A notable passing. His best book was Cancer Ward. The Gulag Archipelago was also very important.

If he'd been born two years earlier, his life would have completely enclosed the Communist era in Russia. Of course, then he would have died two years ago.

I had no idea he was so completely against atheists. At least according to Wikipedia.

Who?

/the only real Nobel Prize is in physics anyway
//and maybe chemistry
///maybe

Good night, Mr Gulag Survivor.

We read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in high school, sophomore year. Great read.

SphericalTime: I had no idea he was so completely against atheists. At least according to Wikipedia.

He was. He was also opposed to allowing Catholic priests and Protestant ministers to move to Russia. He also was a bit of a Russian apologist. Like saying that what happened in the Ukraine in 33 and 34, shouldn't be counted as a genocide, even though it did involve willfully wiping out at least several million people.

i hate to say it, because i don't mean to be disrespectful, but I had no idea he was still alive.

WhyteRaven74: He also was a bit of a Russian apologist ultra-nationalist.

Hell of a writer, though.

His cameo appearance on Scooby Doo will be remembered as the oddest, save perhaps Mamma Cass Elliots'.

- Unemployed eulogist.

Drag.

goodnight funny man?

/too lazy to do a GIS
//too ignint to know who it is.

A titan has passed.

Roast in hell you old biatch.

I have won SO many games of Trivial Pursuit because of that man.

Oh, yeah, good author too.

Gesundheit.

Actually, he died 3 days ago. They added days to his life because of the Leap years...

/too obscure?

LeafyGreens: Roast in hell you old biatch.

_{/jk, just my boilerplate death thread submission}

Wow. Just wow.

Before the USSR collapsed he and his wife lived way back in the woods someplace in Vermont, where the locals were so protective of his privacy there was a sign at the general store saying "No directions to the Solzhenitsyn's."

He has been one of my literary heroes since I read "Gulag Archipelago" at age 12. No lie. Wherever people like him go, I hope it makes up for everything he went through in his life.

RIP.

Loved "One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich." Always makes me really hungry and appreciative of food.

/somewhat shallow but true

Too bad we've forgotten his message to the world, and started our own little totalitarian system (yes, I'm looking at you, tobacco and saturated-fat Nazis) complete with our own Gulag (Gitmo plus the countless "secret" CIA prisons in foreign countries).

This book depressed me for years...

I'm going to miss "Soli" as I called him.
Used to play Chess with him here in Vermoont.
He had one rule:
Do not discuss politics.
Kicked my ass and drank me under the table every time.
R.I.P, Soli.
/never did get my chess board back.

Solzhenitsyn was history.

But we've forgotten our history, or never learned it in the first place.

We are doomed to repeat it.

I loved his hot dogs.

Seriously, though: some of the most thought provoking historical writing I have ever read. Truly a great loss.

I always love the Russian literary giants, among whom Solzhenitsyn was equal to Tolstoy and Dostoyevski. Nothing makes me feel more alive than reading some brutal Russian literature. That, and some Southern Gothic.

/Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy = best of Southern Gothic

vudukungfu: I'm going to miss "Soli" as I called him.
Used to play Chess with him here in Vermoont.
He had one rule:
Do not discuss politics.
Kicked my ass and drank me under the table every time.
R.I.P, Soli.
/never did get my chess board back.


See now THAT's interesting. More please.

Well, he was just some Johnny Saucep'n when he walked into that kitchen
An' the chef picked up the odor and put down his Solzhenitsyn
He said "Make yourself at home, boy, I just pre-warmed all the griddles.
You got seven minutes, starting now, to make some gourmet vittles."

/my first and, to date, last encounter with the man's name

vudukungfu

I'm going to miss "Soli" as I called him.
Used to play Chess with him here in Vermoont.
He had one rule:
Do not discuss politics.
Kicked my ass and drank me under the table every time.
R.I.P, Soli.
/never did get my chess board back.


So is it safe to assume you're from Cavendish, Vermont?

I read "One Day," "Cancer Ward," and "Gulag" the summer I turned 15. I was massively depressed for a month afterward. Amazing books. If you haven't read 'em, do it.

jerky on the veldt: Loved "One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich." Always makes me really hungry and appreciative of food.

Ahh, that explains his name in the above lyric.

WhyteRaven74: We read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in high school, sophomore year. Great read.

