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Wednesday Reading Meme
Jun. 3rd, 2015 09:31 pmWhat I've Just Finished Reading
Lev Tolstoi was right when he dreamed of being put in prison. At a certain moment that giant began to dry up. He actually needed prison as a drought needs a shower of rain!
All the writers who wrote about prison but who did not themselves serve time there considered it their duty to express sympathy for prisoners and to curse prison. I...have served enough time there. I nourished my soul there, and I say without hesitation:
"Bless you, prison for having been in my life!"
(And from beyond the grave come replies: It is all very well for you to say that - when you came out of it alive!)
This quote is from the second volume of The Gulag Archipelago, and illustrates, I think, one of the animating tensions of the books. Solzhenitsyn sees adversity as a great testing ground for morality, something that not only proves but can also strengthen character (although it can also ruin character - although not, in Solzhenitsyn's view, as badly as unconstrained power does), but he's also keenly aware that deadly adversity is, well, deadly, that many people don't come out of it alive, and for those who died of it - even if they didn't die badly; if they died without betraying their own beliefs, or anyone else - it is an unalloyed evil.
What I'm Reading Now
I'm on the third volume of The Gulag Archipelago. Right now I'm reading the bit about prison escapes, which is much easier going than the hopelessness of the second volume. Admittedly, the prison escapes are mostly hopeless too, in the sense that the prisoners rarely stay free for long, but at least they haven't yet consigned themselves to a miserable death.
Also reading Annie Jacobs' Operation Paperclip, about the American program to bring German scientists to the US after World War II. Right now Operation Paperclip and the War Crime Commission are dueling over who's going to get a certain aviation engineer who conducted human experiments on prisoners on Dachau. Spoiler alert: Operation Paperclip is going to win.
It's an excellent book, and I can even sort of if I squint a lot see where the Operation Paperclip people are coming from (I wouldn't want Stalin getting his hand on biological weapons experts either), but man, I feel like turning some of these people over for trial and hanging would have kept them out of Stalin's hands just as effectively.
I'm also reading Sarah Rees Brennan's Unmade. Brennan is trying to depict a town under the sway of evil rulers who have cowed most of the local populace into submission; juxtaposing her book with The Gulag Archipelago really highlights the flaws in her depiction. She tells us the townsfolk are scared, but I'm not really feeling it. So far, all of Kami's friends have stayed staunch, and none of the people cooperating with the sorcerers seem to be doing so out of crushing terror instead of either lust for power or weak wills.
What I Plan to Read Next
I have a book called The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute on hold at the library. Because who doesn't want to read about the dark side of cute?
And hopefully it will be a bit of light reading after all these gulags and Nazis.
Lev Tolstoi was right when he dreamed of being put in prison. At a certain moment that giant began to dry up. He actually needed prison as a drought needs a shower of rain!
All the writers who wrote about prison but who did not themselves serve time there considered it their duty to express sympathy for prisoners and to curse prison. I...have served enough time there. I nourished my soul there, and I say without hesitation:
"Bless you, prison for having been in my life!"
(And from beyond the grave come replies: It is all very well for you to say that - when you came out of it alive!)
This quote is from the second volume of The Gulag Archipelago, and illustrates, I think, one of the animating tensions of the books. Solzhenitsyn sees adversity as a great testing ground for morality, something that not only proves but can also strengthen character (although it can also ruin character - although not, in Solzhenitsyn's view, as badly as unconstrained power does), but he's also keenly aware that deadly adversity is, well, deadly, that many people don't come out of it alive, and for those who died of it - even if they didn't die badly; if they died without betraying their own beliefs, or anyone else - it is an unalloyed evil.
What I'm Reading Now
I'm on the third volume of The Gulag Archipelago. Right now I'm reading the bit about prison escapes, which is much easier going than the hopelessness of the second volume. Admittedly, the prison escapes are mostly hopeless too, in the sense that the prisoners rarely stay free for long, but at least they haven't yet consigned themselves to a miserable death.
Also reading Annie Jacobs' Operation Paperclip, about the American program to bring German scientists to the US after World War II. Right now Operation Paperclip and the War Crime Commission are dueling over who's going to get a certain aviation engineer who conducted human experiments on prisoners on Dachau. Spoiler alert: Operation Paperclip is going to win.
It's an excellent book, and I can even sort of if I squint a lot see where the Operation Paperclip people are coming from (I wouldn't want Stalin getting his hand on biological weapons experts either), but man, I feel like turning some of these people over for trial and hanging would have kept them out of Stalin's hands just as effectively.
I'm also reading Sarah Rees Brennan's Unmade. Brennan is trying to depict a town under the sway of evil rulers who have cowed most of the local populace into submission; juxtaposing her book with The Gulag Archipelago really highlights the flaws in her depiction. She tells us the townsfolk are scared, but I'm not really feeling it. So far, all of Kami's friends have stayed staunch, and none of the people cooperating with the sorcerers seem to be doing so out of crushing terror instead of either lust for power or weak wills.
What I Plan to Read Next
I have a book called The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute on hold at the library. Because who doesn't want to read about the dark side of cute?
And hopefully it will be a bit of light reading after all these gulags and Nazis.
