A Son of the Rock

Gollancz, 1963, 190 p. Translated from the Russian, Один день Ивана Денисовича, (Novy Mir, Moscow, Nov 1962), by Ralph Parker.

I bought this many (many) moons ago but had resisted reading it so far it as I thought the subject matter may have been too depressing. Reading about life in a labour camp is not overly appealing after all. It was still familiar, though. There are many similarities here to Primo Levi’s account, If This Is a Man, of being in Auschwitz.

Despite those reservations I found One Day (as the book’s spine has it) remarkably readable – a testament to the original writing and to the translation. This is also true of Levi’s books.

Ivan Denisovich Shukhov has been imprisoned for ten years in effect for being captured by the Germans. The main aim is to get through each day with as little friction or attention as possible. This particular day starts with Shukhov feeling unwell and thinking of reporting to the sick-bay but the day’s quota of the ill has been filled and he has to return to work.

He is in the 104^th squad and, despite the novel being relatively short, the relationships between its members are carefully illustrated. Even (especially?) given his circumstances he still takes pride in doing a job well (today’s is brick laying which can be tricky as the mortar is liable to freeze) – though it helps that if seen to do so they may get extra food – Shukhov is careful to savour, or husband and hide for later, each item of food.

There are petty indignities such as the incessant counting at roll-calls to be endured, the fact that even thoughts aren’t free as they always cycle back to the same things. Each small achievement, that extra item of food, the finding of a piece of metal which might be fashioned into a knife, is a victory, but you must never set your sights beyond what is in front of you.

Pedant’s corner:- “sleepy heads propped again their rifles” (against, surely?) “fivefifty grams” (fifty five? [And grammes if we’re British],) “tommy-funs at the ready” (tommy-guns,) [this next was in a footnote] “a percentage of the plan t amounts to” (of the plan it amounts to,) a missing end quotation mark at the finish of a piece of dialogue.