I was browsing a thrift store when I found this interesting book.
On a plane ride, I read the entire thing. It's really good, I'll demonstrate why:
Exhibit A: Author's Note
The story now seeking attention of readers was written twenty-two year ago, in Leningrad, in the winter of 1939-1940. In it I attempted to record the events just experienced by my country, my friends, and myself. I could not refrain from writing about them, though I had, of course, no hope of seeing the story in print. I had little hope even that the school exercise book containing the clean copy of it would escape destruction and be preserved. It was dangerous to keep it in the drawer of my desk, but I couldn't bring myself to burn it. I regarded it not so much as a story as a piece of evidence, which it would be dishonorable to destroy.
It is not often that you come across history living as fiction. But when you do, I think it's better than any movie at putting you inside the life, within a point of view, of an important historic event.
If you want to get familiar with the human instinct for self preservation in conflict with a dysfunctional cultural code - read this book.
It's also a moving, fast-paced narrative. Each word is costly.
Exhibit B: The First Sentence
After the death of her husband, Sofia Petrovna took a course in typing.
TLDR
If you won't read this book, that's fine, too. I don't know how easy it is to find. So I've reproduced pieces of it that I think can show you how deep the action is buried beneath the subtext of the Soviet Regime's control. And this is useful. To be able to identify this type of event is useful. I can't say exactly why, but you get it, I think.
The first general meeting of the workers of the publishing house which Sofia Petrovna happened to attend seemed boring to her. The director made a short speech about the rise to power of the German fascists and the burning of the reichstag in Germany and then drove away in his Ford. After him the party secretary gave a speech. . .she announced that, in view of all the events, it was first of all essential to tighten up on working hours and wage a relentless war on tardiness. . . Sofia Petrovna didn't really understand what it was all about, she was bored and wanted to leave, but she was afraid it wasn't the thing to do and glared at one of the typists who was making her way to the door. However, soon even these meetings ceased to bore Sofia Petrovna. At one of them, the director reported, "I would like to say that the work of the typing office, under the supervision of Comrade Lipatova, has already attained an exceptionally high standard." Sofia Petrovna blushed and it was a long time before she dared to raise her eyes again. When at last she decided to look around, she thought everyone seemed extraordinarily kind and attractive, and she found the statistics unexpectedly interesting.
Sofia Petrovna now completely agreed with [her son] when he expounded to her on the necessity for women to do socially useful work. Yes, everything he said, and everything that was written in the newspapers now seemed to her completely obvious, as if people had always written and talked that way.
She liked the new songs resounding from the screen-- particularly "Thank you, my heart!" and "When my Country Calls, I'll be a Hero;" she liked the word "Motherland." This word, written with a capital letter, gave her a warm, proud feeling.
"Arrested last night was the ex-supervisor of our print shop, now unmasked as an enemy of the people. He turned out to be the nephew of the Moscow Gerasimov, who was unmasked a month ago. With the connivance of our party organization, which is suffering, to use Comrade Stalin's apt expression, from the idiotic disease of complacency, [he] continued to, so to speak, 'operate' in our print shop even after his own uncle had been unmasked." "No questions?" asked the director, who was presiding at the meeting. "And what did they . . . do . . . in the print shop?" Natasha Frolenko asked timidly. "What did they do?" she repeated in a shrill voice, rising from her chair. "I think, Comrade Frolenko, I just explained in plain Russion that ex-supervisor of our print shop turned out to be the nephew of the Moscow Gerasimov. He maintained daily family contact with his uncle . . . undermined the Stakhanovite movement in the print shop . . . wrecked the plan . . . on the orders of his relative. With the criminal connivance of our party organization." Natasha asked nothing more.
The last scene I'll include is toward the end of the story.
"And where did they send your husband?" asked Sofia Petrovna to change the subject. "How should I know? Do you think they tell you where?" "But then how will you . . . in ten years . . . when he's released . . . how will you find each other? You won't know his address, nor he, yours." "And do you think," said the wife of the director, "that any one of them"--she gestured at the crowd of women with the 'travel vouchers'--"knows where her husband is? The husbands have already been taken away, or will be taken tomorrow or are being taken today, the wives, too, will go off to some hellhole and haven't the foggiest idea how they're going to their husbands later. How should I know? No one knows and neither do I." "You have to be persistent," said Sofia Petrovna quietly. "If they won't tell you here, you must write to Moscow. Or else, what's going to happen? You'll lose track of each other completely." The director's wife looked her up and down. "Who is it? Your husband? Your son?" she asked with such intense fury that Sofia Petrovna involuntarily drew back closer to Alik. "All right then, when they send your son away-- you just be persistent, you go find out his address." "They won't send my son away," said Sofia Petrovna apologetically. "You see, he's not guilty. He was arrested by mistake." "Ha-ha-ha!" laughed the director's wife, carefully enunciating each syllable. "Ha-ha-ha! By mistake!" and suddenly tears poured from her eyes. "Here, you know, everything's by mistake . . .Oh, stand still, won't you!" she shouted at the child and bent over her to hide her tears.
Sofia Petrovna is a tragic hero. The thing that slowly destroys her life is not obvious to her. She cannot see it. She is part of it, but she is not embraced by it. Her rationale never bumps up against enough friction for her to seek extreme means, so she continues to reason. And as the reality of it increasingly consumes more of her, changes her, she will not admit, even to herself, what it is.
It's a devastating story but the hand that writes it is steady.
Take this guy's word for it: