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Available
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Publication
Bantam (1972), Edition: 15th printing, Mass Market Paperback, 559 pages
Description
"Cancer Ward" examines the relationship of a group of people in the cancer ward of a provincial Soviet hospital in 1955, two years after Stalin's death. We see them under normal circumstances, and also reexamined at the eleventh hour of illness. Together they represent a remarkable cross-section of contemporary Russian characters and attitudes. The experiences of the central character, Oleg Kostoglotov, closely reflect the author's own: Solzhenitsyn himself became a patient in a cancer ward in the mid-1950s, on his release from a labor camp, and later recovered. Translated by Nicholas Bethell and David Burg.
User reviews
LibraryThing member DieFledermaus
This expansive novel follows the lives of a group of patients in the cancer ward of a provincial hospital. Solzhenitsyn based it on actual experience and used the sickness as a metaphor for the Soviet gulag system - "A man dies from a tumor, so how can a country survive with growths like labor
At first, the narrative follows Pavel Rusanov as he checks into the ward and endures discomfort both from his tumor and the surroundings. Then the focus expands to other characters including nurses, doctors and other patients. The central character, Oleg Kostoglotov, and Rusanov serve as foils to each other. Rusanov is a dogmatic and arrogant bureaucrat while Kostoglotov is a sardonic troublemaker who served time in the labor camp and is condemned to exile in perpetuity. Kostoglotov evokes more sympathy than Rusanov, who is constantly whining and rather irritating.
The constant allusions to the camps - and repression of such allusions - serves as one thread that connects disparate stories in the novel. Hospitals and sickness also provide another thread, and parallel the camps - the constant denials, authorities lying to the patients, who are powerless, and a pervasive atmosphere of hopelessness.
Solzhenitsyn doesn't just focus on the political, he also creates realistic portraits of people reacting to cancer. The depiction of pain allows the author to develop the parallels - real, physical pain, mental anguish over the disease and the unhealed wounds caused by the gulag system.
Love in Solzhenitsyn is mainly Kostoglotov's ephemeral relationship with the nurse Zoya and a deeper, unspoken attachment to shy but competent Dr. Gangart. Vera Gangart's relationships with the senior doctors and other patients are also well developed. Highly recommended.
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camps and exiles?"At first, the narrative follows Pavel Rusanov as he checks into the ward and endures discomfort both from his tumor and the surroundings. Then the focus expands to other characters including nurses, doctors and other patients. The central character, Oleg Kostoglotov, and Rusanov serve as foils to each other. Rusanov is a dogmatic and arrogant bureaucrat while Kostoglotov is a sardonic troublemaker who served time in the labor camp and is condemned to exile in perpetuity. Kostoglotov evokes more sympathy than Rusanov, who is constantly whining and rather irritating.
The constant allusions to the camps - and repression of such allusions - serves as one thread that connects disparate stories in the novel. Hospitals and sickness also provide another thread, and parallel the camps - the constant denials, authorities lying to the patients, who are powerless, and a pervasive atmosphere of hopelessness.
Solzhenitsyn doesn't just focus on the political, he also creates realistic portraits of people reacting to cancer. The depiction of pain allows the author to develop the parallels - real, physical pain, mental anguish over the disease and the unhealed wounds caused by the gulag system.
Love in Solzhenitsyn is mainly Kostoglotov's ephemeral relationship with the nurse Zoya and a deeper, unspoken attachment to shy but competent Dr. Gangart. Vera Gangart's relationships with the senior doctors and other patients are also well developed. Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member deebee1
A very moving story of life and death, of disease and recovery, of love and discovery. We get a glimpse of the lives of the patients in the male cancer ward, and the medical team, none of whom escaped the long and heavy arm of the Stalin regime and thus have a story to tell. The main character,
From the discussions that occur between the characters, we get a picture of Stalinist Russia. They have intense debates about morality, about the role of medicine. Fiercely defended individual positions reveal the tension of class relations. There is, however, a wonderful dynamism in these exchanges, even if some were bitter and felt pointless -- it showed that the damage in their bodies had not touched their minds. In a way, this is symbolic – the cancer in the society brought by the regime could reach and even destroy the body, but never the mind.
This novel was depressing a lot of times, one feels very much for their agony and the seeming hopeless battle against cancer, but we also see strength especially on the part of the doctors, who despite their own personal battles, try to overcome severe resource limitations with great ingenuity and much hard work, becoming themselves symbols of hope and deliverance. Authentic in its portrayal (Solzhenitsyn himself was a patient in a cancer ward, after his release from the camps), Solzhenitsyn doesn't spare us from anything – we feel the daily grind of treatment and care, denial, the shadow of death looming over each bedside, the fear of death, resignation. We feel Kostoglotov's tortured personality, his wonder, curiosity, pig-headedness, and difficulty to accept love, acceptance – sensations he had learned to forget during his long, hard years in the prison camps. The story ends with Kostoglotov's release, but we do not know what is in store for him – we continue to feel his powerlessness -- against a remission, and the uncertainty of the sweeping changes that were taking place after Stalin's death.
Solzhenitsyn speaks with authority because he has been there. His fiction is no fiction at all – they are powerful accounts of true events, of real lives, of the weight of history, and of some unknown source within us of frail but unyielding hope against all odds. There is much cruelty and injustice, but there is also redemption. This is the stuff of truly great literature.
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Kostoglotov is a labor camp survivor and is an "exile in perpetuity", then there is the loyal party member Pavel Nikolayevich; a talented, ambitious young man, a couple of young students, some old Khazaks and Uzbeks, other exiles -- the ward represents a cross-section of Russia who for all they represented in the outside world, were all reduced and made equal by cancer to the same sorry mass of misery. From the discussions that occur between the characters, we get a picture of Stalinist Russia. They have intense debates about morality, about the role of medicine. Fiercely defended individual positions reveal the tension of class relations. There is, however, a wonderful dynamism in these exchanges, even if some were bitter and felt pointless -- it showed that the damage in their bodies had not touched their minds. In a way, this is symbolic – the cancer in the society brought by the regime could reach and even destroy the body, but never the mind.
This novel was depressing a lot of times, one feels very much for their agony and the seeming hopeless battle against cancer, but we also see strength especially on the part of the doctors, who despite their own personal battles, try to overcome severe resource limitations with great ingenuity and much hard work, becoming themselves symbols of hope and deliverance. Authentic in its portrayal (Solzhenitsyn himself was a patient in a cancer ward, after his release from the camps), Solzhenitsyn doesn't spare us from anything – we feel the daily grind of treatment and care, denial, the shadow of death looming over each bedside, the fear of death, resignation. We feel Kostoglotov's tortured personality, his wonder, curiosity, pig-headedness, and difficulty to accept love, acceptance – sensations he had learned to forget during his long, hard years in the prison camps. The story ends with Kostoglotov's release, but we do not know what is in store for him – we continue to feel his powerlessness -- against a remission, and the uncertainty of the sweeping changes that were taking place after Stalin's death.
Solzhenitsyn speaks with authority because he has been there. His fiction is no fiction at all – they are powerful accounts of true events, of real lives, of the weight of history, and of some unknown source within us of frail but unyielding hope against all odds. There is much cruelty and injustice, but there is also redemption. This is the stuff of truly great literature.
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LibraryThing member Cecilturtle
There is something phenomenally modern about this novel. The physical and mental fatigue of the doctors and the patients. The differences in cast and how they translate into disdain or fear. The hopes and anger against fate, dogma, systems or even of our very own selves. Solzhenistyn constructs an
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incredibly powerful novel around a variety of voices which express every human emotion from shame to vindictiveness, friendship to solitude, love to isolation. Never is it dull, even in its political criticisms: on the contrary the reader is constantly pulled from a now dead world of communism to the still real world of disease, power struggles and helplessness. Show Less
LibraryThing member fundevogel
This book had been sitting my shelf for years mocking me. No more.
I feel a little bad saying I enjoyed reading this book. It seems kinda wrong to enjoy a book about sick people living under an oppressive government. But it is very well written and has a wry sort of humor to it. Honestly it reminded
The book's strength is in it's characters. It's an ensemble cast and the characters come from all sorts of backgrounds with various perspectives. The story is written from the point of view of it's characters and Solzhenitsyn is able to shift gracefully from the draconic mind of the dedicated party-man to the studious young liberal without hitch.
With his diverse characters Solzhenitsyn is able to address a range of issues greater than any one of his characters could. Through the hospital staff we learn about the critical shortage of supplies, overtaxed equipment and the entrenchment of bad workers that do none of their own work leaving the dedicated workers with double workloads. We learn about the doctors' naive insensitivity to a patient's right to know what his condition and treatment is let alone his right to approve or refuse treatment. But some of the most rousing issues are raised and debated aggressively by the characters themselves, usually with the primary protagonist, Oleg Kostoglotov, spitting fire across the ward.
Ultimately it was a captivating read though the ending turned my perspective of the protagonist on its head. For all his intellect and fiery political opinions Kostoglotov was a prisoner that needed his prison. He was institutionalized, not it in the dependent, helpless way we usually think of it, but he had come to define himself with the bars he beat himself against and without them he didn't know who he was.
I feel a little bad saying I enjoyed reading this book. It seems kinda wrong to enjoy a book about sick people living under an oppressive government. But it is very well written and has a wry sort of humor to it. Honestly it reminded
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me of Catch-22, but wryer, much wryer.The book's strength is in it's characters. It's an ensemble cast and the characters come from all sorts of backgrounds with various perspectives. The story is written from the point of view of it's characters and Solzhenitsyn is able to shift gracefully from the draconic mind of the dedicated party-man to the studious young liberal without hitch.
With his diverse characters Solzhenitsyn is able to address a range of issues greater than any one of his characters could. Through the hospital staff we learn about the critical shortage of supplies, overtaxed equipment and the entrenchment of bad workers that do none of their own work leaving the dedicated workers with double workloads. We learn about the doctors' naive insensitivity to a patient's right to know what his condition and treatment is let alone his right to approve or refuse treatment. But some of the most rousing issues are raised and debated aggressively by the characters themselves, usually with the primary protagonist, Oleg Kostoglotov, spitting fire across the ward.
Ultimately it was a captivating read though the ending turned my perspective of the protagonist on its head. For all his intellect and fiery political opinions Kostoglotov was a prisoner that needed his prison. He was institutionalized, not it in the dependent, helpless way we usually think of it, but he had come to define himself with the bars he beat himself against and without them he didn't know who he was.
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LibraryThing member Mockers
Get past the difficult names and enjoy. Searing satire on the Soviet system but hugely enjoyable.
LibraryThing member chichikov
Solzhenitsyn's usual well drawn characters playing out a moral drama that is only understood by the lone, sensitive, thinking man who has been thru the schools of WWII and the Gulag.
LibraryThing member jwhenderson
The story takes place in the men's cancer ward of a hospital in a city in Soviet Central Asia. The patients in Ward 13 all suffer from cancer, but differ in age, personality, nationality, and social class (as if such a thing could be possible in the Soviet "classless" society!). We are first
"The hard lump of his tumor--unexpected, meaningless and quite without use--had dragged him in like a fish on a hook and flung him onto this iron bed--a narrow, mean bed, with creaking springs and an apology for a mattress."(p 10)
Solzhenitzyn himself was released from a labor camp in early 1953, just before Stalin's death, and was exiled to a village in Kazakhstan. While incarcerated, he had been operated on for a tumor, but was not told the diagnosis. He subsequently developed a recurrence, received radiotherapy in Tashkent, and recovered.
The narrative places its focus on the central character of Oleg Kostoglotov, a young man who has recently been discharged from a penal camp and is now "eternally" exiled to this particular province. Only two weeks earlier, he was admitted to the ward in grave condition from an unspecified tumor, but he has responded rapidly to radiation therapy. Among the doctors are Zoya, a medical student; Vera Gangart, a young radiologist; and Lyudmila Dontsova, the chief of radiation therapy.
Rusanov and Kostoglotov respond to therapy and are eventually discharged; other patients remain in the ward, get worse, or are sent home to die. In the end Kostoglotov boards a train to the site of his "eternal" exile: "The long awaited happy life had come, it had come! But Oleg somehow did not recognize it."
In The Cancer Ward Solzhenitzyn transforms his own experiences into a multifaceted tale about Soviet society during the period of hope and liberalization after Stalin's death. While Cancer, of course, is an obvious metaphor for the totalitarian state there is also a penetrating look at mid-century Soviet medicine and medical ethics.
“But substantial X-ray treatment is impossible without transfusion!” “Then don’t give it! Why do you assume you have the right to decide for someone else? Don’t you agree it’s a terrifying right, one that rarely leads to good? You should be careful. No one’s entitled to it, not even doctors.” “But doctors are entitled to that right—doctors above all,” exclaimed Dontsova with deep conviction. By now she was really angry. “Without that right there’d be no such thing as medicine!”
Of course, the paternalism evident here (e.g. lack of truth-telling and informed consent) was also characteristic of medicine in other countries in the 1950's and remains an important concern in professional ethics.
The novel also explores the personal qualities and motivation of physicians, and the issue of intimate relationships between doctors and patients. The most incisive aspects of the book are its insight into human nature and the realism of its characters.
