Well,,, it did way better than the top 100 with critics. Many consider it the best post war novel written, The first time I tackled it, I didn’t get it until I was about 150 pages into it. But I love his prose style, so I persevered. Don’
t give up early! It all makes sense. Read what wiki has to say about it. It’s a masterpiece of fiction, based solidly on facts.
Also, why did he randomly throw Mickey Rooney into it? I recently read the Gulag Archipelago and thought about the Russian controlled German areas and how the book synced with some of the thoughts from Solzhenitsyn. I do find it compelling because there seems to be brilliant ideas in it, but it is hard to follow sometimes.