Comments on: Solzhentisyn passes

By: buddy larsen

buddy larsen — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:30:56 +0000

His vision of the meaning of western pop culture, coming to us from a Russian anti-communist, was so selfless and counter-propagandic that it took flight into poetry and metaphor — even now it’s in my memory as a distant clear bell tolling behind the 70s &80s wall-of-sound. Something i as a creature of the times knew i had to ignore or else it would mess up Saturday Nite.

By: OregonGuy

OregonGuy — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 23:30:50 +0000

A life changing author.

How can you not read Cancer Ward and come away with a new weariness with all those who advocate for the benefit of the prole.

Ivan and Gulag.

And yet it was, and is, inspiring to me that his words were passed, written out longhand, in secret. And that we had a chance to find them and read them.

Truly, one of the world’s finest writers.
.

By: chrisarabia

chrisarabia — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 07:34:33 +0000

I agree completely on Cancer Ward and with RLS that Solzhy was not the most familiar man. I once spoke approvingly of him in the company of some Russians and they didn’t concur; from what I recall, somebody said something about his weird worldview and tendency to conjure his own words in Russian.

I read Volume 1 of the Gulag Archipelago–fascinating but probably the heaviest thing I’ve ever read (in the dense, not 60s, sense of heavy).

By: srlucado

srlucado — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 02:07:51 +0000

As one of about ten people who’ve actually read all three volumes of “The Gulag Archipelago”, I’m sorry to hear that he has passed away.

Thanks to him, I went on to read a great many other Russian writers, becoming a lifelong Tolstoy junkie. (I’ve read “War and Peace” nine times so far.)

Solzhenitsyn opened the eyes of a great many people in the West–not only to abuses in the Soviet system, but to the undying human spirit that shines through adversity, a theme in much of his work, whether it be “The Love Girl and the Innocent”, “The Cancer Ward” (my personal favorite), or “The First Circle”. (“August 1914″ – well, the less said the better, I suppose.)

May he rest in peace. I hope that he, Goncharov, and Saltykov-Shchedrin are having conversations up in the great literary club in the sky.

Scott