Never too Late to Read Classics discussion

We begin our year of Reading the Russians with the short and powerful classic, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by the Nobel Prize winning author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

If you are interested in further experiences of the author in the camps, I highly recommend this version of The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956.

I have read both of these books fairly recently, so at present I am reading The Oak And The Calf: Sketches Of Literary Life In The Soviet Union.
I have just finished reading the section that deals with the publication of the book we are reading this month.
It was published during a brief thaw in state restrictions, in the Khruschev years. The thaw ended with the Cuban Missile crisis, so the author had good timing- and patience, since it took a long time to be released.

I read those years ago as a recommendation from a friend. Quite the challenge for a first read of his but so good. I wish I had kept them!

I'm glad you enjoyed them, Jacquie.

I read One Day in the Life... about two years ago and found it horrifying and powerful. I'll definitely have to look into the other two.

Those two adjectives describe the book well, Eugene. The Gulag Archipelago shows conditions in different camps. Some were much worse than the one he describes.

Although I've read everything by Solzhenitsyn previously, and re-read The Gulag Archipelago just a few months ago, I thought oh, I'll have a peek at One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich again.... and before I knew it I had read too much to put it down and ended up finishing it. As powerful as ever.

So true!

The last page of this book is perhaps my favorite I have ever read. I find it so powerful.

Kelly_Hunsaker_reads wrote: "The last page of this book is perhaps my favorite I have ever read. I find it so powerful."

I also found the last page profound.