Yes, Boech knows how Sholokhov won Stalin’s approval by writing fiction and giving speeches that satisfied the ruthless dictator’s expectations. But he also discerns generally overlooked complexities, and, in this politically focused biography, he illuminates those complexities ... A haunting portrait of a gifted but flawed and ultimately self-lacerating soul.
In a provocative and sympathetic new biography, Brian J. Boeck accepts the likelihood of literary genesis emerging from a long-since destroyed set of documents, but he argues that Sholokhov conjured this raw material—sketches, newspaper clippings, letters, notebooks, diary entries and an unfinished novel—into an original work ... Sholokhov in this telling forced his way into literary greatness ... The man from the provinces, who never made Moscow his home, sparked his genius on his own rough stone ... Boeck forces us to reconsider [Sholokov's popular] biography, at least in part, and that is no small achievement.
Mr. Boeck’s biography tries to explain how Sholokhov lost the conscience he once had ... Since Stalin’s Scribe is a 'political biography,' not a literary one, we get no detailed analyses of the literary works, which may puzzle readers who expect the biography of a writer to discuss his writing. In his afterword, Mr. Boeck observes insightfully that faking one’s accomplishments and constructing a false identity were hardly offenses unique to Sholokhov.
In the first half of Stalin’s Scribe, Boeck traces Sholokhov’s road to that meeting, demystifying, insofar as possible, the heavily mythologized and painstakingly obscured details of the ambitious autodidact’s youth ... In the end, Boeck’s assessment of Sholokhov’s literary development is both fairer to the man and more revealing of the era [than previous reports] ... as Boeck’s biography testifies, it is possible to explain that diminution in productivity and quality with reference to the extreme pressure under which Sholokhov was trying to work ... Of course, dead authors can’t be held responsible for the uses to which they are put. But while they live, as Boeck’s insightful and compelling biography shows us, they should be wary of proximity to power: it singes talent.
In his second book, Boeck...works hard—and mostly successfully—'to reconcile the bold, uncompromising, and sympathetic Sholokhov…with the vindictive, mean-spirited man described in many accounts of late Soviet history' ... Boeck displays his wide range of knowledge of the Soviet Union and delivers an insightful, gripping, squirm-inducing portrait of a great author who loyally served his government—perhaps too loyally.
Boeck...paints a nuanced portrait in this literary biography of a Nobel Prize–winning Russian novelist and accused (but exonerated) plagiarist ... Boeck vividly relates how Sholokhov, whose fate 'hinged on satisfying a dictator’s literary cravings,' reached success during a time when other Soviet authors were being censored and imprisoned (and accusing Sholokhov of plagiarism) ... Boeck’s portrayal of his subject’s international ill-fame, habit of hiding his emotions, clashes with Stalin’s successor Khrushchev, and drinking bouts make this a deeply engaging take on an important literary figure.
