New audiobook of abridged Gulag Archipelago, read by author's son
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cover of new audiobook
Our friends at Vintage/Penguin have issued a brand-new audiobook of The Gulag Archipelago (abridged version), read by the author’s middle son, Ignat Solzhenitsyn. For the time being, it is only available in the UK/Commonwealth countries, but is scheduled to come to the US in 2020. (If you prefer paperback, go here. For the full 3-volume set, go here.) Here is an excerpt from Ignat Solzhenitsyn’s reading—from Part 1, Chapter 4, “The Bluecaps”.
“Physics is aware of phenomena which occur only at threshold magnitudes, which do not exist at all until a certain threshold encoded by and known to nature has been crossed. No matter how intense a yellow light you shine on a lithium sample, it will not emit electrons. But as soon as a weak bluish light begins to glow, it does emit them. (The threshold of the photoelectric effect has been crossed.) You can cool oxygen to 100 degrees below zero Centigrade and exert as much pressure as you want; it does not yield, but remains a gas. But as soon as minus 183 degrees is reached, it liquefies and begins to flow.
Evidently evildoing also has a threshold magnitude. Yes, a human being hesitates and bobs back and forth between good and evil all his life. He slips, falls back, clambers up, repents, things begin to darken again. But just so long as the threshold of evildoing is not crossed, the possibility of returning remains, and he himself is still within reach of our hope. But when, through the density of evil actions, the result either of their own extreme degree or of the absoluteness of his power, he suddenly crosses that threshold, he has left humanity behind, without, perhaps, the possibility of return .”