Writer. Contributing Editor at The Discarded Image. Digital Content Strategist. Here's where I publicly explore the books I'm reading, the projects I'm working on, and other current interests. the translation of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
It happened yesterday. The Nobel-winning Russian Orthodox prophet was finally welcomed from exile into his eternal home. What a story he could make of that experience!
Upon reflection, I can recall reading only one of his books, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (this new edition releases next month), probably during college. It’s a lapse I must soon remedy; this would take me a long way toward that goal.
The International Herald Tribune has a long biographical article, including this paragraph that captures his tenacious spirit:
At Ekibastaz, any writing would be seized as contraband. So he devised a method that enabled him to retain even long sections of prose. After seeing Lithuanian Catholic prisoners fashion rosaries out of beads made from chewed bread, he asked them to make a similar chain for him, but with more beads. In his hands, each bead came to represent a passage that he would repeat to himself until he could say it without hesitation. Only then would he move on to the next bead. He later wrote that by the end of his prison term, he had committed to memory 12,000 lines in this way.
(And I, with the aid of my laptop, complain about the effort of stringing words together!)
For a perspective on the spiritual implications of his work, see also this archived piece from Christianity Today, which reports him as once saying, “Religion is undoubtedly necessary [to humanity’s ultimate freedom], but it must not be forcibly implanted and even must not be intensively propagandized; it is passed from man to man as an intimate gift.”
Rest in peace.
