A review by zaralei
Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, David Burg, Nicholas Bethell

4.0

What’s most remarkable about this book is that it exists it all— such a rare, painful window into the lives of those suffering under malignant totalitarianism. Without contextual knowledge and an understanding of the period and its politics, the narrative may not be incredibly engaging on its own accord— 600 pages on a Russian hospital’s oncology wing is no easy going. However, as always, Solzhenitsyn does a wonderful job of writing on the tenacious human spirit even in the worst circumstances. “Not all of me shall die”, Shulubin says over and over. “Sometimes I feel quite distinctly that what is inside me is not all of me. There’s something else, sublime, quite indestructible, some tiny fragment of the universal spirit. Don’t you feel that?”