The Summing Up by Maugham

  

"The ordinary is the writer's richer field. Its unexpectedness, its singularity, its infinite variety afford unending material. The great man is too often all of a piece; it is the little man that is a bundle of contradictory elements. He is inexhaustible. You never come to the end of the surprises he has in store for you. For my part I would sooner spend a month on a desert island with a veterinary surgeon than with a prime minister."

"People are too elusive, too shadowy, to be copied; and therefore are also too incoherent and contradictory. The writer does not copy his originals; he takes what he wants from them, a few traits that have caught his attention, a turn of mind that has fired his imagination, and therefrom constructs his character. He is not concerned whether there it is a truthful likeliness; he is concerned only to create a plausible harmony convenient for his own purposes [...] Further, it is just chance whether the author chooses his models from persons witch whom he is intimately connected or not. It is often enough for him to have caught a glimpse of someone in a tea-shop or chatted with him for a quarter of an hour in a ship's smoking-room. All he needs is that tiny, fertile substratum which he can then build up by means of his experience of life, his knowledge of human nature and his native intuition."

"The most realistic writer by the direction of his interest falsifies his creatures. He sees them through his own eye. He makes them more self-conscious than they really are. He makes them more reflective and more complicated. He throws himself into them, trying to make them ordinary men, but he never quite succeeds; for the peculiarity that gives him his talent and makes him a writer for ever prevents him from knowing exactly what ordinary men are. It is not truth he attains, but merely a transposition for his own personality."

"Most writers have chills and fevers, aches and pains, nausea at times, when they are engaged in composition; and contrariwise they are aware to what morbid states of their body they owe many of their happiest inventions. Knowing that may of their deepest emotions, many of the reflections that seem to come straight from heaven, may be due to want of exercise or a sluggish liver, they can hardly fail to regard their spiritual experiences with a certain irony; which is all to the good for thus they can manage and manipulate them."

"[...] to my mind there is a great difference between those who create art and those who enjoy it; the creators produce because of that urge within them that forces them to exteriorize their personality. It is an accident if what they produce has beauty; that is seldom their special aim. Their aim is to disembarrass their souls of the burdens that oppress them, and they use the means, their pen, their paints, or their clay, for which they have by nature a facility."

"The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love. Not the least of the evils of life, and one for which there is small help is that someone whom you love no longer loves you [...] However much people may resent the fact and however angrily deny it, there can surely be no doubt that love depends on certain secretions of sexual glands. In the immense majority these do not continue indefinitely to be excited by the same object, and with advancing years they atrophy. People are very hypocritical in this matter and will not face the truth. They so deceive themselves that they can accept it with complacency when their love dwindles into what they describe as a solid and enduring affection. As if affection had anything to do with love! Affection is created by habit, community of interests, convenience, and the desire of companionship. It is a comfort rather than an exhilaration. We are creatures of change, change is the atmosphere we breathe, and it is likely that the strongest but one of all our instincts should be free from the law? We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. Is it a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person. Mostly, different ourselves, we make a desperate, pathetic effort to love in a different person the person we once loved. It is only because the power of love when it seizes us seems so mighty that we persuade ourselves that it will last for ever. When it subsides we are ashamed, and, duped, blame ourselves for our weakness, whereas we should accept our change of heart as a natural effect of our humanity. The experience of mankind has led them to regard love with mingled feelings. They have been suspicious of it. They have as often curses as praised it. The soul of man, struggling to be free, has except for brief moments looked upon the self-surrender that it claims as a fall from grace. The happiness it brings may e the greatest of which man is capable, but it is seldom, seldom unalloyed. It writes a story that generally has a sad ending. Many have resented its power and angrily prayed to be delivered from its burden. They have hugged their chains, but knowing they were chains hated them too. Love is not always blind, and there are few things that cause greater wretchedness than to love with all your heart someone who you know is unworthy of love."

"The beauty of life, he says (Fray Luis de Leon), is nothing but this, that each should act in conformity with his nature and his business."

--
Pub by Penguin Classics

10 Short Masterpieces by Maugham

10 Short Masterpieces by Maugham

 The Fall of Edward Barnard
"And what does all that activity amount to? Does one get there the best out of life? Is that what we come into the world for, to hurry to an office, and work hour after hour till night, then hurry home and dine and go to a theatre? Is that how I must spend my youth? Youth lats so short a time, Bateman. And when I am old, what have I to look forward to? To hurry from my home in the morning to my office and work hour after hour till night, and then hurry home again, and dine and go to a theatre? That may be worth while if you make a fortune; I don't know, it depends on your nature; but if you don't, is it worth while then? I want to make more out of my life than that, Bateman."

Honolulu
"Some can go through terrible battles, the fear of imminent death and unimaginable horrors, and preserve their soul unscathed, while with others the trembling of the moon on a solitary sea or the song of a bird in a thicket will cause a convulsion great enough to transform their entire being. Is it due to strength or weakness, want of imagination or instability of character? I do not know."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I would like to comment on his story "Rain". I thought it was very smart of him to portray the "power" of missionaries in other countries and combat that with the fact that in the end, they are also human and prone to "sin" and "hypocrisy". Men are men as the prostitute said in the end! Which in some way makes this woman dignified, because she was the one which knew men at their very core. As in "Oh yes, you can blabber all you want about your Jesus, but I know what you really want." And it turned out to be true. She, in fact, was the one in control the entire time. She played his game at first, and snared him in the end. Therefore- Maugham shows that these missionaries are not exempt from being HUMAN.
---
Published by Moscow Jupiter- Inter, 2009.

The Moon and Sixpence by Somerset Maugham

"[...] Do you mean to say that you could have forgiven him if he'd left you for a woman, but not if he's left you for an idea? You think you're a match for the one, but against the other you're helpless?"

"I have always been a little disconcerted by the passion women have for behaving beautifully at the death-bed of those they love. Sometimes it seems as if they grudge the longevity which postpones their chance of an effective scene."

"I did not realize how motely are the qualities that go to make up a human being. Now I am well aware that pettiness and grandour, malice and charity, hatred and love, can find place side by side in the same human heart."

"It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive."

How true about suffering. It matters where the source is coming from, or else it will be out of vanity.

"Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul. And when he has made it, it is not given to all to know it. To recognize it you must repeat the adventure of the artist. It is a melody that he sings to you, and to hear it again in your own heart you want knowledge and sensitiveness and imagination."

"Let me tell you. I imagine that for months the matter never comes into your head, and you're able to persuade yourself that you've finished with it for good and all. You rejoice in your freedom, and you feel that at last you can call your soul your own. You seem to walk with your head among the stars. And then, all of a sudden you can't stand it any more, and you notice that all the time your feet have been walking in the mud. And you want to roll yourself in it. And you find some woman, coarse and low and vulgar, some beastly creature in whom all the horror of sex is blatant, and you call upon her like a wild animal. You drink till you're blind with rage."

Somehow reminds me of Tolstoi's Ressurection.

"Strickland seemed to bear in his heart strange harmonies and unadventured patterns, and i foresaw for him an end of torture and despair. I had again the feeling that he was possessed of a devil; but you could not say that it was a devil of evil, for it was a primitive force that existed before good and ill."

I like that it is neither good nor evil, but indifferent and even cruel- discarding the flesh after it has materialized.

"[...] there is in love a sense of weakness, a desire to protect, and eagerness to to do good and give pleasure- if not unselfishness, at all events a selfishness which marvellously conceals itself; it has in it a certain diffidence. Love is absorbing; it takes the lover out of himself; the most clear-sighted, though he may know, cannot realize that this love will cease; it gives body to what he knows is illusion, and, knowing it is nothing else, he loves it better than reality. It makes a man a little more than himself, and at the same time a little less. He ceases to be himself. He is no longer an individual, but a thing, an instrument to some purpose foreign to his ego."

I like how cleverly and honestly Maugham speaks about love- that yes maybe it can be selfish but it is a reserved selfishness.

"Women are constantly trying to commit suicide for love, but generally they take care not to succeed. It's generally a gesture to arouse pity or terror in their lover."

"He had found, not himself, as the phrase goes, but a new soul with unsuspected powers. It was not only the bold simplification of hte drawing which showed so right and so singular a personality; it was not only the painting, though the flesh was painted with a passionate sensuality which had in it something miraculous; it was not onlyt eh solidity, so that you felt extraordinarily the weight of the body; there was also a spirituality, troubling and new, which led the imagination along unsuspected ways, and suggested dim empty spaces, lit only by the eternal stars, where the soul, all naked, adventured fearful to the discovery of new mysteries."

Genius- how mystical!

"A woman forgive a man for the harm he does her," he said, "but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account."

Don't really know if that's true. I'm sure if you take it to extremes then it makes sense- in the case of Dirk and his buffoonery.

