I am skeptical of any attempt to gauge the greatness of a literary artist when the criteria being considered are not directly related to literature. The recent passing of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has provided some fodder for skepticism.

Because of “the effect that he has had on history,” David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, believes that Solzhenitsyn deserves to be called the “dominant writer of the twentieth century.” Barry Gewen of the New York Times thinks the title should go to Orwell, whose “impact is less specific, more intangible but…more pervasive and longstanding.”

While Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago is tied to a specific regime in particularly dark century, Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm “are about the ineradicable evil, the inescapable will to power, that exists in all of us, which is why those books continue to be read and continue to resonate.” Since Orwell is more universal and timeless, he has more staying power.

Gewen expands the discussion to include a sort of literary influence. “Even today,” Gewen writes, “Orwell, with his prose like a window pane, is a model for countless writers; just about everyone who writes nonfiction wants to be like him, or to be him,” whereas “No one is ever called, or aspires to be, the Solzhenitsyn of our generation.” This is in part because “Solzhenitsyn turned into such a crank in his later years, unheeded even in his own country.” A complaint we’ve heard before about Solzhenitsyn, notably from Christopher Hitchens in his own obituary for Solzhenitsyn in Slate.

Neither political influence nor the type of literary influence that Gewen describes qualify as properly literary criteria for judging the greatness (or “dominance”) of a literary figure. What has Solzhenitsyn done for the Russian (and Western) novel? What has Orwell done for the essay? These questions are more appropriate in determining their literary greatness. Instead, Gewen and Remnick, interestingly, focus on the character of both men, which is also a worthwhile subject, though not necessarily a literary one.

Yet it is precisely the character of these men that so many would-be writers find attractive. So when we talk about either of them as “dominant literary figures,” we really mean to say that they are great men of the twentieth century, men who could speak the truth about their time.

But what do we mean by “greatness”? Regarding Orwell’s greatness, Gewen writes: “Orwell looked straight at the worst that human beings are capable of, and without the consolation of utopian expectations or spiritual support. Indeed, he seemed to take sadistic pleasure in rubbing our faces in evil’s indecency and ubiquity. Human nature was human nature, even if the humans were pigs. He didn’t turn away from the horror or yield to despair, and he didn’t retreat, either into irony or piety. He is the dominant writer, I would say, because he is the model for precisely the kind of courage we seem to require today.”

Is this really the sort of courage we need today? Gewen sets forth a strange form of stoicism and an incomplete philosophy. According to him, Orwell does not try to explain or find the meaning of the existence of evil. Orwell simply faces it, without fear and lives to write about it. But where do his courage and confidence come from? What certainty does Orwell have in the ultimate nobility of his cause, and the ultimate meaning of his vocation? Why not give into despair, why not turn to irony or piety? Look around—irony and piety are two of the most popular lifestyle choices today.

It is in addressing these questions that literary greatness meets personal integrity. And this is why I don’t follow Gewen’s dismissal of Solzhenitsyn as a “crank.” The great Russian lived longer than Orwell and had to face the ultimate questions about the sources of courage and meaning, and his search did not lead him to the modern liberal consensus that you and I enjoy today in the West. (“A decline in courage,” he told his audience at Harvard, “may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days.”) This doesn’t mean, however, that he has nothing to teach us, or that Orwell, a figure closer to our political sensibilities (though not as close as people seem to think), is the more “dominant” figure, whatever that may really mean.

Anyway, there is something about this whole discussion that makes me uncomfortable—the notion that writers are great because they tackle great subjects. But not everyone is born to a totalitarian society and has to deal with the greatest evils of his or her century. Some of us, to paraphrase Walker Percy, have a hard time just getting through a normal Wednesday afternoon. It is true that we could use a new Orwell or Solzhenitsyn—take a look at the headlines—but an artist devoted to prosperous, suburban mundanity wouldn’t be bad, either.