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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   2659 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for June 16, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I've been reading the Gulag Archipelago, and despite the depressing tone are some funny lines:

An indignant moralizer insulting someone: "Up yours, and stand still for it too!"

Solzhenitsyn's dark humor at work: "All these parties—the SR’s, the Mensheviks, the An- archists, the Popular Socialists—had for decades only pretended to be revolutionaries; they had worn socialism only as a mask, and for that they went to hard labor, still pretending."

I have weirdly romantic associations with The Gulag archipelago because I proposed to my wife at a used book store, and bought the book later that day.

I'd compare his treatment of the material with McCourt's in Angela's Ashes, always picking humor over self importance, even in tragedy. It makes the book compelling and readable, where it could be a real slog.

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