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4.21 AVERAGE


I like the concept of this novel but I found it just super thick and hard to read. For me it doesn’t hold a candle to One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, one of my all time favourites.

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 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.
challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Bra bok, men lite dammig och styltig översättning.

I tried. I really did. I love Russian literature and a friend recommended this one. But, even after reading 75% of it, I just couldn't keep my interest engaged. Did I care what happened to the characters? Not really. That said, not a one star because I like the style of writing and humor - just not enough to keep going

I had this book in the bottom of my bucket list for a while and only bought it recently now because I found it at a cheap price in a second hand store but I must say...
What an wonderful surprise. The contrast between the lively sentiments that people have with the dark topic that cancer brings to the story.
The notion that people had the need to survive in the cancerous society of that time and the perspective demonstrated of the various types of people that lived in that society.
Found a lot of new ideas that would like to come back, give another reading and explore their meanings.
Great book!

mattreadsgoodbooks's review

5.0

This book is brilliant. The macaque rhesus. Vega and Zoya the wise and the beautiful. Oleg the confused. Rusanov the madman idealist. Everyone in between. Were there problems when comparing the language to the language of our time, absolutely. Did it end with me in a mess of emotion? Also yes.

The book that exposed the dark underside of the USSR to the world. Powerfully poignant in its handling of the wide range of emotions suffered by the seriously ill and their range of coping mechanisms the book is awash with strong character development with a cast of deep, complex, well-realised characters and supporting staff. Throughout the book, however, the strongest writing occurs when the characters reflect on Russia as they know it and how it came to be. Be it Rusanov's experience as a KGB crony, Kostoglotov's attempts to overcome the emotional crippling wrought in the Gulag or Shulubin's attempts to comprehend how the meek stand idly by pretending not to see the evil all around.

For someone that knows very little about the history of the Soviet Union and what life was like under Stalin, I'm glad I picked up this book. I learnt a lot, and enjoyed reading chapters from various patients' and staff's point of view, all interesting characters with a full and slowly-revealed back story. Having also just read a modern account of an author's battle with cancer, the comparison between the diagnosis process and treatments 60 years ago and now was also fascinating.

I have given it only three stars, as from a personal point of view, it was quite hard work to get through. At some points I was fully immersed in the story, at others, I was struggling to keep going through a heavily metaphorical, or reference-laden conversation between two patients. As someone unfamiliar with the culture, I relied on the footnotes to give me context and I'm sure I missed a lot of the hidden meaning. The description calls it an 'allegorical masterpiece' but I think there was probably a lot of symbolism I didn't quite grasp that might add to the reading experience for someone with more understanding!
emotional reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes