Ivanna Hidalgo - Question Commander

Ivanna Hidalgo
Week 1: vii (introduction) xviii; xix-(foreward) xxii; pp. 3-22 
Job - Question Commander
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

First of all, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a book about a man who obviously tells one day of his life with major detail. Denisovich explains his ups and down throughout his long stay in this camp. From what many people look at it, it's almost as if it were a prison. Until now, Ivan Denisovich shows how he is treated poorly without any food, barley any warm clothes, and with people above him that call him all types of horrid names.

Why is this book written in the format of one day?

From a reader's opinion, this was because this book was supposed to portray the beauty of literature by making such a small things be described in 167 pages. This is an important point because many books are really expanded, and explain every event with every possible detail, like this book. On the other hand, there are books were they are about 300 pages, but barely give any details because the authors focus more on what happens next than what happens now. Specifically, many authors think of what to write next, instead of thinking what to write in the moment their writing. Resulting, the details don't go full on, and the readers don't get enough of what just happened. However, this is what one thought about the one-day format of this book. Nevertheless, one of the true reasons is to show how this one-day doesn't belong to Ivan, but belongs to the Soviet government (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich). Now from the reader's perspective, this specific day emphasizes the fact that it belongs to the government because this government controlled their lives. In different words, there can't be a day were one is free, without some kind of authority being part of it. For example, some days, Ivan Denisovich was given an extra ration of bread because the leaders allowed it, but other days it was as if he got nothing because that is how this type of leadership dominated life. Overall, the fact that the Soviet government determined your freedom was a reason why this book what written in only one day.
 "Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Web. 12 Apr. 2015. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn>.

How does this book manage to tell one day in 167 pages?

As talked about in the first question, this book was written as only one day. This question, which is one of the greatest questions of many readers, is how does this book accomplish to write such little time in such a big, juicy book? As one reads the first part of the book, one notices how Alexander Solzhenitsyn was extremely detailed. On that account, it seemed as if One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was utterly filled with real life events. At first, one thinks that this book is non-fiction based on real life events; nonetheless, after researching, this book ended to be fiction. Many were shocked at the level of description there was, resulting to a very peculiar thought. Additionally, there is this thought were the author must have been through some kind of circumstance that lead him to imagine these things. In any manner, specific kinds of details or small pieces of information made the book so mellow. For example, "He dexterously pulled his feet out of the valenki, put the valenki in a corner, stuffed his foot rags into them (his spoon tinkled on the floor - though he'd forgotten his spoon, and, barefoot, sloshed the water right under the guards' valenki" (Solzhenitsyn, 13). To summarize, this phrase was the perfect example of how his writing had such exceptional vocabulary and most descriptive material, culminating the one-day book into a thorough piece of writing.

"One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich." - Simple English Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 12 Apr. 2015. <http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Day_in_the_Life_of_Ivan_Denisovich>. 
 

If this book appeared to be non-fiction, would readers be more interested in the book or would readers lose interest?

In someway, one thinks that the readers would gain interest in the book. This is one of the reader's least asked but important questions because it defines whether people prefer more reading about someone that once existed and lived different experiences. In one's opinion, people want to know that there are (were) people in the world that had completely different lives that their own because life would be neutral if there wasn't any. As a matter of fact, conflicts that happened in the past influence the way people feel now days feel because it gives them a reason to fight for what they believe in. If some people think that Ivan shouldn't have been treated that way, then they would in no way support the Soviet government, and vise versa. In real life exemplifications, if Anne Frank weren't to exist, there would be one less opinion to how the Nazi's were excruciatingly cruel with the Jews. How were people supposed to know what was a 15 year olds point of view about the Holocaust and such? Believe it or not, many were influenced about the Nazi's and Jews originated from what Anne Frank thought. In conclusion, people would be more intrigued if this were to be non-fiction because it would give them a base to their beliefs and thoughts.