Picture sourceThe UPS guy must think I have a crush on him…I couldn’t stop smiling as I signed for today’s delivery at work. I splurged and bought the new release of In the First Circle by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Wall Street Journal has a review of this restored version as well as the first chapter.

I’m transported back to when I used to visit the library pictured above, which was within walking distance of our house. In junior high and high school I devoured everything they had by or about Solzhenitsyn. I know I only understood a small fraction of his writing, but there was something about the time (and me at the time, I guess) that responded to his writing. This looks like a good starting point to get reacquainted.

“Who’s reading Gorky?” he asked in a menacing bass.

“I am!”

“What the hell for?”

“What else is there to read?”

“You’d be better off in the shithouse, communing with your soul. World’s full of damned readers, damned humanists–dirty bums, the lot of you.”