Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Dies at 89

[W*GS]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/04/books/04solzhenitsyn.html

I've read "The Gulag Archipelago". You'll do yourself and humanity a favor to read it yourself.

[Spider]

Never heard of him ....... does the book come with pictures ?

[Rohirrim]

I read it when it came out and I was in the Army, which gave it added meaning at the time. ;D Also read Ivan Denisovich. Solzhenitzyn was one of the pry bars that toppled the USSR.

[W*GS]

Spider, just read the NYT article.

[Spider]

Spider, just read the NYT article.

I looked at the pictures ........;D
Chances are i will never get a chance to read this book .......

[DenverBrit]

I looked at the pictures ........;D


I hope you found time to color them in. ;D

[Spider]

I hope you found time to color them in. ;D

workin on it ;D

[mhgaffney]

Solzhenitzyn was one of the greatest writers -- and one of the greatest men -- of the 20th century. In fact, he was surpassed by no other writers and by only a few men -- for example, Mahatma Gandhi and possibly Nelson Mandela.

Winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970, Solzhenitsyn was a true national hero -- for telling the painful truths about the failed Soviet state. The author knew the perils and evils of the Soviet system, first hand.

As a young man, Solzhenitsyn was falsely accused of being a traitor, and was lined up before a firing squad. However, at the last second he was granted a reprieve. Instead of being shot, Solshenitzyn was sent to Siberia -- the Gulag Archipelago of slave labor camps set up by Stalin, where he languished for a number of years.

This is where Solzhenitsyn launched his writing career. He wrote secretively on scraps of paper -- even on toilet paper -- then memorized long passages -- many pages at a time -- lest his writing be discovered by the authorities. Solzhenitsyn was blessed with an encyclopedic memory.

After Stalin's death, Nikita Khruschev briefly relaxed the state's literary censorship. During this thaw -- Solzhenitsyn was allowed to publish his great first novel, ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DESINOVITCH, the story of one day in the life of a prsioner in the Gulag.

Fortunately, the Russian people eventually got the message. Led by Gorbachev, they dismantled the evil system in the late 1980s. (Unfortunately, idiots like W*gs, Hotrod, etc still haven't found out about it.)

My favorite by Solzhenitsyn is 1914, his riveting novel about World War I. However, one would do well to read everything he wrote. Solzhenitsyn was a writer's writer. Very few authors fall into this category.

MHG

[mhgaffney]

Wot gives?

No knee jerk reaction from W*gs?

Has he gone mute? Someone cut out his tongue?