"Because women can do nothing except love, they've given it a ridiculous importance. They want to persuade us that it's the whole of life. It's an insignificant part. I know lust. That's normal and healthy. Love is a disease. Women are the instruments of my pleasure; I have no patience with their claim to be helpmates, partners, companions."

Yayyyy sexismmm :)) Sorry I just had to say that. Wait there's more:

"When a woman loves you she's not satisfied until she possesses your soul. Because she's weak she has a rage for domination, and nothing less will satisfy her. She has a small mind, and she resetns the abstract which she is unable to grasp. She is occupied with material things, and she is jealous of the ideal. The soul of man wanders through the uttermost regions of the universe, and she seeks to imprison it in the circle of her account-book."

That is so well written- he is extremely witty and gets straight to the point. Account-book!

"Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain. We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them. We are like people living in a country whose language they know so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalities of the conversation manual. Their brain is seething with ideas, and they can only tell you that the umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house."

Currently I am living in a different country- and that is exactly how I feel! Language can be such a barrier.  But also you find yourself communicating in a different language- something more understandable- a mixture of assumptions and finishing each other's sentences...

"It may be that in order to realize the romance of life you must have something of the actor in you' and, capable of standing outside yourself, you must be able to watch your actions with an interest at once detached and absorbed."

This is my favorite quote from the book:

"As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times."

As if men wake up and "remember" to love, and while we're at it, to breathe...

"I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not, they are strangers in their birthplace, and the leafy lanes they have known from childhood or the populous streets in which they have played, remain but a place of passage. They may spend their whole lives aliens among their kindred and remain aloof among the only scenes they have ever known. Perhaps it is this sense of strangeness that sends men far and wide in the search for something permanent, to which they may attach themselves. Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wandered back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history. Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. He is the home he sought, and he will settle amid scenes that he has never seen before, among men he has never known, as though they were familiar to him from his birth. Here at last he finds rest."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Very captivating story- and his wit is incredible. I don't usually read anglo authors- but this one I enjoyed very much. But yes I must mention that it was rather sexist- especially portraying the very admirable and masculine Strickland. Admirable in the fact that he is SO hardcore and is devoid of any emotions and comfort. Personally I took a fancy to him. And yet, the comments about women are so offensive that they become quiet funny- the whole part about them trying to pull men down to their level to trap him, while he is trying to live in the world of ideals...
           It reminded me of Goethe and Thomas Mann's ideas of the divine race and how genius ends up destroying a man. Genius was referred to as "demon possession" which can be true in many cases- especially when one takes a look at these people's lives and what they did to handle their talent (drugs, alcohol- eh the usual). Specifically I like that Maugham had him become a leper in the end, and once he gave his gift to the world, he expired. It is as if the talent itself made his flesh decay... as if the poison of the soul transferred into the material. Why does genius have to bring destruction? I think the story answers this question in the sense that it is absolutely indifferent to the person. Talent takes out of its worshiper if it is worshiped enough. Yes, the believer does get indescribable pleasures and mysteries in the process, but this only aids the obsession, which in the end will destroy him. What a pity! Why can't knowledge let us be happy? But no, we always want more, and Genius gives it to us, until we cannot take it anymore. I think we have a certain defined capacity for Knowledge, but once it surpasses our limits, we get crushed under its infinite weight. No wonder Adam and Eve weren't supposed to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil... but that is what we continue to do, and it poisons the believer until he dies of it. On the other hand, what a unique significant life! To be exposed to these mysteries! Who wouldn't want to feel the rush of genius late at night alone while the universe is whispering its secrets to you? Then- you have a purpose! But this purpose unfortunately is unachievable completely, and not only this- but the purpose itself becomes a person- and instead of you using it, IT uses you! Until it no longer needs you. For it is not your Purpose- but the Purpose which has been given to humanity... and after your death, it poisons yet another victim...
What suffering these men have gone through ending with suicides or just unhappy lives, in order to give up their gift to an indifferent society? Is it worth it? I wonder what they would say... these ones afflicted by Genius...

Published: Progress Publishers Moscow

The Meaning of Love by Vladimir Solovyov

I won't make any comments, because the quotes speak for themselves, more than I ever could:

"Thanks to the boundless expansivity and indissolubility of the successive consciousness, a human being, still remaining his same self, may attain and realize all the limitless of fulness of being, and therefore no higher species of beings in place of him are either necessary or possible. Within the limits of his given reality a human is only a part of nature; but constantly and consistently he is infringing these limits. In his spiritual offspring- religion and science, morality and art- the human being is revealed as the center of the universal consciousness of nature, the soul of the world, the potentiality of the absolute unity-of-the-all coming to realization, and consequently, above him there can be only this same absolute in its perfect at or eternal being, that is God."

