Page Two
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Friday, March 13, 1970
Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Friday, March 13, 1970
Solzhenitsyn: A
By SHARON FITZHENRY
Alexander Solzhenitsyn is pro-
bably the greatest living writer
of Russian prose, and yet it is
not in Russia that his genius
is acknowledged, but in the west.
With a few exceptions, his
works have not, even been pub-
lished in Russia. It is not like-
ly that they will be and Solz-
henitsyn himself is subject to
constant harassment by the Rus-
sian authorities. He was expelled
from the Union of Writers in
1969 and the Russian govern-
ment has subsequently made
every effort to bury his work
and talent.
But interest and belief in
Solzhenitsyn will not die, es-
pecially on a college campus.
This was exemplified Wednesday
as over 250 people gathered to
hear Professor Max Hayward,
visiting lecturer from S a i n t
Anthony's College, Oxford Eng-
land, speak on the life and lit-
erature of the man who creat-
ed The First Circle."
Solzhenitsyn's works deal with
a central aspect of Russian life,
familiar to every citizen al-
though unnamed and unmen-
tioned by each of them. This was
the life in the concentration
and forced labor "work" camps
under Stalin, during the second
world war and after.
Solzhenitsyn has, as Professor
Hayward called it, "an obses-
sion" with this one topic and
his prose is most powerful when
he writes of the despair, drud-
gery and deadly routine of those
camps with which he was most
familiar.
In 1945 while Solzhenitsyn was
serving as an artillery officer
in the battle for Konigsberg, he
was arrested on charges of
treason and slander against the
Soviet system. He was sent to
Moscow and detained in the
Greater Lyubyanka pr i s o n
there. This experience repeated
itself in The First Circle. He
was tried in a closed session and
sentenced to eight years of hard
labor. His sentence began at
Mavrino, a prison research in-
stitute outside Moscow and
again, Solzhenitsyn presents the
same locale, exactly detailed in
his story of Gleb Nerzhin in
The First Circle. Mavrino was
the first circle of Dante's In-
ferno, the circle for the men
of letters and science who could
not be cast into the outer dark-
ness with the pagans. Thus May-
rino was relatively comfortable
although completely isolated.
Solzhenitsyn, however, refus-
ed to cooperate with the system
... perhaps because he had had
enough of Stalin's paranoic re-
search demands and ideas, per-
haps because of his desperate
desire for independence, for an
assertion of free will even at
the expense of his life. What-
ever the reason, Solzhenitsyn
was sent to Kazakstan in East-
ern Asia, a work camp where
over 100,000 were kept prison-
ers in several small completely
self-contained combines. T h I s
experience became the basisfor
One Day in the Life of Ivan
Denisovich, the only one of
Solzhenitsyn's novels to have
been published in Russia.
With Ivan Denisovich, Pro-
fessor Hayward believes, Solz-
henitsyn has made the first com-
pletely successful tranforma-
tion from intellectual author to
semi-literate protagonist. Ivan
is a true representative of the
common man and his characteri-
zation is the culmination of
many attempts on the part of
the Russian Intellegentsia to ex-
plore the personality of the
working class individual. Ivan
neither understands his crime
(he escaped from a German
POW camp and made his way
back to the Russian lines) nor
his punishment. He is like a
dumb animal, submitting to the
system and preoccupied with
only the minor everyday routines
that are forced upon him.
At the end of Solzhenitsyn's
eight-year sentence he was given
a life-long exile and forced to
remain in South East Asia. He
took a job as a school teacher
in Ryazan. In 1954 he became
ill with cancer and was sent to
Tashkent, the scene of Cancer
Ward. His tumor was arrested
and he returned to Ryazan
where he wrote One Day In The
Life, The First Circle and Can-
cer Ward, probably in that or-
der.
Solzhenitsyn was officially re-
habilitated in 1957.
