This is a really difficult book for me to put a number rating on, just because I personally had a hard time finishing it. Despite my own reticence at times to read, it was incredibly well-written while also being something that felt both heavy and exceptionally dense. I think it could’ve been parsed down in areas where it tended to meander a bit without clear resolution or purpose. It certainly lacked brevity. Nevertheless, I admired the craftsmanship of its articulation more than I emotionally enjoyed the reading experience, but it still contained a lot that I could appreciate. I ultimately decided to average out my ratings between each category in order to reach my conclusion of 4⭐.

In Cancer Ward, we follow a wide variety of characters in a 1950s Soviet cancer ward in the years following Stalin’s death. Each character has their own experience with the Soviet state, their own varying opinions and views on its purported construction, and their own struggles dealing with such an unforgiving disease. And of course, cancer is a disease that contains a wide variety of forms (and potential outcomes) in and of itself. It was very interesting to see how differently cancer and medical science were treated in this time period, especially as someone undergoing chemotherapy in the 21st century with a relatively good prognosis comparatively thanks to the advances of modern medicine. My own experiences with cancer certainly influenced my decision to pick this up and colored how I was able to relate to each character in turn. I would be very intrigued to learn more about this era of medicine after this read, especially as it relates to the Soviet Union. There are interesting parallels to be made here between cancer and the Soviet state more broadly, which I think a lot of literature surrounding this book tends to pick up on. That element was very intriguing and I almost wished more of a direct link was made in the text itself, but understand why it may have remained more subtle as a stylistic choice.

This was my first experience with Russian literature, so I appreciated the profound examination of our characters and their depth. It was very much a character study in this way. This is the area I feel Solzhenitsyn excels best. The biggest criticism I have in this realm (as many others have already mentioned) is while the women are fully fleshed out, with agency and flaws, multi-dimensional themselves, there are still a multitude of ways in which they are objectified, with mentions of their breasts in particular that were wholly unnecessary. One of my favorite scenes with a character who had the same cancer as I do was ruined at the end due to this, and it often took me out of the story. It really shows how even when male authors attempt to create dynamic women, they still surrender to any impulse to reduce us to our bodies and how our bodies are perceived by the men around us. As someone with breast cancer, I feel this very acutely.

My experience with this novel was one of admiration rather than adoration. I respect the precision of its prose and the clarity of its artistic vision, even if I may not have connected with it completely on an emotional level in the ways I wanted to.