"Recognizing in love the truth of another, not abstractly, but essentially, transferring in deed the center of our life beyond the limits of our empirical personality, we by so doing reveal and realize our own real truth, our own absolute significance, which consists just in our capacity to transcend the borders of our factual phenomenal being, in our capacity to live not only in ourselves, but also in another."

"Love's primordial power here loses all its meaning, when its object is degraded from the height of the absolute center of immortal individuality to the level of a fortuitous and easily replaced demands for the production of a new generation of human beings, a generation that may be a little better or may be a little worse, but is in any case relative and transitory." 

"If, inevitably, and without our own volition, the existent idealization of love reveals to us through empirical appearance a distant ideal image of the beloved object, this is not, of course, only that we might delight in it, but that by the power of true faith, active imagination and real creativeness we might transform, in accordance with this true exemplar, the reality not corresponding to it, and might embody it in a real phenomenon."

"But it is the seperation of the sexes- not eliminated by their external and transient union in the act of generation- it is this seperation between male and female elements of the human being which is already in itself a state of disintegration, and the beginning of death"

"The elephant and the raven prove to be significantly longer-lived than even the most punctiliously virtuous human."

"But love, as I understand it, is, on the contrary, an extraordinarily compelx affair, bosure and intricate, demanding fully conscious analysis and investigation, in which one needs to be concerned not about simplicity, but about the truth..."

"If for me, who am myself on this side of the transcendental world, a certain ideal object appears to be only the product of my own imagination, this does not interfere with its full reality in another higher sphere of being."

"This living ideal fo the Divine love, antecedent to our love, contains in itself the secret of the idealization of our love. In it the idealization of the lower being exists together with an incipient realization of the higher, and in this is the truth of love's intense emotion."

"Good tidings from a lost paradise- tidings of the possibility of recovery- we accept as an invitation to become finally naturalized in earthly exile, to enter without delay into full and hereditary possession of our own minute portion, with all its thistles and briars."

"Only by consistent acts of conscious faith do we enter into real correpsondence with the realm of the turly-existent, and through it into true correlation with our "other". Only on this basis can we retain and strengthen in consciousness that absoluteness for us of another person (and consequently also the absolutelness of our union with him) which is immediately and unaccountably revealed in the intense emotion of love, for this emotion of love comes and passes away, but the faith of love abides."

"In this way, that which lies at the basis of our world is being in a state of disintegration, being dismembered into parts and moments which exclude one another."

"the body of the universe is the totality of the real-ideal, the psycho-physical, or simply (in direct agreement with the idea of Newton about the sensorium Dei) it is a mystical body,"

"Already also in the natural world everything apper tains to the idea, but the true essence of the latter demands not only that everything should belong to it, that everything should be included in it, but also that the idea itself should belong to everything, that everything, i.e., all particular and individual beings, and consequently each one of them, should really be possessed of the ideal unity-of-the-all, should comprise it in itself. Perfect unity-of-the-all, in accordance with its own conception of itself, demands complete equilibrium, equivalence and equality of right between the one and the all, be tween the whole and the parts, between the general and the particular."

"But as this organic solidarity in the animal does not reach beyond the limits of its bodily structure, so also for it the image of the complementary “other” is wholly limited to such a single body with the possibility only of a material and partial union. Therefore the supratemporal infinity or eternity of the idea, operating in the living creative power of love, assumes here the base, rectilineal form of limitless propagation, i.e., the repetition of one and the same organism in the monotonous replacement of single temporal existences."

"True union presupposes the true separateness of those being united, i.e., a separateness by power of which they do not exclude, but mutually replenish each other, each finding in the other the fulness of his own proper life. As in the love of two individual beings, diverse but enjoying equal rights and of equal worth, each serves the other, not as a negative limitation but as positive fulfillment, so in precisely the same way it must also be in all spheres of collective life; every social organism ought to be for each of its members not an external limit of his activity, but a positive support and fulfillment."

"it is requisite above all that we should have a relation to social and worldwide circles as to a real living being, with which we (never merging into inseparability) are in the closest and fullest reciprocal action."

"that any conscious activity of humanity determined by the idea of a cosmic syzygy and aimed at embodying the unity-of-the-all ideal in that sphere or another actually produces or sets free real currents of spirit and body. These currents gradually take possession of the material environment, animate it and embody in it some images or other of the unity-of- the-all—the living and eternal likenesses of absolute humanity."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Extremely fascinating work. Sublime concept.

