How to Read a Book

Applied to Solzhenitsyn's "The First Circle"

Three questions:

1. Would you rather buy something now or save money for later?

2. Would you lose twenty pounds with a quick liposuction procedure or by going on a diet for a year?

3. Would you rather be the tortoise or the hare in Aesop’s famous fable?

We are accustomed to the quick and easy. Buy now! Liposuction and it’s handled! “Hare” we come! We have to relearn the value of reading books.

I remember the first book that ever captured my attention. I was in junior high reading James Clavell’s King Rat. It grabbed my attention, drew me into its story world and I couldn’t put it down. Not every book I’ve read from beginning to end hit me this way. Very few have. But that experience taught me the value of reading, even if the book didn’t hold my attention from cover to cover.

I forgot that lesson during Covid. Social media became my go-to media source. Unintentionally I created new habits of streaming movies, TV shows and YouTube videos. I gave my attention to things that grabbed me immediately and kept me engaged. As soon as it lost my attention, I jumped to something else.

In the first half of my. life, I had learned to anticipate a great reading experience. This was now lost to me. The only way back was to retrain myself. It took willpower to refuse the quick fix of phone apps and choose to pick up a book instead. It’s dangerous to admit these days, but I had help from the Russians.

It began when our oldest son took me to a Russian bath in New York City. He had become a fan of Russian baths while studying at NYU. We brought my youngest son along, and he was immediately hooked. It took me longer. You see, I was used to going into a steam room or sauna for 15 minutes or so. I had been in a hot tub for 20 minutes. But my sons loved to stay at the Russian bath for half a day going from the sauna to the cold plunge pool, to the steam room, and then to the swimming pool. Then, after eating some borscht at the restaurant in the same building, they would “rinse and repeat.” I wasn’t sure about the cold plunge pool. It seemed more like a torture device…until my body went numb. I felt like I should then get out as quickly as possible. The idea of cycling through heat and cold and heat and cold again and again seemed crazy. But after about four hours, once we had showered and traded in our swimsuits for street clothes, my body was calm and relaxed. My mind was incredibly clear. I hadn’t known what I’d been missing by jumping in and out of the steam and sauna at my local YMCA in less than 1/2 an hour. There was so much more.

I had a similar experience when I began reading Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s novel
”The First Circle.” The 741 pages were daunting. The 96 chapters, though only a few pages each, were a major commitment. The almost 60 characters in the story, so many that each one is listed and described in a special index before the book begins, only added to the challenge. It was not a read like King Rat. But it had much more to offer than any of the videos of “Russian Dashcam fails” that I had watched. For many months, I took my time reading a chapter each morning at a favorite cafe. It was an amazing experience. I remembered what books could offer that no other experience could. As I read the next chapter one day, I wrote the following review on Good Reads:

“I am savoring this book in my favorite coffee shop; one day at a time. This is the best way to work through the 96 chapters and their myriad characters. Enjoy the book over a period of months. Slowly chew on the author’s language as he describes many important things about life. In chapter 25, for example, he describes a middle-aged apparatchik's memory of his first love by writing: "He spoke her name, and his pampered body shivered with the onrush of forgotten sensations."

Watch for the clever ways Solzhenitsyn shares his wisdom. In chapter 31 he unfolds his opinions on different authors. But rather than stating what he thinks, he shares his critique through the mind of a prisoner searching for an interesting read among books authorized for prisoners by Soviet authorities. There is so much to experience in these pages. But to fully savor all that Solzhenitsyn has to offer you need to read the book at the same pace as the prison life he so powerfully describes.”

I am still deepening my new habit of reading. I am thankful to Russian baths and to Russian authors for reminding me of the incredible value of spending an extravagant amount of time, talent, and treasures reading books by authors whose writing has stood the test of time.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn on the day of his release from the gulag.

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