10 Novellas

One of my sons famously thought novella was a posh word for a novel. It just refers to a short novel - about 150 pages or less. Here is a list of ten. These are ones I have actually read.

1. Bartleby the Scrivener Herman Melville 1853
2. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson 1885
3. Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad 1899
4. Ethan Frome Edith Wharton 1911
5. Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck 1937
6. Animal Farm George Orwell 1945
7. The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway 1952
8. Breakfast at Tiffany's Truman Capote 1958
9. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Alexander Solzhenitsyn 1962
10. A Month in the Country J L Carr 1960

One day in the life

I got round to reading Solzhenitsyn's One day in the life of the Life of Ivan Denisovich the other day. It followed on from the Orwell book as it is again about subsisting and is a reminder of our privileges and the need not to think too much but be more thankful. First published in November 1962 in the Soviet literary magazine Novy Mir (New World) it is well known and was one of the reason Solzhenitsyn was given the Nobel Prize in 1970 and no doubt one reason why he got kicked out in the end. The story is set in a Soviet labour camp in the Stalinist 1950s, (Solzhenitsyn was in a gulag 1945-1953 and began writing his book in 1957).

Wisely what he does is to describe just a single day of an ordinary prisoner, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. That takes out the need for a long story and a lot of explanation and gives a sharp profile to the presentation. We meet other prisoners including Aloshya the Baptist who I felt inevitable drawn to.

The book's publication was an extraordinary event in Soviet literary history as an account of Stalinist repression had never been openly distributed before. An English translation by Ralph Parker quickly followed. That as the one I read. Four others have followed. There is also a 1970 film, which I've not seen.

Reading in pyjamas

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died this week aged 89. The Times obituary is here. Solzhenitsyn was a complex and enigmatic man. He encouraged us Christians by criticising both east and west and having a place in his thinking for God. I like that bit in his Ivan Denisovich

The Baptist was reading his Bible, not altogether silently, but sort of sighing out the words. This was meant perhaps for Shukhov. (A bit like political agitators, these Baptists. Loved spreading the word.)
"But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or a wrongdoer, or a mischief-maker; yet if one suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but under that name let him glorify God."
Alyoshka was a champion at one thing: wiggling that little book of his into a crack in the wall so neatly that it had never been found by searching warders.

It brings out the power of the Word in all ages. In another bit from the Times by D M Thomas here we read that

In 1961, the liberal-minded communist editor, Aleksandr Tvardovsky, lay in bed reading a manuscript that an assistant had foisted on him (Ivan Denisovic). After one page, Tvardovsky got out of bed, dressed and went to his study. He said later he knew at once that it was a great work, and would not dishonour the author by reading it in his pyjamas.

That reminded me of how Bunyan had a conscience once over finding himself eating an apple while reading the Word. The point can be overstated but the importance of reverence when we read the Word is worth pondering.

More on Ivan Denisovic here. It has twice been made into a film. They'll show them on TV soon I'm sure.