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introduced to Pavel Rusanov, a Communist Party functionary, who enters the hospital because of a rapidly-growing neck tumor."The hard lump of his tumor--unexpected, meaningless and quite without use--had dragged him in like a fish on a hook and flung him onto this iron bed--a narrow, mean bed, with creaking springs and an apology for a mattress."(p 10)
Solzhenitzyn himself was released from a labor camp in early 1953, just before Stalin's death, and was exiled to a village in Kazakhstan. While incarcerated, he had been operated on for a tumor, but was not told the diagnosis. He subsequently developed a recurrence, received radiotherapy in Tashkent, and recovered.
The narrative places its focus on the central character of Oleg Kostoglotov, a young man who has recently been discharged from a penal camp and is now "eternally" exiled to this particular province. Only two weeks earlier, he was admitted to the ward in grave condition from an unspecified tumor, but he has responded rapidly to radiation therapy. Among the doctors are Zoya, a medical student; Vera Gangart, a young radiologist; and Lyudmila Dontsova, the chief of radiation therapy.
Rusanov and Kostoglotov respond to therapy and are eventually discharged; other patients remain in the ward, get worse, or are sent home to die. In the end Kostoglotov boards a train to the site of his "eternal" exile: "The long awaited happy life had come, it had come! But Oleg somehow did not recognize it."
In The Cancer Ward Solzhenitzyn transforms his own experiences into a multifaceted tale about Soviet society during the period of hope and liberalization after Stalin's death. While Cancer, of course, is an obvious metaphor for the totalitarian state there is also a penetrating look at mid-century Soviet medicine and medical ethics.
“But substantial X-ray treatment is impossible without transfusion!” “Then don’t give it! Why do you assume you have the right to decide for someone else? Don’t you agree it’s a terrifying right, one that rarely leads to good? You should be careful. No one’s entitled to it, not even doctors.” “But doctors are entitled to that right—doctors above all,” exclaimed Dontsova with deep conviction. By now she was really angry. “Without that right there’d be no such thing as medicine!”
Of course, the paternalism evident here (e.g. lack of truth-telling and informed consent) was also characteristic of medicine in other countries in the 1950's and remains an important concern in professional ethics.
The novel also explores the personal qualities and motivation of physicians, and the issue of intimate relationships between doctors and patients. The most incisive aspects of the book are its insight into human nature and the realism of its characters.
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LibraryThing member strandbooks
It took me a while to read this book. I could only sit through 1-2 chapters at a time and felt like I was slogging through. But as I got nearer to the end I realized I was learning a lot about USSR during the 1950's. I wish I had written some of the quotes down as there were ones I'd like to
The story focuses on a provincial hospital and overworked doctors and nurses caring for cancer patients. Solzhenitsyn was able to mix classes of people who would never meet in daily life: burecrats in love with the party, exiled political prisoners, people of other ethnicities who couldn't become Citizens, etc. Mixing them together during cancer treatment at a time where the cracks are showing in many citizens beliefs in the party, even if they believed in it while Stalin was alive, creates a combustible atmosphere within the ward.
Many of the discussions still hold relevance today. During the chapter The Old Doctor, there is an argumenent about universal health care, who it should be given to, who should pay for it, and how much does each person deserve.
Once again, like every other Russian novels I've read, the names confuse me. Everyone seems to have 2 names that some people can use and another 1 or 2 that others can use. Examples: Dr Oreshchendov is also called Dormidont Tikhonovich, Ludmila Afanasyevna is also Ludochka Dontsova and so on for every character. I need to realize it is always worth it to keep a notecard of names as a bookmark or else I get completly lost.
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remember.The story focuses on a provincial hospital and overworked doctors and nurses caring for cancer patients. Solzhenitsyn was able to mix classes of people who would never meet in daily life: burecrats in love with the party, exiled political prisoners, people of other ethnicities who couldn't become Citizens, etc. Mixing them together during cancer treatment at a time where the cracks are showing in many citizens beliefs in the party, even if they believed in it while Stalin was alive, creates a combustible atmosphere within the ward.
Many of the discussions still hold relevance today. During the chapter The Old Doctor, there is an argumenent about universal health care, who it should be given to, who should pay for it, and how much does each person deserve.
Once again, like every other Russian novels I've read, the names confuse me. Everyone seems to have 2 names that some people can use and another 1 or 2 that others can use. Examples: Dr Oreshchendov is also called Dormidont Tikhonovich, Ludmila Afanasyevna is also Ludochka Dontsova and so on for every character. I need to realize it is always worth it to keep a notecard of names as a bookmark or else I get completly lost.
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LibraryThing member brillow51
After 30 plus reviews, I doubt anyone is interested in the 31 plus more... but I have to say the imagery of Solzhenitsyn is sharp as a tack. How he describes the hospital beds as groaning in protest, and describing a hospital staff member's eyes as brown as coffee with two fingers of cream. The
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oppression of Russia in the 1950's reminds me eerily of what American is fast becoming today: if your views/opinions are unpopular with the status quo, you are punished in one way or the other... food for thought. Show Less
LibraryThing member Kristelh
The Cancer Ward by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, Translated from Russian by Rebecca Frank, The Dial Press, Inc. New York 1968
This is the second book by Solzhenitsyn that I have read. I really enjoy his writing. The first book I read was about life in the prison camp, One Day in the Life of Ivan
The story takes place in a hospital in a place similar to Tashkent, 1955. Stalin died in 1953. After this there was amnesty for prisoners (only petty criminals). In 1955 there was a startling event. The old members of the Supreme Court were dismissed. De-Stalinization had begun. This event is part of this story. Some other themes include “sincerity in literature”, the tragedy of biology when biologists were purged, the expediters of the black market system, Another major theme is the women in Russia. Women did men’s work. Most of the country’s doctors were women. Russia had lost twenty million men in the war. There was a shortage of men. Women were doomed to loneliness. Vera, one of the doctors in the story, talks about this shortage and how the men that are available prefer to marry women much younger than their own cohorts.
I also enjoyed this story for the medical aspect. This looks at the early treatment of cancer and while it is not necessarily accurate, I think it did an excellent job of representing medical care in the fifties. The treatments were harsher than they are now (they still are harsh). Radiation was done until there was serious side effects and a necessity to stop. There is reference to herbal treatments; birth tree mushroom and issyk-kul root. A person with cancer will seek out these treatments because with the diagnosis of cancer, everything must be tried and people do feel safer with herbals and naturals even though their safety isn’t always anymore than the medicines. The hope and fears of the various men on the ward are accurately described. The characters are people from various nationalities and walks of life, The doctors are women and the nurse is studying to be a doctor. The orderly who cleans the ward is a woman, exile.
There were many great quotes and the author’s prose is wonderful. His descriptions bring the scenes to life.
