The First Circle Av Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

<p>At the height of Stalin's postwar terror, Innokenty, a young diplomat and scion of a corrupt ruling class, discovers an earlier and more spiritual tradition than that adopted by the October Revolution, the beginning of a process which is Solzhenitsyn's basic theme: the individual's experience of acquiring an immortal soul. <br><br>Unwisely but generously, Innokenty helps a friend in danger of arrest, only to be arrested himself and sent to a special prison. This, the archetype of the Gulag, is described with masterful psychological insight. There are no heroes and hardly any villains; oppressors are no less victims then the oppressed. <br><br>In the great tradition of the Russian novel, <i>The First Circle</i> is both a brooding account of human nature and a scrupulously exact description of a historical period.</p>