One Day in the Life of Ivan
Denisovich was published in
1962 as a result of Kruschev's
personal intervention. The Rus-
sian government was at that
time in the midst of a rather
sharp political struggle. Krus-
chev himself was facing a strong
attack from the rightist ele-
ments and in an effort to dis-
credit his opponents, he order-
ed the publication (on a pri-
vate press, with limited editions)'
of One Day. Krushchev sought
to link several political figures
with the Stalinist characteriza-
tions in the book and to gain the
sympathy and support of the,
populace and Intellegentsia. This
belief
move failed and, as Professor
Hayward sees it, very possibly
contributed, in some way, to
Krushchev's downfall. The sense
of the novel gave rise to the
idea that 50 years of soviet
structure had resulted in little
more than a "universal prison."
Professor Hayward feels that
Solzhenitsyn is the "greatest liv-
ing prose writer in Russia", al-
though his works are "essenti-
ally of experience." He can de-
scribe only what he has seen
and gone through. Solzhenitsyn
has the ability to depict the "ex-
traordinary detail of the day's
routine." His eye is like the eye
of a camera and like' o t h e r
Russian writers before him, he
has the "ability to translate a
dreary, sordid and monotonous
routine into works of literary
excitement."
"In a sense, the concentra-
tion camp is taking to extremes
what is common to the human
situation in general", the sensa-
tion of what it is like to be
trapped in any routine.
Professor Hayward felt that
See SOLZHENITSYN, Page 12
film festival
d^ !!iTT
4
THE FUN STARTS AT
-:10-,3-5_-7-9 p.m.
An
9
r
By JO)
When Bru
Cinema Guildt
year's Ann Ar
is better than
isn't a review
Cinema Guild
agency. Butv
of Cinema II1
tival is at leas
last year's, eve
that Cinema I
nie and Clyde
partial criticis
This is John
II telling you
Ann Arbor Fi
least a fair cut
Just filling in
stell, folks. A
lovers there in
to dash right
Film Festivala
out of Bonnie
Thursday e
has its share
bit of their li
brick's 2001,i
programs hav
film, The Jupi
of its inspira
(the trip toJ
puter-dating s
wasn't Hal sor
puter date?),a
inspiration tot
white imagery
pelli. Theret
texture in Ja
story line wort
in Outer Spac
Walter Ung
about Oobielan
tain aura of]
Space aboutt
p a r t i a 11 y a
"live," with a
like little th
about in a ri
Rather like
nightmare se
wrong end ofa
Perhaps the
two batches o
films was Ch
The Sixties.A
sorts, it began
evening irom o
HN ALLEN tage of images wherein every-
ce H e n s t el l of thing appeared in supertripli-
tells you that this cate: rows of washing machines,
bor Film Festival hillsides of tickey-tack, ribbons
n earlier ones, it of automobiles, and the like.
: it's advertising. The faces and words of Nixon,
is the sponsoring b o t h assassinated Kennedies,
when John Allen Martin Luther King, and Gov.
tells you the fes- Wallace were fitted against im-
t a fair cut above ages of the war, police riots,
n on the weekend and the like. This kind of docu-
I is showing Bon- mentary has become something
, thatis fair, im- of a genre unto itself, but Brav-
m. erman's is a good one.
n Allen of Cinema Gerald Varney's Physical Fit-
that this year's ness, actually, may be the best
ilm Festival is at of the early evening, being
t above last year's. somewhat more complex in its
for Bruce Hen- pacing and structure. Its ele-
.nd all you film- ments are a small child jumping
Daily-land ought in the air, a bag of toy soldiers
over to see the being burnt, a hodge-podge of
as soon as you get wartime newsreel footage, and a
and Clyde. selection of clips from film and
vening's program TV comedies glorifying war,
of films owing a violence, and sundry American
ife blood to Ku- pasttimes.
just as the other For the more sentimental
ve. Jay Cassidy's there was an unpretentious film
ter Egg owes some called Dog, which mixed foot-
ation to Kubrick age of an old hound waddling
Jupiter, the com- through his last days with snap-
ervice . . I mean, shots of the same dog as a
nething of a com- puppy. The Bret and Jane
and the rest of its Bartner film was rounded out
the rich black and with ,Simon and Garfunkel r'e-
of George Manu- minding one to "preserve your
is a Manupellian memories-they're all that's left
ay's film, and a you."
hy of Dr. Chicago Post-midnight films, shown
dlter space
too late for inclusion in this
morning's Daily, include Ed
Emshwiller's latest effort, 'Im-
age, Flesh and Voice. Emshwil-
ler's film Relativity was a win-
net a couple years ago and has
become something of a classic
of the experimental cinema.