“he was saying dangerous things, no only things one shouldn’t repeat to anyone, but things one shouldn’t even listen to.”
There is a great section on optimism. The Kadmins are exiled in the same place the main character is exiled. He describes their joy in life. They experienced joy in exile because in exile they could appreciate what you would not think to appreciate in plenty.
“It is not the standard of living that makes us happy, it is the way we feel, the way we look at life.”
“---man is always happy if he wants to be and no can stop him---”
“it took a misfortune for fresh air to blow into their life”
“--if we first cease to love animals, will we not cease to love people” (the significance of the Kadmins dog being shot by people in the village. The dog was like their children
“A man sprouts a tumor and dies--how, then, can a country live that has sprouted camps and exile?”
I rate this book; ★★★★★
This is the second book by Solzhenitsyn that I have read. I really enjoy his writing. The first book I read was about life in the prison camp, One Day in the Life of Ivan
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Denisovich. Solzhenitsyn was born in southern Russia in 1918. Communism had taken power. The author fought in WWII. Solzhenitsyn was arrested, stripped of rank and decorations for derogatory remarks about Stalin in letters that he had written. He was sentenced without trial to eight years of forced labor followed by exile. His first book, One Day In the Life of Ivan Denisovich came from his experience in a Siberian labor camp. He served four years of his eight years in a research institute manned by prisoners as a mathematician. This led to the second novel, The First Circle. I haven’t read it yet. In 1953, Solzhenitsyn was released from a labor camp and entered “eternal” exile on the edge of the desert in Kazakhstan. He taught school. While in the labor camp, the author was operated on for a tumor but not told the nature of his ailment. He suffered extreme pain and recurring illness. He was treated in Tashkent for cancer and he recovered. Out of this experience came this book. The story takes place in a hospital in a place similar to Tashkent, 1955. Stalin died in 1953. After this there was amnesty for prisoners (only petty criminals). In 1955 there was a startling event. The old members of the Supreme Court were dismissed. De-Stalinization had begun. This event is part of this story. Some other themes include “sincerity in literature”, the tragedy of biology when biologists were purged, the expediters of the black market system, Another major theme is the women in Russia. Women did men’s work. Most of the country’s doctors were women. Russia had lost twenty million men in the war. There was a shortage of men. Women were doomed to loneliness. Vera, one of the doctors in the story, talks about this shortage and how the men that are available prefer to marry women much younger than their own cohorts.
I also enjoyed this story for the medical aspect. This looks at the early treatment of cancer and while it is not necessarily accurate, I think it did an excellent job of representing medical care in the fifties. The treatments were harsher than they are now (they still are harsh). Radiation was done until there was serious side effects and a necessity to stop. There is reference to herbal treatments; birth tree mushroom and issyk-kul root. A person with cancer will seek out these treatments because with the diagnosis of cancer, everything must be tried and people do feel safer with herbals and naturals even though their safety isn’t always anymore than the medicines. The hope and fears of the various men on the ward are accurately described. The characters are people from various nationalities and walks of life, The doctors are women and the nurse is studying to be a doctor. The orderly who cleans the ward is a woman, exile.
There were many great quotes and the author’s prose is wonderful. His descriptions bring the scenes to life.
“he was saying dangerous things, no only things one shouldn’t repeat to anyone, but things one shouldn’t even listen to.”
There is a great section on optimism. The Kadmins are exiled in the same place the main character is exiled. He describes their joy in life. They experienced joy in exile because in exile they could appreciate what you would not think to appreciate in plenty.
“It is not the standard of living that makes us happy, it is the way we feel, the way we look at life.”
“---man is always happy if he wants to be and no can stop him---”
“it took a misfortune for fresh air to blow into their life”
“--if we first cease to love animals, will we not cease to love people” (the significance of the Kadmins dog being shot by people in the village. The dog was like their children
“A man sprouts a tumor and dies--how, then, can a country live that has sprouted camps and exile?”
I rate this book; ★★★★★
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LibraryThing member BirdBrian
All the horrors of Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union fall away when cancer enters one's life. Its impact on daily existence is much more immediate than any political system's. Cancer Ward explores how the disease transforms the lives of ten men on the oncology ward of a small hospital in Uzbekistan in
Aleksi suffers rectal cancer, and looks back on a life of quiet sufferring under the totalitarian system. An intellectual who kept his criticisms to himself, either to avoid "rocking the boat", to benefit his career, or to protect his family from adverse consequences, Aleksi now contemplates how the system never did change for the better, despite his hopes. He considers the bleak future, with its promise of continued oppression for his children, stretching out indefinitely, and wonders how things might have been different if he had found the courage to say something. Anything. Could he have made a difference, or is he just torturing himself? Who could ever know? The point is, this is the sort of tough appraisal of one's life which cancer forces on people.
Another character, Yefrem, has an unnamed, but fatal diagnosis. After a long career as a hard-edged pragmatic upper-level bureaucrat, he wonders what it was all for. Three decades spent pouring over production quotas, fixing industrial equipment rotation schedules, answering to overseers in endless committee meetings... how did this become the stuff of his brief walk on planet Earth? With a few months left, he picks up Tolstoy and begins to read.
Meanwhile, Friedrich- ever loyal to the Party, refuses to let cancer invalidate his past. In a way, this is his own way of defying his diagnosis: refusing to let it change his mind, however much it is changing his body.
Please don't think Cancer Ward is continually ponderous and gloomy; there are some lighter moments. Main character Oleg rebels against his stomach cancer the best way he knows how: with a life-affirming effort to bed beautiful nurse Zoya... and later, to do the same with the more sophisticated Dr. Vera Kornilyevna! For her part, Vera is a complex character who raises some important questions about maintaining an appropriate professional distance from patients.
Ever politically-minded, Solzhenitzen uses these men as vehicles to explore aspects of Soviet life, but he never allows the commentary to overpower his handling of the characters (contrast to Ayn Rand!). Cancer Ward is considered semi-autobiographical, in that it draws heavily from Solzhenitsyn's own experiences with cancer in his forties, which kept him incapacitated for almost a year during a period of imprisonment on political charges. The novel is at its best when showing how cancer recasts one's priorities, particularly the last several chapters, which follow Oleg after his discharge from the hospital. It is here that Solzhenitsen so artistically renders the world transformed through the eyes of patient who has battled for his life. The ideas of "simple pleasures" or a sense of wonder at the world around us do not seem trite or cliche; they are embraced with a deeply-felt sense of gratitude. The gift of being allowed to exist one more day is not taken for granted by somebody who very nearly had it taken away.
