Whenever I see books/TV shows/news stories from places I visited on my travels, I find I'm a lot more interested in them because I've been to the country/walked around it's streets/tried its food/met some locals, etc...
I stumbled across 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich', by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and assuming it was based on a real account (as the intro really lauded its importance as a true picture of gulag camps) I started reading it, finishing it a few days later.
Then, I realised it's fictitious, and I wondered why I thought it was autobiographical in the first place. Probably because Solzhenitsyn's writing style is so detailled and candid, nothing is too mundane, too insignificant for the reader to be spared.
It also reminded me of Orwell's 'Down and Out in Paris and London', as, though Orwell is a free man, poverty restricts his choices throughout the novel. The restrictions resemble those of Shukhov (the protagonist) in 'Down and Out...', specifically the when Orwell has to go into 'the spike' to get a sheltered sleep.
Some great quotes/bits of writing from this novel...
'"How do you make that out?" Shukov answeed in surprise. "The old folk say the sun is highest at dinner time."
"Maybe it was, in their day!" the captain snapped back.
"Since then, it's been decreed that the sun is highest at one o'clock."
"Who decreed that?"
"The Soviet government."
The captain took off with the handbarrow, but Shukov wasn't going to argue anyway. As if the sun would obey their decrees!'
'Some people have nothing better to do run races in stadiums of their own free will. Silly devils should try running for their lives bent double after a day's work. In this cold with wet mittens and worn-out boots.'
'The mess was its usual self-frosty air steaming in from the door, men at the tables packed as tight as seeds in a sunflower, men wandering between tables, men trying to barge their way through with full trays.'
'The belly is an ungrateful wretch, it never remembers past favours, it always wants more tomorrow.'
'Because, Alyosha, prayers are like petitions-either they don't get through at all, or else it's "complaint rejected".'
'He himself took the lump of sausage-and popped it into his mouth. Get the teeth into it. Chew, chew chew! Lovely meaty smell! Meat juice, the real thing. Down it went, into his belly.
End of sausage.'
