With the publication of The Oak and the Calf, Solzhenitsyn lays claim to yet another realm—that of autobiography….

Since Solzhenitsyn clearly possesses both literary credentials and a sense of mission, it is not surprising to find his book absorbing and significant. (p. 3)

It is as hard not to admire the author of The Oak and the Calf as it is not to be appalled by qualities so at variance with his calls for moral "repentance." Even his generally compassionate sketch of his benefactor, Tvardovsky, often reeks of acid….

Even more dismaying than Solzhenitsyn's personal characteristics are his political convictions and opinions, more worthy of a crude pamphleteer than of a responsible thinker. Those who have wondered whether Solzhenitsyn's increasingly strident and simple-minded views on the nature of Russia, communism and the West … represent perhaps some kind of an aberration, need wonder no longer: They are all expressed...