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1955... but it is not a "medical drama". That is to say, its plot does not focus on the process of making diagnoses or rendering treatments, and there is no sense that the author is enamoured with the exoticism of medical hardware, or awed by the staff's knowledge and training. What this really is, is a story about the humbling and equalizing power of serious illness. The main characters comprise a mix of cultural, ethnic, and social-status backgrounds, representing all walks of Soviet life. They would have never come in contact with one another, but for their disease. Now, facing death (Vadim's melanoblastoma) or debilitation (Dyomka's amputation), they grow to know one another and depend on each other for support. There are no earth-shaking plot twists here, and no life-or-death high drama (i.e. no one-in-a-million surgeries, no risky experimental drugs with a slim chance of complete remission) instead, life is a boring grind of radiation treatments in front of a dull humming metal box. Despite the lack of "action", the novel is a showcase for Solzhenitsyn's skill in creating memorable characters and exploring what they do in these most difficult circumstances.Aleksi suffers rectal cancer, and looks back on a life of quiet sufferring under the totalitarian system. An intellectual who kept his criticisms to himself, either to avoid "rocking the boat", to benefit his career, or to protect his family from adverse consequences, Aleksi now contemplates how the system never did change for the better, despite his hopes. He considers the bleak future, with its promise of continued oppression for his children, stretching out indefinitely, and wonders how things might have been different if he had found the courage to say something. Anything. Could he have made a difference, or is he just torturing himself? Who could ever know? The point is, this is the sort of tough appraisal of one's life which cancer forces on people.
Another character, Yefrem, has an unnamed, but fatal diagnosis. After a long career as a hard-edged pragmatic upper-level bureaucrat, he wonders what it was all for. Three decades spent pouring over production quotas, fixing industrial equipment rotation schedules, answering to overseers in endless committee meetings... how did this become the stuff of his brief walk on planet Earth? With a few months left, he picks up Tolstoy and begins to read.
Meanwhile, Friedrich- ever loyal to the Party, refuses to let cancer invalidate his past. In a way, this is his own way of defying his diagnosis: refusing to let it change his mind, however much it is changing his body.
Please don't think Cancer Ward is continually ponderous and gloomy; there are some lighter moments. Main character Oleg rebels against his stomach cancer the best way he knows how: with a life-affirming effort to bed beautiful nurse Zoya... and later, to do the same with the more sophisticated Dr. Vera Kornilyevna! For her part, Vera is a complex character who raises some important questions about maintaining an appropriate professional distance from patients.
Ever politically-minded, Solzhenitzen uses these men as vehicles to explore aspects of Soviet life, but he never allows the commentary to overpower his handling of the characters (contrast to Ayn Rand!). Cancer Ward is considered semi-autobiographical, in that it draws heavily from Solzhenitsyn's own experiences with cancer in his forties, which kept him incapacitated for almost a year during a period of imprisonment on political charges. The novel is at its best when showing how cancer recasts one's priorities, particularly the last several chapters, which follow Oleg after his discharge from the hospital. It is here that Solzhenitsen so artistically renders the world transformed through the eyes of patient who has battled for his life. The ideas of "simple pleasures" or a sense of wonder at the world around us do not seem trite or cliche; they are embraced with a deeply-felt sense of gratitude. The gift of being allowed to exist one more day is not taken for granted by somebody who very nearly had it taken away.
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LibraryThing member john257hopper
Unfinished (only reached page 76). This was dull. Obviously one does not read Solzhenitsyn for fun, but this was nowhere near as interesting as First Circle and didn't look like it was going to pick up anytime soon.
LibraryThing member nandadevi
This is simply stunning. Possibly not the greatest, but certainly the most powerful novel ever written. Compared to this War and Peace is just entertainment, The Plague is just a shallow morality story, and Ulysses just a minor exercise in introspection. All these are 'great' novels, but you can't
But the power of this novel transcends these events (who remembers Lech these days?), and even Solzhenitsyn. But Solzhenitsyn, tapping perhaps into some of the most profound suffering of any man alive, wrote a story - tore it out of his own life - that ultimately faces the question 'what is it to be alive'. And perhaps the imminence of death - for he was in that Cancer Ward, is the key to the ability of this novel to rip the ground out from underneath you, and leave you standing on, just nothing except perhaps (if you can at least pretend to believe) some shred of personal decency and integrity. But Solzhenitsyn gives you no assurance on that, none at all. Which means that this is not a comfortable or easy book, which is why I talk about its power rather than it's greatness. Oddly enough I find that this book works even better if you start with Ivan Denisovich; it's the context, what he comes from, and what he returns to. What we have come from, what we may return to.
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imagine them bringing down a government (but don't forget Zola...). That is not to say that Solzhenitsyn did, but he certainly intended to. You would have had to be there to appreciate what his 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich' did to the romantic myth of Soviet Communism. But if that was a Katusha rocket, 'Cancer Ward' was a hydrogen bomb, for those that took the time to see it. Or to put it in another context, Solzhenitsyn bears as much (to my mind) responsibility as Reagan or Gorbachov or Lech Welesca for bringing the Soviet Empire to an end.But the power of this novel transcends these events (who remembers Lech these days?), and even Solzhenitsyn. But Solzhenitsyn, tapping perhaps into some of the most profound suffering of any man alive, wrote a story - tore it out of his own life - that ultimately faces the question 'what is it to be alive'. And perhaps the imminence of death - for he was in that Cancer Ward, is the key to the ability of this novel to rip the ground out from underneath you, and leave you standing on, just nothing except perhaps (if you can at least pretend to believe) some shred of personal decency and integrity. But Solzhenitsyn gives you no assurance on that, none at all. Which means that this is not a comfortable or easy book, which is why I talk about its power rather than it's greatness. Oddly enough I find that this book works even better if you start with Ivan Denisovich; it's the context, what he comes from, and what he returns to. What we have come from, what we may return to.
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LibraryThing member pascik
Illness briefly joins the lives of a motley group of cancer patients in late-1950s Soviet Russia. The story begins as Pavel Nikolayevich Rusanov, a cynical and entitled man of the Party, enters cancer ward number 13. There he finds himself thrown together with men from all walks of life and
Solzhenitsyn's interest is in the individual lives and individual stories of the men in the ward and the doctors who care for them (interestingly, the patients are all men and the medical staff all women). He spends most of the book following the thread of life first through one character then another, examining the circumstances that brought the man to the ward, and watching his reaction to illness and the prospect of death. Their reactions run the gamut from denial to panic to quiet acceptance. The sheer number of characters examined contributes to the book's considerable length. It also tends to diffuse the book's overall force. It is a bit difficult to keep track of a single plot line or the development of a single character, and Cancer Ward meanders a bit in the middle. However, this meandering is also the source of the book's charm. Solzhenitsyn has a real love for his characters, and treats even the corrupt Rusanov with a remarkable sensitivity. There are many "pockets" throughout the book where you find yourself drawn into first one life and then another. You long for more when the next chapter turns to focus on a different life.
