Overwriting Chaos

Richard Tempest examines Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's evolution as a literary artist from his early autobiographical novel <i>Love the Revolution</i> to the experimental mega-saga <i>The Red Wheel</i> and beyond. Tempest shows how this author gives his characters a presence so textured that we can readily imagine them as figures of flesh and blood and thought and feeling. The study discusses Solzhenitsyn's treatment of Lenin Stalin and the Russian Revolution; surprising predilection for textual puzzles and games à la Nabokov or even Borges; exploration of erotic themes; and his polemical interactions with Russian and Western modernism. Also included is new information about the writer's life and art provided by his family as well as Tempest's interviews with him in 2003-7.<br>