"Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts.
This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained, And even in the best of all hearts, there remains.......an un-uprooted small corner of evil."
The Gulag Archipelago
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Open this small, well written work and this quote greets you .
Many have heard the name Solzhenitsyn -- some have read various amounts of his works, but many feel as a well known major newspaper reviewer said to me:
"I meant to read Ivan Denisovich shortly after it came out, didn't, and then decided that the later books were either too grim or sounded tendentious. "
"The Soul and Barbed Wire" fits and illuminates all comers.
The 239 smallish pages are divided into seven sections: Life, Works, Beliefs, Reception, Notes, Selected bibliography, Index. "Life" alone is well worth the price of admission.
"Works" gives brief, insightful, and very interesting information about each of AS's many ,and varied efforts. It alone, also merits the entrance ticket.
Ericson and Klimoff know their stuff.
Solzhenitsyn's rather sudden death -- although at an advanced age-- shocked his devoted readers (my son called me long distance). One Russian scholar thought of Nabokov's mother saying -- while out of Russia on vacation and learning of Tolstoy's death -- "Pora domoy" (we are going home).
You may have only heard the name, perhaps, when this Nobel winner died. You may know some of his actual writing -- or even know a lot about him and his works.
It does not matter, this new book gives a very fine picture of someone who understood, in an amazing fashion, the depths of " we mere mortals".
Please read this book; it is the real thing.
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