While Cancer Ward is a book with many characters, the bureaucrat Rusanov and the political exile Kostoglotov quickly emerge as the most developed. The are foils to each other. Rusanov is a Party insider, a city-slicker and bureaucrat who has only seen his star rise during the political turmoils under Stalin. Kostoglotov is an exile, a veteran who fought off the Nazis during World War II, only to find himself betrayed by his own army, accused of espionage for simply surviving behind enemy lines during a ferocious battle. They quickly come to despise each other. Rusanov sees in Kostoglotov an uncouth and un-regenerate barbarian, full of dangerously independent ideas. Kostoglotov sees Rusanov as the representation of the privilege, power, and deceit that has has stolen his life from him and driven him homeless across the empire for fourteen years. Their conflict is a microcosm for the political conflict of the day. The story is set in the early years of Kruschev's reign in the 1950s, soon after he denounced Stalinism to the Party insiders and began to issue amnesty to some of the prisoners who had been sent to the Gulags. For the mid-level bean-counters like Rusanov, this is a threat and a cause for alarm, as the friends and neighbors that they had outmaneuvered and denounced politically for years come crawling back into society. For exiles like Kostoglotov, it holds the promise of a new morning, a chance to recover the life that they had lost.
The work is separated into two sections, which might roughly be called "illness" and "healing." The healing itself is bittersweet. In the 1950s, the only treatments available for cancer are x-ray therapy and hormone injections, both of which ravage the body almost as much as the illness. The question of whether the cancer or the treatment is more debilitating haunts the patients, especially Kostoglotov, who above all aspires to find a second chance at the life that had nearly killed him. This process provides a fitting metaphor for Soviet Russia during this time period. The Communist Party was itself an unnatural growth, a cancer that had engulfed entire countries and displaced communities, and continued to feed on its own people. The end of Stalinism was only a slight and dubious thaw - though called a healing, it could not bring back the lives it had destroyed. Solzhenitsyn is the chronicler of these lives, and Cancer Ward is one of his efforts at making sense of what had happened. Though sometimes meandering and diffuse, and occasionally heavy-handed, it is ultimately an affecting human-interest story and a testament to resilience and courage.
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geographical locations in the Soviet Empire. From the crude laborer Yefrem, to the naive peasant boy Dyomka, to the idealistic young scientist Vadim, cancer forces an assortment of men who would otherwise have never known each other to share a room. This gives the book an atmosphere similar to films about companies of soldiers or prisoners, where the story and the human interest is found chiefly in the antagonisms or affinities the characters develop for each other. The men debate the issues of the day, question what is important in life, wonder about mortality and about the best way to live, and even find time for some romance. The conversations are intriguing, but occasionally heavy-handed. Certain sections feel like the author is merely using the characters to deliver a message to the reader. Solzhenitsyn's interest is in the individual lives and individual stories of the men in the ward and the doctors who care for them (interestingly, the patients are all men and the medical staff all women). He spends most of the book following the thread of life first through one character then another, examining the circumstances that brought the man to the ward, and watching his reaction to illness and the prospect of death. Their reactions run the gamut from denial to panic to quiet acceptance. The sheer number of characters examined contributes to the book's considerable length. It also tends to diffuse the book's overall force. It is a bit difficult to keep track of a single plot line or the development of a single character, and Cancer Ward meanders a bit in the middle. However, this meandering is also the source of the book's charm. Solzhenitsyn has a real love for his characters, and treats even the corrupt Rusanov with a remarkable sensitivity. There are many "pockets" throughout the book where you find yourself drawn into first one life and then another. You long for more when the next chapter turns to focus on a different life.
While Cancer Ward is a book with many characters, the bureaucrat Rusanov and the political exile Kostoglotov quickly emerge as the most developed. The are foils to each other. Rusanov is a Party insider, a city-slicker and bureaucrat who has only seen his star rise during the political turmoils under Stalin. Kostoglotov is an exile, a veteran who fought off the Nazis during World War II, only to find himself betrayed by his own army, accused of espionage for simply surviving behind enemy lines during a ferocious battle. They quickly come to despise each other. Rusanov sees in Kostoglotov an uncouth and un-regenerate barbarian, full of dangerously independent ideas. Kostoglotov sees Rusanov as the representation of the privilege, power, and deceit that has has stolen his life from him and driven him homeless across the empire for fourteen years. Their conflict is a microcosm for the political conflict of the day. The story is set in the early years of Kruschev's reign in the 1950s, soon after he denounced Stalinism to the Party insiders and began to issue amnesty to some of the prisoners who had been sent to the Gulags. For the mid-level bean-counters like Rusanov, this is a threat and a cause for alarm, as the friends and neighbors that they had outmaneuvered and denounced politically for years come crawling back into society. For exiles like Kostoglotov, it holds the promise of a new morning, a chance to recover the life that they had lost.
The work is separated into two sections, which might roughly be called "illness" and "healing." The healing itself is bittersweet. In the 1950s, the only treatments available for cancer are x-ray therapy and hormone injections, both of which ravage the body almost as much as the illness. The question of whether the cancer or the treatment is more debilitating haunts the patients, especially Kostoglotov, who above all aspires to find a second chance at the life that had nearly killed him. This process provides a fitting metaphor for Soviet Russia during this time period. The Communist Party was itself an unnatural growth, a cancer that had engulfed entire countries and displaced communities, and continued to feed on its own people. The end of Stalinism was only a slight and dubious thaw - though called a healing, it could not bring back the lives it had destroyed. Solzhenitsyn is the chronicler of these lives, and Cancer Ward is one of his efforts at making sense of what had happened. Though sometimes meandering and diffuse, and occasionally heavy-handed, it is ultimately an affecting human-interest story and a testament to resilience and courage.
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LibraryThing member Stodelay
It's been quite a long time since I read this book, but it was recommended to me by Jack Bangerter, my best friend in high school. I remember it being brilliant, beautiful and just a solid, well developed novel with memorable characterization and an unflinching look at life and terminal illness.
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There was, if I remember properly, a magnificent main character and then a whole cast of supporting characters all enduring a rather bleak Soviet prison and maintaining impossibly poignant relationships among themselves and their few rare visitors. It was probably hugely depressing like everything else I like, but don't let that stop you, unless you're that kind of person, in which case you should probably disregard all of my recommendations. Show Less
LibraryThing member Greymowser
A book I read in college. An eye opener.
LibraryThing member Proustitutes
There's something sobering about this novel.
