Tareva - Week 8

I know that we are supposed to submit at least two blogs on books that we read that were not assigned as a part of the course material, so here goes...

A few days ago I finished reading a book called A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. The book is about a man, Denisovich, who is a prisoner of one of Stalin's forced work camps. Although the story is about Ivan Denisovich, it's written from what seems to be an onlookers perspective. The text is a culmination of writing that follows Denisovich's schedule and way of life through one day at the camp.

I've chosen to blog about this book because Denisovich was sentenced to ten years in the camp for "being a spy," when the truth is that he just got lost in the woods with a friend and once he came out of the woods they arrested him. The story is tragic and heart wrenching but I feel like it relates to what we've discussed in class in that Denisovich's cosmos was shattered. Just like the guy in the movie clip we viewed in class, his stay at the camp was for TEN whole years! Thus, he was forced to bring himself to cope with the fact that his world was going to be substantially altered. Going from living the free life and taking care of your family to being imprisoned, having your meals cut down to 200 grams a day, being beaten on a regular basis, being allotted only one outfit to wear, and only being allowed a shower every few days is something that I don't know I'd be able to handle. The tales that are told in this book are beyond sad and it made me question, again, how I would handle my cosmos being shaken so badly. There is a point in the book where Denisovich mentions that he (note: this is after eight years of being at the camp) still believes in God since he was sentenced to the camp but no longer believes in prayer. He says that he feels like praying is like making requests that will be rejected or unanswered at all. This passage moved me because, like I mentioned in a previous blog, I wonder what, if anything, it would take for me to completely alter the way I think about my religion. Would being confined to a camp where I'm abused and have no human rights to anything make me question if God is real? I like to think that perhaps a situation like that might bring me closer to God in that I'd have nothing else, no other hope, to hold on to.