Like I’ve said, rarely do I read the intro and foreword to a book until I’ve completed the reading, not wanting to be influenced by the kind accolades or author input that can seriously change a reader’s experience. But with this, knowing that it was based upon historical fact in Russia’s violent past, I felt it necessary to know a bit of the background of Solzhenitsyn’s story.
In this case then, it was important to know not only the time and place of reality in which the novel is set, but the after-events that may have affected the writer’s choice of language and how much would be told. Russian government, even under the reign of Khrushchev who felt his people should know their history, was not truly ready for the truth.
And so I think of Voltaire’s Candide, and the truth hidden within a fantastical story that those in the know would find, and yet Voltaire could still feel some safety in getting the work eventually published.
Shukhov (Ivan Denisovich) is feeling ill at the beginning of the book and his intention of reporting sick is thwarted by the wrong guard on duty that day who sends him to work. Afterwards, and after a meal saved for him by his friends, Shukhov reports to the infirmary:
"But after all, Kolya…You see, when I should have come…last night…it didn’t ache."
"And now it does? And what is it?
"Well, if you stop to think of it, nothing aches. But I feel ill all over." (p. 32)
Solzhenitsyn’s Shukhov is a representative figure of all those who suffered injustice and were sent to the camp–although his life there may have differed in attitude from some of the others. But it would be reasonable to assume that the ache that doesn’t ache, the illness that overwhelms the body, is more than just a physical case of the flu. Perhaps it is Russia herself.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology