Феномен Солженицына

by Бенедикт Сарнов

Genres: Russia, Nonfiction

848 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Бенедикт Михайлович Сарнов родился 4 января 1927 г. в Москве. В 1951 г. он окончил Литературный институт имени М. Горького. В 1955-1959 гг. работал в журнале "Пионер" заведующим отделом литературы, в 1959-1963 гг. - в "Литературной газете". В 1989 г. вел в журнале "Огонек" рубрику "Русская проза. Двадцатый век. Из запасников". С 1990 г. был членом Координационного совета движения "Апрель", в 1992-1996 гг. - секретарем Союза писателей Москвы, членом редколлегии журнала "Русская виза". С 1997 г. - член комиссии по Государственным премиям при Президенте РФ. Академик АРСС (1997).
Печататься начал в 1948 г. Автор и соавтор многих литературоведческих книг, посвященных творчеству русских писателей: А. Блока, С. Маршака, Л. Пантелеева, О. Мандельштама, М. Зощенко, М. Булгакова и др. Опубликовал также сборник рассказов для детей "Трудная весна" (1962) и в соавторстве с Л. Лазаревым и С. Рассадиным книгу литературных пародий "Липовые аллеи" (1966). Печатает литературно-критические и публицистические статьи в журналах "Знамя", "Новый мир", "Огонек", "Октябрь", "Новое время" и др.
Лауреат премий фонда "Литературная мысль" (1994, 1997).

Reviews

[Pavel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here is "Phenomenon of Solzhenytsyn" which this great book describes: author of "One day of Ivan Denisovich" and "Gulag Archipelago",the man who went against nuclear state and in many ways has won the battle, Noble Prize winner, in course of the years turned into self-parody, bigheaded fool, lecturing everything and everybody and listening to no one, savage racist and antisemitе who worships Putin's power and most importantly - very weak, boring writer who's rather feeds you with his weird conservative ideology then creates works of art.
How the hell that could happen?
The answer Sarnov gives is that Solzhenytsyn was eaten alive by his "energy of errors". Little by little he was being convinced by himself and by others that he is the "greatest writer on our Russian land". He started to feel that he has right to demand bravery and generocity from other people where he had none. He started to break up with people who had even slightst doubt in his genious and in the end all that led him to think he can replace vital creative process with cold idelogical computation.
Sad story and great read! As always with Sarnov's prose you get very very detailed carefull investigation with thousands of quotes and finds, very argumentative and at the same time it reads like thriller... Solid 5 stars.