The First Circle (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- First Published: 1968
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Historical realism
- Time of Work: December 24-27, 1949
- Setting: Suburban Moscow
- Genres: Long fiction, Realism, Historical fiction
- Subjects: Dictators, Communism or communists, Politics, Prisoners, 1940’s, Russia or Russian people, Soviet Union or Soviets
- Locales: Moscow, Russia
Characters Discussed
Gleb Vikentyevich Nerzhin (vih-kehn- TEE-yeh-vihch NEHR-zhihn), a thirty-one-year- old zek mathematician who turns to history and writes secretly and frantically. He is the most autobiographical of thezeks. He is a friend of Rubin, and the virgin Simochka has a crush on him, but the affair is interrupted by an unexpected visit from his wife, Nadya, who has had to live a lie for five years about her husband and now needs to disown him to save her job and her dissertation, though she loves him more than physical life. They both sense that he has...
[The entire page is 2108 words long]
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