Talk Back

[Eisworth]

I'm not sure how I ended up reading this on the night after I read "Night", but I'm glad it worked out this way.

The author is Alexander Solzhenitsyn (Nobel Prize for Literature 1970), and the book is exactly as the title indicates. The title character is a denizen of a Soviet prison camp in the early 1950s, and the book chronicles his experiences on a single day in January.

The book is about life and the ability to live it under the most appalling circumstances. There is no plot --- it is simply a detailed sketch of a day in this prisoner's life. (Solzhenitsyn himself was held in such a camp for years after daring to criticise Stalin in private conversation.)

Is it possible to provide a spoiler for a book that isn't plot-driven? If so, then I probably do it by quoting the final sentences:


**** Spoiler below****



"There were three thousand six hundred and fifty-three days like that in his stretch. From the first clang of the rail to the last clang of the rail. The three extra days were for leap years".
_________________
Todd Eisworth
Associate Professor of Mathematics
Ohio University

[shaw]

My favorite thing about this is that you put it down and realize that you'd just read about... a GOOD day!

I don't want to mention plot specifics, but at almost every turn, things were uncommonly good for him.