Cancer Ward

Cancer Ward

By Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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.

Wooo, finally finished!  This one I knew would take a while, but that's what happens when you choose a Russian Great as the alternative to a romance with a fish-man.  Since the prompt was "book with a zodiac or astrology term in the title" I felt pretty much out of luck, since the only books I was coming up with astrology terms involved either "read the stars" guides, books about fucking various astrologically based men, and books that are, sadly, very out of print.  So when Cancer Ward popped up, I jumped on it.  Not only would a book by a Nobel winner hopefully give me impressive bonafides, but also, I was personally interested to read about the treatment of cancer in the Soviet Union forty years ago.  Little did I know that the entire book was more or less an allegory about the cancer of the Soviet Union.  It's a metaphor!!!!!!!

Despite all that, and despite my difficulty in remembering characters from one chapter to another, particularly when they'll be referred to either by two first names, or by a last name, and then also occasionally by a nickname, this was a relatively enjoyable read, despite not really having a plot. Basically, we enter the cancer ward with a hard-line party person (that's the Communist party, not, like, LMFAO) Rusanov, and we gradually get introduced the other residents of the ward and the doctors and nurses, get biographies and listen to conversations amongst the various characters.  We end up spending the most time with an exile, Kostoglotov, who winds up being "cured", has romances with both nurses, and, in the final chapter of the book, wanders around town before getting back on a train to the edge of nowhere.  

The overarching theme of the book (and you can tell it's by a really fancy author, because this book has themes and metaphors and probably other literary devices I was not paying attention to) is basically, a critique of the Soviet exile system and the ways in which the Russian people essentially became two halves of a dystopic whole: one half was sentenced to prison or exile for crimes built on wisps of air and gossip, the other half was commended and applauded for doing the sentencing.  There's a particularly relevant conversation between Kostoglotov and another patient in the ward where the other patient tells him that although he was exiled, at least he was permitted to tell the truth, keep his honor.  Rusanov, who embraced the idea of it, rose high in the party only to become paranoid when he hears that one of the people he denounced unjustly has been released.

This wasn't hard to read, exactly, it just requires you to pay attention.  Also it's a long book about a Soviet cancer ward, so the action is not exactly hoppin'.  But Solzhenitsyn is an artist - his descriptions and characters are excellent, and he draws you into their lives, making each of them a living being.

Because of the idea of cancer as metaphor there's somewhat less focus on the process itself, although Solzhenitsyn does not gloss over the daily procedures and treatments the patients undergo.  Instead though, we spend more time on the hospital's habit of releasing patients it can't cure, so as not to bring down their excellent statistics; of a nurse's glossing over of treatment options because it's easier to tell a patient what they'll be doing than to explain why this method is the best - particularly when the staff themselves aren't even sure. 

It's not really a pessimistic book (although after this one and the next one I found myself needing a definite change of pace) but it's a heavy book.  You do feel weighted down by all the burdens - mental, physical, emotional - these people are carrying.  The book's final chapter is Kostoglotov's walk through town, including a last minute decision to walk through the zoo (something another patient on the ward is literally almost dying to do) and he finds an empty cage for a monkey which died because a man threw pepper into its eyes.  We end the book on this image, I suppose because the act of senseless cruelty is meant to be akin to the cruelty imposed by Russians on their own citizens and neighbors. But in fact, the cancer has equalized them - party liner and exile alike suffer through the same indignities.  So in the end, the gulag system worked!  Haha, no, I don't think that's what we're supposed to take away from Cancer Ward.  But that's the danger with metaphors - if you take them as they lay, sometimes you wind up going backwards on your unicycle.  You see? Now this metaphor has gone too far.



33: A Book With A Zodiac Sign Or Astrology Term In The Title