A great redwood falls. Here’s the New York Times obituary. David Remnick is quoted several times in the piece:

David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, who has written extensively about the Soviet Union and visited Mr. Solzhenitsyn, wrote in 2001: “In terms of the effect he has had on history, Solzhenitsyn is the dominant writer of the 20th century. Who else compares? Orwell? Koestler? And yet when his name comes up now, it is more often than not as a freak, a monarchist, an anti-Semite, a crank, a has been.”

Speaking of greats, here’s the writeup of the William Maxwell celebration at Madison Square Park the other day, by our friend Ron Hogan.