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). ( )

probabil cea mai deprimantă carte citită de mine vreodată: despre cancerul real în diversele sale forme, pe fundalul cancerului metaforic al stalinismului.
Poveștile bolnavilor dintr-un salon de oncologie, lupta lor, pierdută treptat, cu boala care-i egalizează pe turnător și deportat, comunist și anti-comunist, ștab și analfabet.
Nerecomandată deloc inimilor simțitoare :)
Bună ca scriitură și personaje, dar nu la nivelul Arhipelagului. ( )

Romanen handlar om en liten grupp cancerpatienter på ett sjukhus i Uzbekiska SSR 1955, i det poststalinistiska Sovjetunionen. Boken behandlar dödlighet, hopp och politiska teorier. Kliniken är ett Sovjetunionen i mikroformat. Huvudfiguren Oleg Kostoglotov har skickats till sjukhuset från en gulag, liksom Solzjenitsyn själv. Byråkratin och maktens natur i det stalinistiska Sovjet symboliseras av patienten Pavel Nikolajevitj Rusanov. En stark romans uppstår mellan Vera Korniljevna Gangart, en ung kvinnlig doktor, och Oleg Kostoglotov.