Pub:
Lindisfarne Press 1985

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Solzhenitsyn

Before I begin- I would like to say that everything I say here has been discussed in a real university- so it isn't just me trying to figure things out (although that may happen).

Work was like a stick. It had two ends. When you worked for the knowing you gave them quality' wen you worked for a fool you simply gave him eyewash. Otherwise, everybody would have croaked long ago. They all knew that."

"How can you expect a man who's warm to understand a man who's cold? "

"But the years, they never rolled by; they never moved by a second."

"Who's the zek's main enemy? Another zeik. If only they weren't at odds with one another--ah, what a difference that'd make!"

"The belly is a demon. It doesn't remember how well you treated it yesterday; it'll only cry out for more tomorrow."

"And then it became clear that men like him wouldn't ever be allowed to return home, that they'd be exiled."

"A day without a dark cloud. Almost a happy day."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ivan is a special character in the book due to the fact that he is the only that one preserves his humanity. Although the circumstances would make a human being go into survival mode, and therefore turning him into a sort of animal- he still preserves himself. One can see this through the way he removes his cap before eating instead of giving into the hunger and pouncing upon the food. He is capable of disciplining himself, even something as insignificant as a slight hesitation before eating. That is a tremendous master of one's animalistic desires. In a world where sucking up to someone will get you far, Ivan still preserves his dignity and yet manages to show respect to his "superiors" and even inferiors (such as offering a cigarette to someone lower in rank than him).

The name itself is very significant, because it symbolizes the peasant "simple" man. In Russian folk tales, although simpleminded Ivan always manages to be clever in the end, and trick the rest of the system. To "pull wool over the eyes of authority" so to speak. Ivan is an icon representing traditional Russian values such as honesty and restraint even when all is chaos.

So a breakdown of the "collective family" represented in the book. Because Solzhenitsyn uses the camp life to represent the the Soviet system, each character represents a certain aspect of the said society. We have each aspect of society coming from the religious, the intellectual and the Soviet socialist.

Tiurin is the squad leader- he has to do all the paperwork- referring to the bureaucracy of the system- no matter what work gets done, the paper has to meet a certain standard. In the end- the document is more important than what realistically took place. This is also referenced when the "decree" that changed nature itself.
"The sun's already reached its peak," he [Shukhov] announced.
"If it's reached its peak," said the captain reflectively, "it's one o'clock, not noon."
"What do you mean?" Shukhov demurred. "Every old-timer knows that the sun stands highest at dinner-time."
"Old-timers, maybe," snapped the captain."but since their day a new decree has been passed, and now the sun stands highest at one."
"Who passed the decree?"
"Soviet power."
This relates to the same ideology that got Ivan put into prison too. The only reason why he was imprisoned was because he signed a document that approved a lie. The ironic thing being that everyone knew it was a lie, including himself, and yet he had to sign it. A document could change reality.

Fetiukov is an example of what one can become if one loses all one's humanity. Figuring that he can get ahead, he loses all sense of morality and gives in to all instincts the system calls for. Such as spying. In his previous life, he was a boss, one in position of power, this shows that people who were in authority cannot function when demoted to a lower level. This brings up the question- how did they get that position in the first place? And what does that say about the whole system?

The Captain- Ivan says about him that "He was a newcomer. He was unused to the hard life of the zeks. Though he didn't know it, moments like this were particularly important to him, for they were transforming him from an eager, confident naval officer with a ringing voice into an inert, though wary, zek. And only that inertness lay the chance of surviving the twenty-five years of imprisonment he'd been sentenced to." The system needed to crush him first, and turn him into a monotone being so he could survive. He needed to pace himself in order to survive. His fault was in thinking that there was hope in this system- that things will eventually work out. The trick was though, to accept the fact that things were actually never going to work out. Ivan on the other hand, did not give up but turned into a passive person. He lets things go and doesn't get worked up about almost anything except spying. Spying was in fact something that was encouraged by society (socially acceptable) but in the book we can see that Ivan cannot stand Fetiukov- therefore not being passive when it comes to morality.

The way passiveness connects to the audience of that time is tremendous. It is essentially asking- is this was you have become? Is this what it takes to survive in the Soviet system? Where has our dignity gone? Something that was seen to be accepted, the fact that one would spy on someone else for the state, seems to be criticized in the book. This brought a different viewpoint to the soviet citizen of that time. Sure, people had heard of prison camps- but what really went on there? The masterpiece of this book is that not only is it a prison camp, but a prison camp that reflects the society of that time. Paralleling it also to a prison. The fact that a prison camp reflects daily life is a direct criticism against the soviet system. That one is not as free as one thinks.