I didn't really "get it" until rereading in college when a professor asked me, "what makes you think it's not the same monotonous, repetitious life we all live, just with guards?" Still haunts me occasionally.

I had no idea he was still alive. It never occurred to me that he still could be alive.

WhyteRaven74: We read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in high school, sophomore year. Great read.

Funny, isn't it, how your English Lit teachers actually know what a really good book is worth?

Let's see... I've never re-read "A Tale of Two Cities," but I always admired the ending. And I have re-read "The Grapes of Wrath" at least twice, but now that I think of it, I'm not sure it was ever required reading. Steinbeck is just a darned good author for me.

3rd Circle also a great read, August 1917 good too. Yeah, I'm Russian Lit. crazy enough to have read all of his shiat and enjoyed most of it.
/RIP
//brap: vudukungfu: I'm going to miss "Soli" as I called him.
Used to play Chess with him here in Vermoont.
He had one rule:
Do not discuss politics.
Kicked my ass and drank me under the table every time.
R.I.P, Soli.
/never did get my chess board back.


See now THAT's interesting. More please.

rabidarmadillo24: I had no idea he was still alive. It never occurred to me that he still could be alive.

It's common among Russian authors to give the impression that they're writing while laying in their own deathbeds.

God, I love his books. I never made it through August 1914 but his others are some of my favorite books I've ever read.

Live not by lies, one of my favorite essays by Solzhenitsyn. (new window)

He had a small handful of strange ideas (especially regarding Ukraine) but he did a lot of good work, brilliant work. This was not the news I wanted to wake up to today.

Rest in peace, brother.

3felines
I read "One Day," "Cancer Ward," and "Gulag" the summer I turned 15. I was massively depressed for a month afterward. Amazing books. If you haven't read 'em, do it.

Only a month? It's been 25 years since I read him and I'm still depressed. "Cancer Ward" was probably my favorite. It seemed the most personal. I couldn't figure him out at the time, he wasn't what I expected from a dissident. Hearing the news and interviews on the BBC I realize now that he was mainly a Party guy who didn't like the turn things took under Stalin. Not that you can blame him.

His Nobel acceptance speech was fukkin epic

So who is the new "oldest living Nobel Prize winning author whose latest books are not being translated into English?"

I just finished reading "The Gulag Archipelago" last month. Everybody needs to read this book to understand the scope of what the Soviets were doing to people. And not just a few. Millions.

At one point they gave the Nobel Pize to Alexander Solzhenitsyn for standing up to the biggest dictator on the planet.

Now they give it to Al Gore, for running the biggest money-scam in history.

No further comment needed.

\\\ (throws up all over the floor)

Dostoyevsky>Tolstoy>Soli>Nabakov>Shakespeare

Whoa, let's not go overboard.

ScubaDude1960: Too bad we've forgotten his message to the world, and started our own little totalitarian system (yes, I'm looking at you, tobacco and saturated-fat Nazis) complete with our own Gulag (Gitmo plus the countless "secret" CIA prisons in foreign countries).

"But let us be generous. We will not shoot them. We will not pour salt water into them, nor bury them in bedbugs, nor bridle them up into a 'swan dive,' nor keep them on sleepless "stand-up" for a week, nor kick them with jackboots, nor beat them with rubber truncheons, nor squeeze their skulls with iron rings, nor push them into a cell so that they lie atop one another like pieces of baggage - we will not do any of the things they did! But for the sake of our country and our children we have the duty to seek them all out and bring them all to trial! Not to put them on trial so much as their crimes. And to compel each one of them to announce loudly:

'Yes, I was an executioner and a murderer.'"

--The Gulag Archipelago

There is a simple truth which one can learn only through suffering: in war not victories are blessed but defeats. Governments need victories and the people need defeats. Victory gives rise to the desire for more victories. But after a defeat it is freedom that men desire - and usually attain. A people needs defeat just as an individual needs suffering and misfortune; they compel the deepening of the inner life and generate a spiritual upsurge.

RIP

olddinosaur: \\\ (throws up all over the floor)

Nice. You need to offset that carbon footprint, now.

SilentStrider: i hate to say it, because i don't mean to be disrespectful, but I had no idea he was still alive.

Seriously, I thought he had died in the 1970s as well.
Also surprised that Ruby Chang was alive up until a couple months ago. These famous old people need to get out into the limelight before they die, so more young people appreciate what they have done. Perhaps go on Oprah or Steven Colbert or something?