Alexander Solzhenitsyn – Ivan Denisovich

Posted on | January 22, 2009 | Comments Off

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about society: we increasingly just train people to do tasks efficiently – an education whose returns are short-term and obvious. We train young people to be efficient, ruthless multi-taskers, ambitious for progression up careers which expose them to responsibilities which are not quite understood. Unfortunately we don’t train them to consider long term sustainability (unless it’s in fashion), ethics or general courtesy. The results are consumer products bought in their millions, the production, consumption and disposal of which have endless, unconsidered, consequence.

We train the graduate to be able to sell products in their millions- to research, prototype, develop, manafacure, market, deliver and sell, (thinking of a job doing this kind of thing?). When did we ever train them to ask “is this sustainable? is this ethical? in 10 years time, what will be the wreckage from the packaging of this foodstuff? what will be the social fallout of this computer game which conditions children to kill?” – and once they’ve asked the question, have we equipped them to deliver an answer?

The answer is: utterly, utterly, no.

I had a job interview this morning- I was asked about my efficiency, my ability to sell, to learn new technologies quickly. I was not asked about ethics. About sustainability. About troubles of conscience I may have encountered when forcing a product, service or decision on an un-witting punter.

Although my background is scientific (I am cheekily writing a book review after having read only about 12 of the things), with this realisation I am forced to expound the merits of an education which may not necessarily be exclusively artistic, but engages with literature and the arts. (Gulp). Here we go.

The Human Condition

Greek tragedies and myths in cartoon pictures taught us nothing of the Greeks’s technology, but it did teach us about the perils of temptation (Sirens, anyone?), the virtues of bravery (Hercules), and everything in between. From this, through Shakespeare’s poetic exhortation to “beware my Lord of Jealousy”, Tolkein’s fantastic explorations of honour, effort and loyalty, and Dostoyevsky’s harsh questions about a world in which babies are fed to wolves (brothers Karamazov), to Huxley’s Brave New World, we are taken in by prose or poetry and forced to ask these questions. Some works are intentionally moralistic, or written to provoke the discussion (Jekyll and Hyde). Others ask us questions more subtlety, as a character portrayal incites our hatred and we ask ourselves why.

But all the way through, we are faced with the curse of every English undergraduate’s wretched education, the human condition.

Not always by design, I might hasten to add. The literary devices of everything from Shakespeare to the Bible are scrutinised far more than any moral enlightenment they might deliver. But nonetheless, there is nought in all human experience; from solidarity to squalor, intoxication to enlightenment, Bolshevism to bravery, which has not been treated by the pen. Exploration of which, if you’re like me and missed out entirely on any kind of historical education- is pure gold.

Perhaps the best bit is, you never realise you’re learning. You go through all your English degree and never twig it’s actually all about life. Or maybe you do. Either way, it’s just about whether it’s a good book or not.

Which brings us onto…

The book

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich did not win Alexander Solzhenitsyn the 1970 nobel prize for literature for its length, its plot turns, or colourful portrayal of a multitude of characters. It won it because of the light it brought upon Stalin’s gulags. It won it for its revelations of the systemic cruelty possible under the organised rule of man. Equally it proclaims the strength of human character, as Ivan goes about his day.

It could not, of course, have done this, if the novel was crap. The simplicity of the story reminds you it is probably more a collection of personal memories, a compressed autobiography. It is candid, readable, interesting, descriptive: all of these things. But never sensationalist, and never self-indulgent. I picked it up, I learned, and enjoyed the process. (Now that never happens in science!).

In summing up what I thought of the book, it’s probably easiest to say that it’s astutely and intelligently written, and deserved to win the prize as a suitable signpost for this book’s importance. And if you read it, I’m sure you’ll agree it’s darn well good enough for you not to begrudge it for winning it either. (Or if you do, suck it up, it was forty years ago).

The verdict

I was given this book at Christmas with a note on the title page from Dobson which read: “Read + Grow”

I have read it. I thoroughly enoyed doing so.

And I have learned: more about history than in all the excuses for history lessons I once had, about ethics (perhaps more than 20 years of church attendance), about character and hope, about politics, about literature and what it can do. I even learned a little about the average day of Ivan Denisovich.

Now, comes the growing part.

(Thanks Dobs).