Cancer Ward (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1968)

Solzhenitsyn has a lot to say; he's certainly a favorite author.

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But before talking a bit about the book I must note Solzhenitsyn's marvelous way of describing a problem I'm constantly but rather incoherently whining about - the incredibly negative effect of nonstop TV.  It's becoming increasingly stressful to enter a waiting room or airport lounge or gym or wherever - no escape.  Here is Solzhenitsyn discussing a character (Vadim) who felt the same way about radio in 1950s USSR (Vadim was a new patient entering the cancer ward and was carrying a small stack of books he wished to read there):

How well-said:  "The permanent mutter was . . . a theft of time, a diffusion and an entropy of the spirit, convenient and agreeable to the inert but intolerable to those with initiative."

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Dust jacket reviews note comparisons with this book to The Magic Mountain (by another of my favorite authors).  The comparison makes some sense - setting is a medical facility with various patients fighting disease while serving as backdrop for multiple story lines, social commentary, etc.

Novel set in mid-1950s - time of big change in USSR - Stalin had died in '53, Khrushchev-led denunciation of previously-sacrosanct Papa Joe was happening.

Not really a linear story here, though a few characters are given prominence.  Various folks come in and out of the cancer ward; we don't really get to resolution on some number of them.  Which is fine (again, somewhat reminiscent of The Magic Mountain).

Novel starts with admission to the ward of a patient named Rusanov - party member spouting party lines; stress with his tumor is exacerbated by stress with changing political landscape, likely return of exiles he had denounced, etc.

Kostoglotov - main character, patient in the ward - had been in the camps - now on medical leave and getting something of a glimpse of "normal" life (at least to the extent anything seems normal to a patient in a cancer ward!)  Solzhenitsyn of course uses the camps and the lives of exiles as important topics in several of his works, and it's handled very effectively here - threaded throughout the work are illuminations of life for someone exiled "in perpetuity" in middle-of-nowhere Asia.  Author includes a few other characters exiled or living in the camps - interesting - even details about how they recognize each other in the cancer ward (or anywhere "outside").  Poignant tales of an elderly couple who were Kostoglotov's friends-in-exile.  The typically ridiculous bases for punishment.  The atmosphere of fear, denunciation, disappearances, arbitrariness.

Among the medical personnel - Vera Gangert ("Vega") - in a generation where so many of the men had been killed - not entirely sure how to take her - not a lot of detail but she had had a disappointing history with men (starting with her first/young love, killed in WWII) - she hits it off with Kostoglotov.  While simultaneously insisting he take a hormone therapy which likely ended his career as a man (as Solzhenitsyn explains it).  Vega was willing to have a non-physical relationship with Kostoglotov, but he never really warmed up to the idea.  Sad situation.  Also poor, ill Dontsova.  Zoya - very healthy.

At behest of Dyomka, Kostoglotov visits the zoo after his cancer ward discharge.  But finds that it can be difficult for someone from the camps to enjoy watching caged animals.

The Pianist (Wladyslaw Szpilman, 1945 (translation 1999))

Book club selection (via PJ).

Hadn't realized the quite-fine movie of the same name was based upon a book by the protagonist.  And it's interesting that - for once - the movie pretty much tracked the book.

Szpilman was a pianist for Polish Radio in the run-up to World War II; he was playing a Chopin Nocturne on the air when the Germans knocked out the station.  There followed the awful times for Warsaw Jewry (Polish situation described here, for example).  Establishment of Warsaw Ghetto; systematic reduction of the population; random violence; overcrowded conditions leading to illness, starvation, misery.  He recounts the scene in the train yard (also in the movie) where his father purchased a black market overpriced chocolate and cut it into six tiny pieces - the last family meal.

Very spare writing style, which I think was also very effective.  Hard to believe the author - with all the challenges simply to survive - was able to put this together in 1945.  It generally was suppressed for decades thereafter.

The friendly German is an interesting character - very helpful to have his diary extracts at the back of the book (also the epilogue).  Some discussion whether the diary extracts were somehow written after the fact, but I rather doubt it.  Still, would have been mighty dangerous for the diarist if his musings had fallen into the wrong hands.

Another reminder of the sorry opportunism of local populations - often crueler to the Jews than the Germans were (which is saying a lot).  The incredible risks taken by those willing to assist Jews.

Szpilman played the same Nocturne as the first broadcast on Polish Radio following expulsion of the Nazis.  Pretty amazing story.