Note: This is my fourth review of a non-fiction book, first on good reads. As a policy I don't give ratings for non-fiction works, I'm perfectly happy to let my personal biases reflect my opinions of non-fiction work, but I'd rather reflect on non-fiction as it is, than let how much I agree with it impact how much I like it

I just got around to reading Solzhenitsyn's 'The Gulag Archipelago', I read the abridged because I'm too much of a pussy to read 3 volumes of this.

The more recent editions prologue is written by Jordan Peterson, I didn't hate the prologue, I actually largely like Peterson as controversial as that is, but I do think that took away from the rest of the book. Peterson was (unsurprisingly) far more political than the book intended to be and probably would have turned some readers off from an otherwise highly valuable book

I learned a lot more about the operations of secret police than I expected too.

On the treatment of people in gulags, in some ways, it was much better than I expected, in some ways it was worse. My expectations were pretty low so I guess that was unsurprising.

We then get to the line, Solzhenitsyn's most famous quote, one I was familiar with well before reading this book, it's poetic, and probably would have been even more profound in the unabridged than the abridged version. "In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible", I mean maybe I'm wrong but had I read more about Solzhenitsyn's backstory, much of which, as I've been told, was cut from the unabridged version that already powerful quote might have been even moreso

But one thing I didn't know before reading which I love even more now, was directly after that quote, Solzhenitsyn says something I've been echoing for years, the importance of the Nuremberg trials. Putting evil on trial and actually giving evil a fair trial when doing so

I actually view the Nuremberg trials alongside the US Constitution as two of the pinnacles of morality in human history, and I was really happy to see Solzhenitsyn had similar sentiments, especially because he's a much better person than I am

Hard to believe I read this epic in about a week, but I couldn't put it down. Solzhenitsyn has to rank as the bravest author ever for getting this story to us. He unmasked a brutal regime. Really unmasked it. For the world. I can't imagine any modern author having as great a role to play in the turn of history which led to the fall of the Soviet Regime. ( )

Here's what I wrote in 2012 about this read: "Yet again, a hugely worthwhile book by possibly Mary's favorite author. Way tougher read than any former of his works; it's not a novel. But his humanity, and understanding thereof, shines through again." Note that the first quote included in the comments section was seared into my memory upon reading it. How many people would draw such a conclusion? How many would bless their experience and time in such a place as the Soviet Gulag? ( )

I'll admit it's taken me a while to get through this. Probably six or seven weeks of inconsistent reading. It's not a difficult read, but it's a dense and demanding book that needs full attention and the right reading mood. Somehow it felt like there was a lot crammed on each page - my reading time felt noticeably slow.

Solzhenitsyn is famous for winning not just the Nobel Prize for Literature for this book, but also for supposedly being a catalyst contributing to the downfall of the Soviet Union as he exposed atrocities of the most horrendous scale which had been kept silent for decades. The original is a vast book (some 1,800 pages), and I must admit I was glad I was reading the abridged version (still chunky enough at close to 500 pages), but still - it's a terrifically enlightening, engaging and horrifying read. I appreciated that in this abridged version at least, each chapter was relatively short so I could attack it in small chunks.

Despite it's sombre subject matter of the Russian gulags, where millions of Russians were sent for 'political crimes' (no one can quite authenticate the numbers on how many people died - somewhere between 1.6 million and 60 million depending on where you take your facts from; Solzhenitsyn believed in the region of 20 million), I was surprised that Solzhenitsyn keeps his tone light and almost playful throughout. He served 8 years in the gulags himself, and it's as if it was all so utterly insane that he could only write of it with almost fun-poking incredulity at the sheer audacity of the Soviet regime barbarism.

There's a nice logic to how he sets out the book, from arrests to interrogation to prison transits to life in the camps, followed by exile. Occasionally Solzhenistyn writes of his own memories, but in most of the book he is giving his voice to the stories of others. Much of it is almost too cruel and insane to take in. He tells of a man arrested whilst having his stomach operated on, lifted out of the operating theatre with his innards hanging out. Of people tortured with no sleep for days on end, or with bright lights shone unceasingly in their eyes. Of ten and twenty-five year sentences handed out for absurd 'political' reasons to keep the jails full and work gangs on the railroads and canals supplied with free labour. Of men sent out to work in the depths of winter in thin, tattered clothes and shoes in snowfall up to their waist for 12 hours before a walk of several miles back to huts which may not have even had a roof on, never mind heating. Of women paraded naked upon arrest so the prison officers could choose who they fancied to 'have'. And if you survived the near starvation, hard labour and horrendous conditions to get to the end of your sentence (which could randomly have more time added on to it at will), then the enforced exile to Kazakhstan or Siberia (if you were lucky, as there at least you might have a chance of picking up some work, whereas if you were released into 'regular' society without banishment you had little hope of being accepted back into society).

It's a book that feels as important now as when first released back in 1985. My knowledge on Russian history is potted, and I felt that reading about where the country has come from during this era of the gulags helped me to understand better current behaviours that we now see taking place on the world stage in the 21st century. Can we verify all of Solzhenitsyn's facts? Of course not, but the passage of time has gradually laid bare the atrocities of the gulags from enough sources for us to take what he tells us as a reasonable truth.

4 stars - a really engaging and eye-opening historical read. ( )

I cannot add to what has already need written in analysis of this book - the content is very heavy and and yet they author weaves a narrative that frames the complexities so that the book is less about the torture of communism and more about human nature, honesty, and ascension. This is a must read. ( )