This was my second reading of the book, after a forty-year gap. It has not lost its intensity and its pathos. The day in the life of the protagonist is beyond most people's imagination. The cruelty, the stupidity of the oppressors, the acceptance of their miserable lot by the prisoners and even the 'imprisonment' of the jailers themselves are all shown in vivid reality. Solzhenitsyn was a giant of his time.