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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

beer good said:
As good a thread for this as any, I suppose.

Aleksander Solzhenitsyn dies at 89

:sad:
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I wrote a small tribute in my blog, posted here on Book & Reader. I first read The Gulag Archipelago in middle school; 'twas the first book which gave me a serious turn towards the political, let alone a different view of communism than a textbook could yeild. (and 'War and Peace' just didn't have the same punch...)

pasted from the blog:


-Aleksandr-

O', rebel of the desperate cause
whom fled Mars' straining grip;
Whom worked loose hope from iron
On ice flew fight to freedom.
Perchance to view your own return,
Once, twice fleeing your shores
For, the Gulag did repeat itself on you.

Yet, through the cracks of cement and snow
Inspiration leaked out amid the houses;
Hot blood did with you write
And tears...
The great blight to rid from your land.
Remembered are the strivings;
Pleading soft and wept,
Penned and shouted.
Atrocity housed and trapped
And in the end, the Hammer routed,
To but be harkened with bile and bite.

You endured to taste the open,
Though slight with sickness
And scarred by the gaping, ruined gate.
See there, it stands destroyed.
A testament of those hid and plundered.
Oh, noble sir... know we see it still.
Twill never be re-built, nor honored.
And 'round it stack your warning tomes;
Small brands of glowing warmth.
 
Kenny Shovel advised me to start with First Circle or One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch. I read First Circle first, followed by One Day, then I read Cancer Ward. They all stand alone, but I'm glad I didn't start with The Gulag Archipelago..Not that it's so tough intellectually..really none of his novels are like that; the material is hard to assimilate and process because the issues discussed are so unthinkable. We who've always enjoyed the luxury of a free society might have trouble understanding a world so different from our own. At least, I read stuff years ago about some of the practices of the former Soviet Union, so it wasn't all new to me. Still, I had to read slower than normal, stopping to think about what I'd just read, perhaps setting the book down for a whole day while I did ordinary stuff in realtime. These are not books to just breeze through; they deserve more time.
 
Robert mentions somewhere in here, an Uncut version of The First Circle
is coming out. If you are going to start with The First Circle might as well go for the uncut version.
 
Libra said:
Robert mentions somewhere in here, an Uncut version of The First Circle
is coming out. If you are going to start with The First Circle might as well go for the uncut version.
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There's a reader's digest version of First Circle??? My copy is fairly old.. before paperbacks cost four or five dollars...it's in the basement or I'd run check right this instant...
 
abecedarian said:
Nine chapters he cut! Must have been like choosing which child to feed and which to allow to die of starvation...The fact he didn't totally give in and just write a fairytale speaks volumes about the man.

Adding this one to my already long Amazon wishlist...
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It will be interesting to see what was left out.
 
abecedarian said:
Kenny Shovel advised me to start with First Circle or One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch. I read First Circle first, followed by One Day, then I read Cancer Ward. They all stand alone, but I'm glad I didn't start with The Gulag Archipelago..Not that it's so tough intellectually..really none of his novels are like that; the material is hard to assimilate and process because the issues discussed are so unthinkable. We who've always enjoyed the luxury of a free society might have trouble understanding a world so different from our own. At least, I read stuff years ago about some of the practices of the former Soviet Union, so it wasn't all new to me. Still, I had to read slower than normal, stopping to think about what I'd just read, perhaps setting the book down for a whole day while I did ordinary stuff in realtime. These are not books to just breeze through; they deserve more time.
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Thanks for the info, That's what I'm going to start with also.

ETA: I'll wait for the uncut version too
 
joderu95 said:
But thanks for the link just the same. Much more thorough. I thought it was interesting to hear what his biographer had to say about him. Apparently not nearly the ideal anti-Soviet stalwart many people believe he was.
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I wonder if he wondered how different the whole communist experiment might have gone if the top dogs had not been so paranoid. Reading Gulag now has me thinking about it..
 
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