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The First Circle

2 February 2008 in Novel | No comments

In Russian: В круге первом
By Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Begun 17 Oct 2007; finished 30 Oct.

I first picked up The First Circle about 6-7 years ago, but didn’t get far. I decided to tackle it this time, given it’s the last major fictional work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn that I hadn’t yet read.

The First Circle is the second most formidable novel of Solzhenitsyn’s that I’ve tackled. (The first is The Gulag Archipelago.) It is some 55 substantial chapters long, contains a massive cast, and spans only three days of time. It’s a book that demands attention and energy and patience, not for the fainthearted. Yet it’s worth reading despite (or maybe because of?) its length and intensity.

The novel is set in the Gulag of Stalin’s Soviet Union, much like One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich; however, this prison is a “special prison” where prisoners of a skilled/professional background spend their sentences working on secret government projects. The First Circle contrasts nicely with One Day — in the latter, prisoners are in labour camps in the worst of circumstances; life is as good as it gets in a special prison, the ‘first circle’ of the Hell of Stalin’s Gulag. The title refers to the organization of Hell in Dante’s Inferno, where the virtuous and scholarly heathen reside in the first and highest circle of the underworld.

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We

20 October 2007 in Novel | No comments

In Russian: Мы
By Yevgeny Zamyatin.
Begun 01 Sep 2007; finished 07 Sep.

We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin, was a book high on my 2007 reading list. So it’s unfortunate that I don’t recall much of its details, except that it seemed like a restless, vivid dream.

George Orwell says that We was his prime inspiration for Nineteen Eighty-Four. Zamyatin, a Russian, wrote his book at the turn of the 20th century, and given the prevalence of 1984, We remains a most underrated and unappreciated novel, even moreso that it is astoundingly visionary and futuristic for its time. The parallels between the two books are quite clear: a future dystopia with an autocratic government (Zamyatin’s supreme ruler is called the Benefactor); where people’s identities have been reduced to limit free thought, and lives are regimented to the minutiae; where government ideology and propaganda saturate every part of life and drown out any dissenting thought. Then the protagonist learns of the dissenting underground and is gradually swayed towards their ideology, but that small spark ignited is certainly (if not quickly) stifled by the overwhelming force of the state.

Essentially, We (and 1984) examines an ideologically homogeneous society, where individuality, creativity, and independent thought are suppressed and eradicated in the name of preserving social safety, conformity and efficiency. In We, this is taken to the absolute extreme. Read the rest of this entry »

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Notes From Underground

31 May 2006 in Novel | No comments

In Russian: Записки из подполья
By Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Begun 25 May 2006; finished 30 May.

The narrator in Notes From Underground claims to be revealing the truth — and I think it is a truth that most people would rather not look at. Through his neurotic ravings, the underground narrator lays bear the darkest, most depraved depths a human soul can sink, and forces the reader face-to-face with it.

The translation I read was by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, which had a foreword that put Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s work into context. The foreword and the book’s second section, Apropos of the Wet Snow, helped me understand the arguments of the first section, Underground, a stream-of-consciousness monologue about human nature. I don’t claim to understand all of the historical and cultural context, but maybe through writing this review I can put to word the kind of impression Notes From Underground gave me. (I daresay this ‘review’ would be more discombobulated than the book itself…)

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The Brothers Karamazov

24 November 2004 in Novel | No comments

In Russian: Братья Карамазовы
By Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov is an incredible book: not only does it talk about love and murder, but also comments on spirituality, atheism, pride of the intellect and the dual nature of humankind. The story follows the thoughts and responses of three brothers in the days before and after their father was murdered. One gets a glimpse of their characters — all very different, and all intriguing. Characterization in The Brothers Karamazov is impressive: Dostoyevsky is able to portray, very convincingly the best and the worst in humankind at the same time, such that a man is a hero and scoundrel at the same time, and no one is completely irreproachable (although one of the brothers, who happens to be my favourite character, comes very close).

I admire Dostoyevsky’s ability to write such engaging characters, and portray madness, agitation, and a sense of impending doom and trouble. There were some parts where I thought, “Oh no, why is he doing that?! There’s gonna be trouble, oh no!” Some of the concepts are a bit hard to follow, such as the big chapter titled ‘The Grand Inquisitor’, and the trial at the end of the book, but I did come away very satisfied.

Strange to say, I didn’t find it so hard going as Crime and Punishment, either because I now have the ability to follow this kind of reading, or because this one has more ‘happenings’ and activity, while Crime and Punishment was focused on Raskolnikov’s internal workings than anything else.

Yes, I liked The Brothers Karamazov. The story is solemn and serious, but the characters are very endearing, and some magnificent quips and turns of phrases made me laugh outright. Dostoyevsky isn’t a favourite author for nothing. My only complaint is that I read an “authoritative modern abridgement”. Abridgements are the bane of all good books. Bah.

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The Gulag Archipelago

29 August 2002 in Non-Fiction | No comments

In Russian: Архипелаг ГУЛАГ
By Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

Review on 14 Jul 2002:
I finished the first book of The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn last night. And, to my utmost delight, I found out there are actually three books in the series and we only have the first two, so now I’ll have to hunt down the third one — and hope it’s the same translation as the others.

(That’s the problem about translated books, there are so many versions of them. We have three copies of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment and each are different translations. So. Ever in search of the best, most accurate translation.)

The Gulag Archipelago is nonfiction, Solzhenitsyn’s personal account about the mass arrests and deportation of Russians to labour camps across Russia and Siberia after the October Revolution and during Stalin’s rule. Read the rest of this entry »

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