Sunday, May 3, 2009

Tribute to Alexander Solzhenitsyn...

A titan of Russian literature Alexander Solzhenitsyn passed on August 8th 2008. This is a tribute to his seminal work One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich….

A Sum Greater Than The Parts?

What is a satisfactory conclusion to another mans summation? What place does the observer have in judging the vision of the artist? Under what pretext can the hearer judge the mind of the master? In so much as the infant cannot judge the method of his conception, so a man cannot sit from afar in the seat of arbitration, and weigh the worth of another mans conclusions. In Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich, the author cinches up his story like a rope, fastened tightly around the waist in place of a leather belt, with the conclusion, “A Day without a dark cloud. Almost a happy day.” But was his conclusion enough? Was it Satisfactory? This was Solzhenitsyn’s story, and like a line entry at the end of the day’s blotter, it is a reconciliation of his experience, the sum of real parts of his life. Although the specific abstracted contents of his narrative of twenty-four hours in a Siberian Gulag are fictional, the general circumstances are an intrinsic part of the character of the author. As Emerson said in regard the recounting of the past, “In proportion to the completeness of the distillation, so will the purity and imperishableness of the product be.” So pure is the distillation of Solzhenitsyn’s narrative that one cannot help but be intoxicated by its sincerity. Upon this precept any thinker is drawn to consider the parts that make up One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich.

Francis Bacon once wrote, “Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set” Virtue triumphs from amidst the thin walls of a ramshackle work camp in the form of a plain set man. In Solzhenitsyn’s narrative the Protagonist Ivan Denisovich or Shokhov as he is known, moves through the story at a deliberate gait. His actions, his words, his and character are not above par, they are not beyond reproach, yet they immortalize the virtues that can radiate from the depths of man. Ask of favors when in need, and repay just dues on time, can be seen in a borrowed pinch of tobacco. For work is what makes life, as sloth is poison to the soul, radiates from the vigor that seems imbued in the worn body of Shukhov. Solzhenitsyn’s triumph of the will over oppression plays out, not in melancholy pining, but rather the circumspect honesty, that even when striped of nearly all dignity life itself is good. There is no cynicism in Solzhenitsyn’s portrayal of Ivan’s virtue, wisps of satire maybe, but boldness is not often without some absurdity. Philip Rahv summed it up with some concision when he reflected, “the nature of man under extreme conditions of inhumanity, is treated unpretentiously, without despair or overt bitterness . . .” Any one who so chooses can see the virtue and triumph of man through Solzhenitsyn’s words.

“To have no regular work, no set sphere of activity, what a miserable thing it is? . . . Effort, struggles with difficulties? That is as natural to a man as grubbing in the ground is to a mole,” said Will Durant. So where the words of Schopenhauer, and so to the maxim presented by Solzhenitsyn. As we follow the day, the cold, the hunger, the exhaustion, there is one incubus that looms over the heads of all gulag prisoners like the sword of Damocles, that of the guardhouse. The isolation, inactivity, and punishment that could only add misery to the miserable. One would think that a break from the driven labor would be a welcome reprieve, but not with isolation, it was a potential sentence to eternal rest, welcome or not. The thoughts and fears of Shukhov highlight one of the greatest of human necessities: Activity. Despite the droning, white-washed images that accompany the labor camp, Solzhenitsyn’s drives home this point when he writes, “Shukhov went to sleep fully content . . . he’d built a wall and enjoyed doing it” This among his other gyrations and plodding made Shukhov alive, and as Rahv put it, “not merely a victim . . . but always a person” Again a pure distillation of truth that those of sloth may dismiss, and those of action applaud.

Another triumph of Solzhenitsyn’s narrative is the clarity of thought and universality of vision. The great Voltaire once spoke of his own writings, “like little brooks, which are transparent because they are not deep”. So to it is with Solzhenitsyn’s ideas. The manageable clarity lies in his reaching for touchstones that lie beyond the walls of politics and ethnicity. This is most plainly set forth in is frequent use of proverbial sayings. “You live with your feet in the mud and there’s no time to be thinking about how you got in or how you’re getting out”. “Work is like a stick, it has two ends”. Simple aphorisms free the narrative, give it truth, and bringing warmth to the frostbitten pages. The beauty of the English version also rests in the translation. Pithy sayings heard often are like the slap that so quickly looses its sting. These Russian proverbs though, as cleverly communicated to english, blow moisture into frigid minds, leaving one with lessons that edify the soul. The simplicity also hones the symbology. Although the novella does not reek of ideology, this temperance only poorly masks Solzhenitsyn’s inclination when he makes expressions such as, “A genius doesn’t adapt his treatment to the taste of tyrants!” The statement he is trying to make is only there to the hearing ear, but is a clarion call for reformation to the listeners.

So the question: is Shukhov final observation, “A day without a dark cloud. Almost a happy day” a satisfactory ending? The answer from the prospective of this reader is no, this is not a “satisfactory” ending, it is Solzhenitsyn’s ending. There is not a question of satisfaction that be put to consideration. Place the words of a fellow gulag zek along those of Solzhenitsyn’s and a comparison could be drawn; Interview a guard banished to Siberia and incite could be had; read and reread this work and greater depth and understanding could be gleaned. Never though could one rightfully judge how satisfactory the conclusion is; a summation that a man has drawn from the necessarily private interpretation of eight years of dreary existence in a Siberian Work Camp. Possibly if a great thinker had trodden day by day astride him, then there would be substance to merit an opinion. Even then a judgment would be shallow, as private thoughts that motivated this reflective summation are beyond critique. An Arabian proverb says, “A fig-tree, looking on a fig-tree, becomes fruitful” So too as naive readers are graced for a day by the company of Ivan Denisovich, they see, feel, touch, images, and a time as remote as the Siberian Wilderness. One can hope to earn a morsel from the lessons learned, and not attempt to slap at the piercing icicles of Solzhenitsyn’s insight. One can be warmed by this Russian author’s sum of the chipped pieces of a broken life; a sum that is a pure distillation of the spirit of man; a sum only as great as our hearts.

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