Weighing in at over 500 pages and easily the heaviest thing in my bag, Cancer Ward would seem to come to a definite conclusion, be it comforting or disturbing, by its denouement. But Solzhenitsyn offers nothing of the sort. Rather, we must revel in the
This novel is at once both a metaphorical critique of Soviet Russia as well as a touching story of numerous multi-faceted characters. From almost humorously heartless Rusanov, to young and lovable Dyomka, to our faithful protaganist Kostoglotov, there isn't much of humanity that Solzhenitsyn doesn't touch upon with his piercing thought. And touch he does: Solzhenitsyn set the novel in a Cancer Ward on the outskirts of the USSR in the mid-50's, and used this locale masterfully as a touching-point for his clear observations of both life and death.
Some men survive to see better times; many fates are left unknown; and, unavoidably, with a sick punch to my gut, a few men suffer throughout, never to live their lives with health and zeal again.
At points, the feel of decay in the Ward is tangible. Tomb-like, almost. As though there is nowhere for these varied men to go, nothing for them to hope for, their robust arms, stomachs, legs all wasting away to nothingness.
And yet, there is life to live. Kostoglotov realizes this and fights for his freedom with all that he has; he sneaks books, questions doctors, does all that a peasant man can do to try to take hold of his life once again. He struggles with the decision of whether or not to take a hormone treatment that will give him the gift of freedom for a few years--but at the expense of his virility. And he wonders: what is the price of a life? At what point do you cut the cord? Is freedom truly freedom if you cannot follow your passions?
Amidst these back-and-forth daily concerns is the overarching concern of Soviet society. The Cancer Ward is a microcosm for the USSR at large; it holds both party leaders and party exiles, camp guards and camp prisoners in its fleshy grip. Their cancers bring them down to the same level: human. And it is terrifying. Kostoglotov often considers the senseless cruelty that comes with life.... of cancer, of the Soviet party leaders, of average, normal human beings. He thinks of the monkey at the zoo that has been blinded by a man who threw tobacco at its eyes. And he learns that there will never be a respite from senseless, reasonless malice; it is the sober state of human nature that a single man can, at will, unwind all of your life and its promises and treasures.
Just like that....
Weighing in at over 500 pages and easily the heaviest thing in my bag, Cancer Ward would seem to come to a definite conclusion, be it comforting or disturbing, by its denouement. But Solzhenitsyn offers nothing of the sort. Rather, we must revel in the
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beautiful ambiguity of this novel, and, in so doing, revel in the often frustrating, poignant, and somber ambiguity of life. This novel is at once both a metaphorical critique of Soviet Russia as well as a touching story of numerous multi-faceted characters. From almost humorously heartless Rusanov, to young and lovable Dyomka, to our faithful protaganist Kostoglotov, there isn't much of humanity that Solzhenitsyn doesn't touch upon with his piercing thought. And touch he does: Solzhenitsyn set the novel in a Cancer Ward on the outskirts of the USSR in the mid-50's, and used this locale masterfully as a touching-point for his clear observations of both life and death.
Some men survive to see better times; many fates are left unknown; and, unavoidably, with a sick punch to my gut, a few men suffer throughout, never to live their lives with health and zeal again.
At points, the feel of decay in the Ward is tangible. Tomb-like, almost. As though there is nowhere for these varied men to go, nothing for them to hope for, their robust arms, stomachs, legs all wasting away to nothingness.
And yet, there is life to live. Kostoglotov realizes this and fights for his freedom with all that he has; he sneaks books, questions doctors, does all that a peasant man can do to try to take hold of his life once again. He struggles with the decision of whether or not to take a hormone treatment that will give him the gift of freedom for a few years--but at the expense of his virility. And he wonders: what is the price of a life? At what point do you cut the cord? Is freedom truly freedom if you cannot follow your passions?
Amidst these back-and-forth daily concerns is the overarching concern of Soviet society. The Cancer Ward is a microcosm for the USSR at large; it holds both party leaders and party exiles, camp guards and camp prisoners in its fleshy grip. Their cancers bring them down to the same level: human. And it is terrifying. Kostoglotov often considers the senseless cruelty that comes with life.... of cancer, of the Soviet party leaders, of average, normal human beings. He thinks of the monkey at the zoo that has been blinded by a man who threw tobacco at its eyes. And he learns that there will never be a respite from senseless, reasonless malice; it is the sober state of human nature that a single man can, at will, unwind all of your life and its promises and treasures.
Just like that....
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LibraryThing member bhowell
My Book Club read this book in April of 2020, a book chosen well before the Pandemic. While perhaps not the easiest book to get through while being isolated at home due to fear of contagion, we were all very glad to have read all 536 pages. Meeting took place on Zoom , of course. We had a most
Outstanding.
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interesting lively discussion about Russian history and philosophy and it ended up being a diversion from current affairs.Outstanding.
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LibraryThing member cait815
I can't believe I got halfway through and then didn't finish. It's not even a bad book, the opposite really. I just lost steam. I was engaged enough while reading, but had no desire to pick the book up again after setting it down for the night. I hope to come back to this and finish it before the
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end of the year. Show Less
LibraryThing member thebookmagpie
A lot of fun for a book about cancer, Russia, and war.
LibraryThing member citizencane
I originally purchased and read Cancer Ward back in 1980 when most educated Westerners would have known who the author was if not the story of his life and works. Nowadays if I happen to mention that I'm reading a novel by Solzhenitsyn I can be pretty certain of getting a blank stare by way of a
Cancer Ward is set in the mid 1950's in the era of the "Thaw" that was initiated and short lived following the death of Stalin in 1953. It is to some degree informed by the author's own experience as a cancer patient following eight years in a labor camp and in the midst of what turned out to be three years' internal exile. It is a powerful meditation on what it means to be truly human and features an eclectic cast of characters, medical staff as well as patients, and Solzhenitsyn portrays his characters with a skill and sympathy (where warranted) that make this a beautiful and moving novel.
The main protagonist is one Oleg Kostoglotov, who bears some resemblance to Solzhenitsyn, in that he was a soldier in the Soviet army during World War II, was arrested and sentenced to the labor camps for the crime of criticizing Stalin, was sentenced to "perpetual exile" in a remote part of the Soviet Union, contracted cancer and was treated in the cancer ward of a hospital somewhere in Central Asia. Kostoglotov struggles against his disease and struggles against his treatment which includes hormone injections that result in a loss of virility, though he becomes well enough to get a discharge that allows him to return to his place of exile.
His "opponent" is one Rusanov, a lifetime party hack, who works in Personnel where he carries on the ideological struggle for socialism by combing through the records of the firm's employees, snooping on them and writing them up for discipline, termination or arrest. He is a convinced Communist but he loves his privileges and the bourgeois pleasures of his lifestyle, his home, his car, and his upwardly mobile family. It's hard to read the passages in which Rusanov considers informing on his fellow patients without calling to mind Clint Eastwood's line from the film "The Enforcers" - "Personnel, that's for assholes".