Another important detail of the book is the metaphor of the oatmeal. The way the oatmeal is lessed as it goes through the hierarchy of the system- starting at the head- and by the time it reaches the prisoner it is considerably lessened. This is very ironic because the oatmeal was in fact supposed to be for the prisoners to begin with, but doesn't turn out to be so. The head of the camp also needs food, and so does his helper, and his helper, and his helper...and so on. This leads to the conclusion that what portion do they really get from this "oatmeal" by the time it reaches the bottom of the hierarchy? This can be also said for the parcel Tsezar received.
"People imagine that hte package a man gets is a sort of nice, tight sack he has only to slit open and be happy. But if you work it out it's a matter of easy come, easy go. Shukhov had known cases when before his parcel arrived a fellow would be doing odd jobs to ear a bit of extra kasah, or cadging cigarette butts- just like anybody else. He has to share with the guard and the squad leader- and how can he help giving a little something to teh trusty in the parcels office? Why, next time the fellow may mislay your parcel and a week may go by before your name appears again on the list! And that other fellow at the place where you hand in your food to be kept for you, safe from friskers and pilferers- Tsezar will be there before the morning roll call, with everything in a sack- he must have his cut too, and a good one, if you don't want him little by little swiping more than you gave him. Sitting there all day, the rat, shut up with other people's food- try to keep an eye on him! And there must be something for services like Shukhov's. And something to the bath attendant for issuing you decent underwear- not much but something. And for the barber who shaves you "with paper" (for wiping the razon on- he usually does it on your knee). Not much to him either but, still, three or four butts. And at the C.E.D., for your letters to be kept separate and not get lost. And if you want to goof off a day or two and lie in bed, instead of going to work, you have to slip the doctor something. And what about the neighbor you share a locker with (The captain, in Tsezar's case)? He must have his cut. After all, he sees every blessed ounce you take. Who'd be nervy enough not to give him his share?"

A major theme of this book is WORK REDEEMS. The fact that Ivan is a peasant isn't just a coincidence. What does a peasant do? Does he contemplate and write books? No! He works! The only time that Ivan came into himself and became a man again was when he worked. That is what he knew, that is what he was comfortable with. No one could tell him how to work, because he just knew. Ivan got into a sort of trance-like rhythm when he was building the wall. "And now Shukhov was no longer seeing that distant view where sun gleamed on snow. He was no longer seeing the prisoners as they wandered from the warming-up places all over the site, some to hack away at the holes they hadn't finished that morning, some to fix the mesh reinforcement, some to put up beams in the workshops. Shukhov was seeing only his wall- from the junction to the left where the blocks rose in steps, higher than his waist, to the right to the corner where it met Kilgas's. He showed Senka where to remove ice and chopped at it energetically himself with the back and blade of his ax, so that the splinters of ice flew all about and into his face. He worked with drive, but his thoughts were elsewhere. His thoughts and his eyes were feeling their way under the ice to the wall itself, the outer facade of the power station, two blocks thick. At the spot he was working on, the wall had preciously been laid by some mason who was either incompetent or had stunk up the job. But now Shukhov tackled the wall as if it was his own handiwork."
He has a rhythm, he derives satisfaction and work takes over. And this is the only way, it seems, that he can escape this prison of his, through his own thoughts. Emphasizing his enjoyment and satisfaction is very Tolstoyan, that truth can be found only in work. This asks the audience to go back to the time that was, and return to the only thing that can be true.

If one thinks about it, this book could easily fit into the social realist model. Where the hero is simple but takes over and solves problems for the common good, concluding with an uplifting ending. The only difference is that the ending is not uplifting just because it fits into this model. The ending seems to be everlasting, as if this passiveness is eternal, and we have trapped ourselves in this prison forever. What have we done?- It seems to be asking. This one day seems like a lifetime, and yet it still is one day. Ending it with "Almost a happy day." (Because he managed to survive) There were three thousand six hundred and fifty-three days like that in his stretch. From the first clang of the rail to the last clang of the rail. Three thousand six hundred and fifty-three days. The three extra days were for leap years."


--
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander Isaievich, Ralph Parker, Marvin L. Kalb, and Alexander Tvardovsky. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. New York: Signet Classic, 1963. Print.