Melachi out of the Zone of Dovlatov

I, Melachi ibn Amillar, being a man of wealth and taste, did read Sergei Dovlatov's novel "The Zone" (1982), in May 2012 (in an English translation purchased from the rather nice Russian Bookstore at Waterstone's Piccadilly). The book comprises short stories about prison camp life in the former Soviet Union, linked together with brief letters to a putative publisher. The stories deal with relations between guards and zeks (prisoners), the author having been a prison guard. Nothing really happens in any of the stories, and it is rather difficult to keep track of the characters, who are numerous and all very similar, or why the paragraphs follow one another in the order they do. Although in simple language, and apparently without literary pretensions, I could not understand what was actually meant to be implied by many of the sentences. Such as, at random: "The girl's lips were warm and rough as a small leaf warmed by the sun" (p. 85).  "The over-laundered flag hung limply,"... etc. The book is not satirical, unless it is a great surprise to you that relationships exist between people in prisons. The list of "shocking" things he says he "could have written about" is rather unlikely to shock anyone.  Unless it is a sort of double-bluff. Who knows? Who cares? I would suggest the book would have been better written as a classical novel with a plot, and some well-defined characters. If the book is not a critique of the specifically Soviet prison system, admittedly a well trodden path, it is not easy to gather its purpose. These are the words of Melachi!