Well, folks, perhaps Bruce can
tell you all about iti tomorrow
when he's back on the job. Til
then, this is John Allen signing
off, reminding you that Cinema
II is planning to show 2001 next
fall, last weekend in September,
regular prices. See you there?
IA
DIAL 5-6291
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A FRANKOVICH PRODUCTION -q
a atxovuc o n
Academy Award
Nominee
(Best Supportin
Actress)
KI
Extra; Academy Nominee
Best Short:
"People Soup"
"The last wor~d
in thrillers.
Teriic."
-Gene Shalit,- Look Magazine
.4
theatre
11
SI Do! I Do!':
Funa
from family troubles
By LAURIE HARRIS
Shows that leave Broadway
and go on tour are often burd-
ened by stars that once were,
or stars that shall shortly be.
But the double bill of Phil Ford
and Mimi Hines in the PTP pre-
sentation of I Do! I Do! is
pleasantly the contrary.
I Do! I Do! is the musical
adaptation of Jan de Hortog's
The Four Poster!, about t h e
married life of one couple from
their wedding night to the day
they move out of their house
fifty years later. The story holds
all the traditional ups and
downs of marriage - children,
husband threatens to leave wife,
and wife threatens to leave hus-
band. But somehow they are
consister}tly reconciled and, ac-
cording to the rules of musical
comedy, therefore -happy.
Phil Ford and Mimi Hines
are married in life and bring
to the stage that little bit of
wisdom that they have been
through it all together, because,
indeed they have. Ford's pre-
tentious suavity and charm as
He and Miss Hines' clowning,
but sometimes serious antics as
She, compliment each other in
a highly tangible way.
It is as though they are do-
ing a comedy routine, written
strictly for the two of them, to
be seen in some night club. But
props (like a moveable, swing-
ing four posted bed) make it
necessary to be seen on stage.
Few people realize that be-
hind Miss Hines' impish com-'
edy routines on Johnny Carson
lies a voice that can span all
ranges with emotional intensity.
But it is alway obvious that her
forte is comedy for her uncanny
sense of timing never leaves her.
"Flaming Agnes" lets Miss
Hines' clown and prance her
way as the "racy middle aged
lady" defiant against the on-
slaught of menopause and a
husband in search of romance
with younger women. And F o r d,
depicts the successful writer who
finds himself definitely irresist-
able in "A Well Known Fact."
But the fact really is that these
two know each other in a way
that only a hint of a smile can
reveal. And their years of sing-
ing and doing comedy routine
together comes off in every duet.
Of course, any play that has
only two people in it leaves
some dialogue to be desired.
Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones
have supplied ample sections
where the individual partners of
the marriage converse with the
audience or to themselves. And
merely a little cliched trick, like
tossing a bouquet to the aud-
ience at the beginning, draws
each viewer into the confidence
of the couple.
But one wonders at the mod-
ernity of the couple, who a r e
supposed to have been married
at the turn of the century, fol-
lowing the child psychology of
Dr. Spock.
For those who ran out at the
very end to avoid the rush to
their air-polluting cars, y o u
missed 'a wonderfully typical
Mimi Hines clowning act while
her husband swung her around
on their moveable bed.
e.
gerer's two films
nd also had a cer-
Kubrick in Outer
them. Both were
nimated, partially
l sorts of germ-
hingums floating
ch sauce of color.
a Walt Disney
en through the
a microscope.
best of the first
if Thursday night
arles Braverman's
A documentary of
with a nice mon-
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