miguel-se7

I dedicate this to all those who did not live to tell it. And may they please forgive me for not having seen it all nor remembered it all, for not having divined all of it

Such opens the Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, often ranked as one of the most influential books of our time. On its abridged version the work is reduced from its original three volumes into a single book, a modification welcomed by the author to make this book more accessible for people who do not have the time to sit through the whole work. Even with this changes it is still a monumental work, but one that is really worth it.

Solzhenitsyn narrates all the horrors from the Soviet Gulags, from the moment one was arrested, taken into interrogation, tortured into confession, declared guilty (If you were arrested it followed that you were guilty, there was no other way around), and transported into one of the forced labor camps.

The Universe has as many different centers as there are living beings in it. Each of us is the center of the Universe, and that Universe is shattered when they hiss at you: “You are under arrest.”

And in spite of all the horrors he saw, Solzhenitsyn still believes that we aren't all that different from the people that committed these atrocities, that we cannot easily separate the good from the bad, that it all may be just a matter of circumstances:

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

You would think that the above would make for a really grim book, and yet The Gulag Archipelago is surprisingly easy to read. Its weird mix between journalism, history book, and personal anecdotes merges together spectacularly well due to Solzhenitsyn's style.

Sure, at times the book feels a bit too long and repetitive, even for an abridged version, but this can easily be forgiven when you consider the situation in which Solzhenitsyn had to work: in hiding, never having a complete manuscript of the book at hand, fearing arrest at any moment.

This has easily being one of my favorite books this year and one that is highly recommended. In case you're looking for a similar book, you could try Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl, another classic, relating Frankl's experiences on the Nazi's concentration camps and the lessons he was able to extract from them.

See below for some of my favorite quotes from this book. Fair warning this might get lengthy.

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