True: I never gave Solzhenitsyn a thought until I began reading The Gulag Archipelago while falsely accused and jailed.

Being shallow, I didn't finish the book once free. But at the time he really spoke to me.

I hate to say it, but, You damn Kids! You got no idea what we went through for you.

This is sad. Anyone who has a brief time to read, pick up One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

But my favorite, that I still nag friends to read is The First Circle. My god, it is about as perfect as a narrative can be. You MUST read this.

I had assumed he had died also, not having heard anything about hime for so long.
It's been a very long time since I read Gulag Ar.. and I have to say all I can recall of it is that is was one of many typical russian novels, dark with and even darker cycnical thread of hope.
Reading multiple Russian novels is a lot like listening to all of the Shostakovich string quartets. They are each of them unique, but one only really notices that if one is using this uniqueness as excuse for allowing in the bathos.

I'm embarrassed to say, but I thought Solzhenitsyn was up there with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky in age. Oops.

He died but Slog gives no recognition of his work or heroism? WTF?? He took on the freaking Soviet Union. HE's a literary giant.

From the link:
"Gulag” was a monumental account of the Soviet labor camp system, a chain of prisons that by Mr. Solzhenitsyn’s calculation some 60 million people had entered during the 20th century. The book led to his expulsion from his native land. George F. Kennan, the American diplomat, described it as “the greatest and most powerful single indictment of a political regime ever to be leveled in modern times.”

tldr;relevance?

he's no tseliot, that's for sure.

& paul constant is a selective fuckwit.

Well, I guess I should move One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich to the front of my list. It's been sitting on my shelf for over a year.

Of course you didn't know he was dead, now, if David Sedaris caught a cold I'm sure you'd be all on top of it. You people scare me.

excellent full obit in NYT today.

From A1 to two inside pages.

The BBC on remembering Solzhenitsyn: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7540821.stm

@4: typical Russian novel?
Gulag Archipelago is not fiction. These things happened. Things like these happened. Not that long ago.
From the foreword: "In this book there are no imagined characters, no imagined events. People and places are named by their own names. If they are referred to with only initials, it is for personal reasons. If they are not named at all, it is only because human memory has not kept their names, -- but everything happened just as described." (pardon my poor translation).

Wait, are you a troll or being sarcastic, and I fell for it again? Nevermind.

You didn't know he was still alive? Jesus Christ, why would you feel the need to let us all in on your painful ignorance? You should try to pay attention, Paul...it just might help.

OK, OK, OK. A lot of you are nostalgic for the Cold War and you need to brag about it. Glad to hear it. Now run along.

I'm surprised McCain hasn't given a speech about his colleague and how young he was to have died.

Ah well, I guess he forgot.

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