Finished: Cancer Ward (Solzhenitsyn) A moving, well written book about a group of men in a Russian cancer ward in the 1950's. Having a husband who has battled the insidious disease, who still gets scans and oncology appointments every 9 months after 13 years, this look into the deepest fears and feelings of the patients really resounded in me. I can't quite put it into words, but I felt deeply for each of the sick characters as their personal stories unfolded. A while back I asked my son, who has his masters in Russian History and is currently pursuing his PhD in the same field, who his favorite Russian author was. I was totally expecting him to say Tolstoy or Dostoevsky...but instead he said, hmm, probably Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn's life mirrored pretty closely the main character of Cancer Ward, Oleg Kostoglotov...both had been exiled in their own countries when the political tides had shifted...and both had cancer. Solzhenitsyn beat his cancer and died in his 80's. We leave Oleg at the end of the book at only age 34, but with many cancer treatments under his belt....but pretty understandably NOT having totally beat cancer yet...heading back to his exile camp. I guess it's a sign of a pretty good book when you keep thinking about fictional characters when the book is done and you want at least one more chapter to wrap things up. I kept flipping the last page back and forth thinking there must be more. Anyway, the book is also sprinkled with lots of political statements, as most of those Russian books are, but they didn't overshadow the personal stories of all the patients, most of whom were pretty doomed. So many were very young...two with legs amputated...one 45 year old with a wife and four children who is eventually "cured" and released, but with the doctors really telling themselves, he'll be back. Oh, and that's another thing...they never tell a patient he's got cancer. They only say things like lymphoma, melanoma, carcinoma, etc. Of course, those are cancers...but they avoid the "c" word. We also meet the super compassionate doctors and nurses. The two main oncology and radiology doctors are women! One of them develops a very close relationship with Oleg, which they almost carry to the point of considering a future together...but in the end when he's discharged from the hospital, Oleg doesn't meet her as they planned. He realizes that he can't drag Vera back to his exile camp, away from her career, and towards a future with a man with nothing to his name and most likely no ability to procreate after his intense treatments. It was sad. :-( The other female doctor, the clinic leader, who has dedicated her life to the clinic and her patients, ends up sick herself by the end of the book with cancer of all things. Years and years of breathing in the radiation has mostly likely done her in as well. Anyway, I'm kind of just writing down a jumbling of thoughts. This is definitely one of those books that will resonate in me for awhile, but one I'm so glad I read!