The writer's craft begins with his language.

Solzhenitsyn is undoubtedly an innovator in the field of language. His efforts to enliven the modern Russian language with the freshness and richness of popular speech, to soften the congealed bookishness, lifelessness, and platitudes in the literary language with living conversational elements, which are themselves based on the honesty and directness characteristic of common speech—these are his innovations. (p. 19)

Sincerity—merciless, courageous, and honest—is the essence of Solzhenitsyn's literary creations, a sincerity in which poetic and ethical elements merge into one definitive feature of his style and craft.

But sincerity demands the categorical rejection of clichés and hypocrisy, which had become rooted in the language of the literature contemporary to Solzhenitsyn. He had to find an equivalent mode of expression for sincerity. (pp. 23-4)

There was a need to find if not a "sting" (even though Solzhenitsyn uses...