woken early, to rest on Sundays, but not every Sunday, if weather prevented work, or for other reasons.

What strikes me is that the first reading, two decades ago, is entirely different to my reading this time around. It’s fascinating that I forgot so much. It proves that it is worth reading a book two or three times, in some cases, such as this one.

On Tuesday we will discuss it. I want to do some more background research before then.