RIP, Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Alexander Solzhenitsyn Is Dead at 89

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize-winning author whose
books chronicled the horrors of the Soviet gulag system, has
died of heart failure, his son said Monday.

Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/?emc=na

 

RIP.

 

First the Braves with Skip Caray, now the Reds with Solzhenitsyn....who's next? The Rangers with Chuck Norris?

 

Well, they do come (or leave) in threes.

Does the dead al Qaeda munitions expert count?

 

Heaven needed a guy who went through Hell.

 

My paper made it the second world brief inside...should have been A-1.

 

3 points.

 

Made the cover of our Nation/World section.

 

Thank you. I thought no one got it.

 

Sirs, Madames,

I remember making a stab at reading him as a teenager -- remarkably our high school offered Russian literature as an option in Grade 13 (the old Ontario equivalent of a senior year). I've never doubted his importance (no overstatement to say that he was historically/sociologically the most important writer of the 20th century) but I've always wondered if he was well-served in English translation. Other Russian lit I've read, even Soviet-era stuff, was a lot more artful. I bailed on reading AS 's Gulag at about page 100 -- we had a list to pick from -- and went for Crime and Punishment and Anna Karenina instead.

YD&OHS, etc

 

I have read all three Gulags and feel I deserve an honourary degree in Russian Literature.

It's also hard to underestimate the impact that the first Gulag had when it was published in 1973. The events leading up to and including the publilcation were headline news around the world These three books were a scathing indictment of the Soviet Union and forced a lot of Western intellectuals, particularly those in Europe, to rethink thir positions.

The flip side is, he would never allowed himself to be used as a propgandist for the West which he found immoral and decadent.

"One Day in the Life of...." is probably his most accessible.

RIP.