We would be greatly remiss not to note the passing of one of the towering figures of the 20th Century, both in literature and in the wider arena of culture: Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

Solzhenitsyn turned unbelievable suffering into vital art, and through that art helped to bring an end to a mighty evil in the world. Exiled to America, he found this country a deep disappointment. When he addressed students at Harvard on the subject of good and evil, he was booed. Yet he persevered, and triumphed. He was a Christian, of the Orthodox faith.

He wrote in The Gulag Archipelago:

Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, 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. Even within hearts overwhlemed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil.

Father Dwight Longenecker over at First Things interviews author Anne Rice today on her journey from darkness toward the Light.

According to a report in the London Telegraph (via Conservative Grapevine), a former Special Branch policeman who helped guard Salman Rushdie says in his newly published autobiograpy that the author is such a jerk that his guards once locked him in a cupboard so they could spend a night out in a pub.

If there’s a lesson here, I fail to discern it. Other than that people are extremely complex organisms.

So Homer, Austen, Voltaire, and Wodehouse are in a sinking hot air balloon, arguing over who needs to be pitched in order to save the rest. What is this world coming to, I ask you? (via Books, Inq.)

Autbor Thomas M. Disch has died by his own hand at age 68, according to Joseph Bottum at First Things.

Endlessly talented, Tom was always a difficult character, with strange edges and an awkward, unbalanced and finally unbearably sad life.

Update: For some reason, the link at First Things has disappeared, along with several of the most recent posts. Perhaps it’ll be back later. The report from Locus is here.

Nathaniel Hawthorne met Abraham Lincoln once upon a time:

There is no describing his lengthy awkwardness, nor the uncouthness of his movement. … He was dressed in a rusty black frock-coat and pantaloons, unbrushed, and worn so faithfully that the suit had adapted itself to the curves and angularities, and had grown to be an outer skin of the man. . . . The whole physiognomy is as coarse a one as you would meet anywhere in the length and breadth of the States; but, withal, it is redeemed, illuminated, softened, and brightened by a kindly though serious look out of his eyes.

Speaking of Hawthorne, I have an interview from Audible.com with authors Orson Scott Card and Ben Bova in which they fall into talking about American literacy. They said public schools failed to teach a love for reading by forcing children to read hard, bad writing and telling them the books they might like to read are inferior quality. Card said Hawthorne was never a good writer and shouldn’t be forced on unsuspecting students as good literature. He took a shot at Moby Dick too, which is just sacrilegious.

Perhaps he’s feeling a bit spunky due to the movie production and comic book series of Ender’s Game. Nah, he probably feels this spunky all the time.

Alan Shalleck, who brought Curious George to TV and helped edit 30 books with the character’s co-creator, Margret Ray, was horribly murdered at his home in Boynton Beach, Florida, two years ago. The first man confessed; the second was convicted this week.