Solzhenitsyn: A Biography - Hardcover

Scammell, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393018024 ISBN 13: 9780393018028

Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc, 1984

Synopsis

Draws on new materials made available by the Solzhenitsyn family and on interviews with the writer himself to create a profile of this complex personality and of the culture from which he emerged

About this title

Review

"'Solzhenitsyn' is an entralling book. Its chief aim is to set the record straight, as far as possible, to sort out the facts from the myths and countermyths... but the story loses none of its power in the process, and the scholarly sifting and disentangling only add to its fascination." -  John Gross, The New York Times

"A fascinating, awe-inspiring book told with a storyteller's narrative flair and a scholar's meticulous attention to detail. [It] has all the heft and texture of an old-fashioned Russian novel... [and] is engagingly readable [and] thorough without ever being plodding. Solzhenitsyn, a Biography is eloquent testimony worthy of the many-sided man."" - Dan Cryer, Newsday

"Scammell's Solzhenitsyn, a Biography... is a wonderful book, and... despite its daunting length it makes a serious encounter with Solzhenitsyn easier rather than harder to undertake... [Scammell] does what Matthew Arnold enjoined the critic to do in dealing with a literary work: "To see the object as in itself it really is...." Scammell is himself so good a writer that his book is a pleasure to read. His prose is lucid and elegant; his scholarship is scrupulous, well-digested, and lightly carried; and his narrative pace is steady and sure."" - Norman Podhoretz, Commentary

"Michael Scammell's... enviably clear grasp of the complex Soviet scene, masterly control over a huge range of sources and majestic narrative sweep combine to make this one of the most memorable works of its kind.... He is certainly fortunate in having chosen as his subject matter what is arguably the most colourful literary career of all time. But equally it is no exaggeration to say that Solzhenitsyn has been fortunate in finding a biographer as sensitive, painstaking and level-headed as Michael Scammell." - Nikolai Tolstoy, The Sunday Times, London

"Hats off to Michael Scammell.... Solzhenitsyn -- no faint-heart himself -- has been fortunate to acquire a biographer who possesses qualities of tenacity and thoroughness similar to his own.... Scammell has achieved a sustained piece of very skillful writing.... To attain that level of unstrained readability, combined with the lucid exposition of a mass of often complex factual material, demands a kind of literary virtuosity that rarely gets its due recognition." - Michael Glenny, New Society

About this edition

• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Publication date: 1984
• ISBN 10: 0393018024
• ISBN 13: 9780393018028
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 1051