On Reading- Copyright Robert Fullarton 2014

On Reading- Copyright Robert Fullarton 2014


I often like to sit alone in the shade and read, I let my mind take me away from these peripheral restrictions and while the clamour of children and the noise of traffic rings out in the distance I am whisked away, totally absorbed and captured in the moment of my books. 

I particularly like a book called One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich, written by the great prophet of freedom, Mr.Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a victim of the Stalinist Gulag prison system and one of the leading figures to condemn, expose and narrate his own time in this tough and gruelling penal system, where millions were sent and forced to labour in extreme conditions of both labour, brutality and bad weather. (A more modern version of Dostoyevsky's House of the Dead)

The book narrates the tragedy of an age, where systematic brutality and public ignorance allowed mass murder to flourish. The book centres around one man and his prison mates and associates – a whole set of characters that tell the tell of men from every walk of life- and how each man survives, steals, pockets and labours through each day. You will not be appalled by statistics of atrocity when you read through the book but will find yourself quite lost in laughter, as the book is rich in humour and anecdotes of the absurdity of the situation. Each character seems to represent a different element within Russian society. It touches on the spiritual boundaries of man’s philosophical world, a world of questions, dilemmas, problems and yearnings. I believe that for me personally the book suggests that man’s interior world, composed of all his pains and sorrows, of all his burdens and his dreams is a prison and he is a prisoner who searches to escape, loosen the fetters and chains of with all he has from the prison inside himself. I personally found the book to be more enjoyable and rewarding than...Viktor Frankl's Man's search for meaning...I just loved the entire entourage of characters.....and this little book was very funny at times with the traits of human nature and character on full display, frozen and concentrated shall we say in a Siberian Prison.

I liked the Baptist the most, the gentle Aloyshka who was imprisoned simply for practising his faith and who would each night smuggle his little New Testament text out of the cracks in his prison wall...and each night Ivan would hear Aloyshka reading softly and slowly the words of his scripture. The man was taken for a fool...like a sort of Prince Myshkin...(from Dostoyevsky's The Idiot) seen to be naive for his unbending principles of kindness and joyful humility...as he even offers his spare slice of bread to another prisoner and willingly he enjoys and volunteers to work harder for his team of workers on the building site. His food is spiritual...he needs no boundaries to practice his faith...he survives and flourishes in his faith and even views prison to be a sort of ascetic centre for his prayer life and as Ivan notes rather confused...he is always in a cheerful mood. I like the ending where the Baptist very gently speaks to Ivan and tells him that "his soul is calling out to God" as he hands him his New Testament and finds a very willing man in Ivan to read and reflect in the desperation of the snow battered barracks where each man struggles, dreams and yearns for real hope! Each man who wants to survive must ask himself, what he survives for? Maybe each man must ask the seemingly stupid question -but perhaps the deepest question you haven't asked is- why? Dont just survive, flourish! Live! Learn! Grow!