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[twunny]

First, let me say that this was not a book, it was an epic quest. 620 pages and five weeks. I've read books with more pages in less time, to be sure, but this was some dense reading. There were times I wanted to give up for a spell.
However, this was an altogether amazing book. Solzhenitsyn has a beauty and a richness to his writing that is rare. In this book he takes the dirtiest, meanest, and ugliest parts of the old USSR prison system, and lays it out for all to see. It sways back and forth between poetic and banal.
Unlike One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, this is all nonfiction. One Day is a "slice of life" kind of thing, whereas no one person could live through all the nooks and crannies of the Archipelago. There were horrors described in here that made my stomach tighten.
As good as most of this book was, I found myself bored by the middle section. It was mostly descriptions of historic and/or ignored trials that took place in Russia between 1919 and 1950. There were way too many details to keep straight and it was in one eye and out the other.
But the rest was outstanding. I'm intimidated by the fact that there are two more volumes out there, lurking.
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I am a dirty liar. And I'm lying when I say that.