Western

Extraordinary amount of information about cancer. But of course that's not really what the book is about. How people could be sent to the camps for hardly anything at all. Full of information about the non-working of the planned economy, e.g. the hospital runs out of dusters and nothing can be done until the next supply run comes in a week: the cleaner is reduced to asking that every member of staff bring in one duster from home. Interesting contrasts among various nationalities. One character Rusanov is a typical bureaucrat, who thinks himself a cut above the other patients and greets the emerging news of changes in Moscow with puzzlement.

This is wrote I wrote in 2008 about this read: "Loved this; such heart. Life was difficult and lonely under the Soviets. Recall the yearning and pleasure of the main character (Oleg Kostoglotov) for the sight of a woman in a beautiful dress. Autobiographical. Inside Flap Copy - "One of the great allegorical masterpieces of world literature, Cancer Ward is both a deeply compassionate study of people facing terminal illness and a brilliant dissection of the 'cancerous' Soviet police state." And then this is what I wrote in 2018: "This is probably my all-time favorite book at his point in my life. So very human; humanity in the face of extreme conditions. Probably worth a re-read to better understand the Russia / Stalin symbolism ("cancer" and its implications). ( )

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 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. ( )

An absolute masterpiece.

Having only read Ivan Denisovich, Candle in the Wind, and Matryona's House prior to this, I knew Solzhenitsyn as a masterful crafter of the short-form. How fulfilling to find that his strength there is only compounded here in over 500 pages as he weaves together a perfect convergence of characters and themes and commentary and allegories.

On the surface, it's an engaging tapestry of personal stories, of the varied lives that cross paths in a Russia hospital post-Stalin. Every character was fully fleshed out, distinct with their fears and desires and opinions.

In much the same way that One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was not actually just about that one day, or just about Ivan Denisovich, Cancer Ward delves into the myriad provoking scars that are so particular to early 20th century Russia. Yet the themes are universal and depressingly relatable: our need for connection and survival, our thirst for knowledge, our flaws and vanities. He humanises the political, showing how the villains and criminals become interchangeable with the heroes and innocents, just depending on what day it was.

But no matter what day it is, this book will remain an incredible feat. I'm still boggled by its immense artistry and the multitudes that it contains.

Aside: Chapter 14 of Part Two is a perfect chapter and a perfect short-story pay-off. ( )