Tom Clancy and Solzhenitsyn

When I first realized Solzhenitsyn's original intention for Innokenty Volodin in the original version First Circle, I expressed my surprise by commenting "who was he trying to be, Tom Clancy?". But as I think about it, there are a certain number of parallels between the two. Yet obviously a lot of differences too, let me be clear. Tom Clancy wrote thrillers, where the action revolves around spies, plots to blow things up and start a nuclear war. Even the uncut version of First Circle, where Volodin wants to warn the Americans about Soviet spies getting their atomic secrets, is not at all a thriller.

But I think I see similarities. Essentially, Tom Clancy wrote thrillers, but he put realistic characters in them, and the characters thought about and cared about values, not just surviving the mission. To me, it seems that Clancy did a lot of research into Soviet life, and there are a lot of convincing details. (Maybe he made a few boners, that I just don't know about too.) And Clancy narrates his plots in a 'polyphonic' style, telling the tale from one characters perspective for a chapter, then another characters, etc. Also, Clancy, like Solzhenitsyn, likes to have flashbacks to depict his characters' backgrounds, to show how they got to be who they are in the current narrative. And, like Solzhenitsyn depicting Stalin in First Circle, Clancy gives us the portrait of what his villains are thinking and feeling.

And my initial reaction to Volodin in the uncut First Circle still holds up, I think. Clancy, like Solzhenitsyn, shows the USSR as an evil system oppressing common folks, and shows common folks coming to the conclusion that it would be the right thing to do to act against Soviet power. For Marko Ramius (Hunt for Red October), Mikhail Filitov (Cardinal of the Kremlin) and Vasily Zaitzev (Red Rabbit), just like for Innokenty Volodin, betraying the USSR is being loyal to humanity.