Yet another Solzhenitsyn Blog: Tolkien

Showing posts with label Tolkien. Show all posts

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Why don't more Tolkien fans like Solzhenitsyn?

An immense multi-volume work full of people with unusual names bravely battling a pervasively evil ruler. Doesn't this describe Gulag Archipelago as much as Lord of the Rings?

Why this blog?

I have two favorite writers, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and C.S. Lewis. When I began to discover the Internet in 1999 (yes I was slow, but I was living in Niger, Africa for most of the 90s), I wanted to find out what was available about my two favorite writers. To my delight, there was oodles of stuff about Lewis, and to this day I hang out at "Into the Wardrobe". But on Solzhenitsyn? Barely anything, other than a few short bios. I have recently found a Yahoo group on Solzhenitsyn, but there isn't a lot of activity in it. Although when they post, there are some very knowlegeable folks there.

If only there were as many Solzhenitsyn fans as Lewis fans! We could have endless discussions on Into the Sharashka about what really kept Rubin awake at night, or whatever happened to Shulubin, or the flame wars over at CanWard.net about the new movie, whether Britney Spears or Scarlett Johanssen would be best for Zoya, and what on earth the director was thinking about cutting out Shulubin's speech about ethical socialism.

Don't I wish :(

So I was inspired to try to start this blog to create at least a small bit of the ambiance that could happen if there were as many Solzhenitsyn fans on the Internet as there were Lewis fans. But this blog will not be limited to Solzhenitsyn pure and simple, after all one of the principles of Mavrino sharashka culture (and of Butyrki cell 53) is be interested in everything, and lets take the time to talk about it.

Will anyone ever read this? I don't know, I have no illusions. But at least it won't vanish in smoke over the Lubyanka.

I've had the privilege of reading Solzhenitsyn on three different continents (North America, Europe and Africa), but the closest I have ever come to anywhere in the books was eastern Switzerland. And the closest I've ever come to the prison experience is visiting an inmate in a California state prison.

Yet another Solzhenitsyn Blog

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Why don't more Tolkien fans like Solzhenitsyn?

Александр Исаевич Солженицын Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn

Why this blog?

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