The ward is home to nine patients at a time with a waiting list that is never eliminated. Some of them are "goners", some are cured at least to the extent that they can be discharged with instructions to return for a follow-up checkup. Some are treated with a combination of X-rays and injections. Some go under the knife to get a tumor cut out or a limb removed. Some patients are located in the hallway outside the ward as there isn't any space to accommodate them and they are too sick to be sent home. The staff for the most part is professional and hard working, but there are still the doctors who do next to nothing and whose limited skill and motivation adds to the workload of their more competent and conscientious colleagues. Nor are the doctors protected by their knowledge and skill from being brought down by the same disease they spend their lives diagnosing and treating. The head of the radiology section, Dr. Donstsova, contracts cancer likely from overexposure to radiation in the course of her duties. (The doctors have occasion to do paperwork at tables set up in the X-Ray rooms as there's no other place to get work done.)
Among the most moving portraits is that of patient Shulubin whose story is poignantly told in the chapter entitled Idols of the Market Place. His story is, in a way a summing up, of the repression under the Stalin regime from 1930 right to down to the time of the novel's events.
I commend Cancer Ward to any serious reader. It is a beautiful yet somber reflection on the human condition and on the suffocation of the spirit by the Soviet experiment in remaking mankind,
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response. In any event one of the features of growing old is that you can pick up a book you read forty years ago and it is a brand new experience.Cancer Ward is set in the mid 1950's in the era of the "Thaw" that was initiated and short lived following the death of Stalin in 1953. It is to some degree informed by the author's own experience as a cancer patient following eight years in a labor camp and in the midst of what turned out to be three years' internal exile. It is a powerful meditation on what it means to be truly human and features an eclectic cast of characters, medical staff as well as patients, and Solzhenitsyn portrays his characters with a skill and sympathy (where warranted) that make this a beautiful and moving novel.
The main protagonist is one Oleg Kostoglotov, who bears some resemblance to Solzhenitsyn, in that he was a soldier in the Soviet army during World War II, was arrested and sentenced to the labor camps for the crime of criticizing Stalin, was sentenced to "perpetual exile" in a remote part of the Soviet Union, contracted cancer and was treated in the cancer ward of a hospital somewhere in Central Asia. Kostoglotov struggles against his disease and struggles against his treatment which includes hormone injections that result in a loss of virility, though he becomes well enough to get a discharge that allows him to return to his place of exile.
His "opponent" is one Rusanov, a lifetime party hack, who works in Personnel where he carries on the ideological struggle for socialism by combing through the records of the firm's employees, snooping on them and writing them up for discipline, termination or arrest. He is a convinced Communist but he loves his privileges and the bourgeois pleasures of his lifestyle, his home, his car, and his upwardly mobile family. It's hard to read the passages in which Rusanov considers informing on his fellow patients without calling to mind Clint Eastwood's line from the film "The Enforcers" - "Personnel, that's for assholes".
The ward is home to nine patients at a time with a waiting list that is never eliminated. Some of them are "goners", some are cured at least to the extent that they can be discharged with instructions to return for a follow-up checkup. Some are treated with a combination of X-rays and injections. Some go under the knife to get a tumor cut out or a limb removed. Some patients are located in the hallway outside the ward as there isn't any space to accommodate them and they are too sick to be sent home. The staff for the most part is professional and hard working, but there are still the doctors who do next to nothing and whose limited skill and motivation adds to the workload of their more competent and conscientious colleagues. Nor are the doctors protected by their knowledge and skill from being brought down by the same disease they spend their lives diagnosing and treating. The head of the radiology section, Dr. Donstsova, contracts cancer likely from overexposure to radiation in the course of her duties. (The doctors have occasion to do paperwork at tables set up in the X-Ray rooms as there's no other place to get work done.)
Among the most moving portraits is that of patient Shulubin whose story is poignantly told in the chapter entitled Idols of the Market Place. His story is, in a way a summing up, of the repression under the Stalin regime from 1930 right to down to the time of the novel's events.
I commend Cancer Ward to any serious reader. It is a beautiful yet somber reflection on the human condition and on the suffocation of the spirit by the Soviet experiment in remaking mankind,
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LibraryThing member Fluffyblue
The book started well for me, and was far more interesting and easy to read than I expected it to be, however is it went along I struggled to maintain an interest in the characters.
LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
As's story with underlying sadness arising from the situation of most of the characters...they aren't going to make it. An adequate translation I suppose. But it does reinforce the long Russian Novel stereotype. If you are bi-polar, there are times when you should not start this book.
LibraryThing member jonfaith
A man of no talent craves long life, yet Epicurus had once observed that a fool, if offered eternity, would not know what to do with it.
Cancer Ward (CW) consciously strives for the epic, readily aware of the distance between itself and the baggy monsters of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and yet sways in
This is an ensemble piece - similar to First Circle - which pulsates with social discord and apprehension. The patients have all internalized the implications of their illness. The setting is the Thaw of Khrushchev at a clinic in Uzbekistan. The presence of the oncological leads the reader to assume such is a metaphor. Not entirely. Matters are more organic -- the effects of the Purge, the show trials -- they are returning-- as the metaphysical meaning of Remission becomes palpable , even rendered upon the very flesh of the sick. I would be most curious as to what Foucault gathered about this protean display of the abject and possible redemption.
Cancer Ward (CW) consciously strives for the epic, readily aware of the distance between itself and the baggy monsters of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and yet sways in
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the limitations of the material especially in moral terms. Unlike Europe after the Shoah, the Soviet experiment had different questions to ask itself after Stalin's death. Caught almost in the sway of self-conscious people becoming cynical. I place CW apart from the other major works of Solzhenitsyn and place it instead closer to Grossman's Forever Flowing, another novel about the inmate's impossibility of returning --to normality, to youth, to belief. Memory becomes a clever foe, a challenge. This is an ensemble piece - similar to First Circle - which pulsates with social discord and apprehension. The patients have all internalized the implications of their illness. The setting is the Thaw of Khrushchev at a clinic in Uzbekistan. The presence of the oncological leads the reader to assume such is a metaphor. Not entirely. Matters are more organic -- the effects of the Purge, the show trials -- they are returning-- as the metaphysical meaning of Remission becomes palpable , even rendered upon the very flesh of the sick. I would be most curious as to what Foucault gathered about this protean display of the abject and possible redemption.
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LibraryThing member daizylee
This was one of my favorite books as a teenager. I must have been pretty depressed.
Subjects
Awards
Language
Original publication date
1968
ISBN
none