Kostoglotov and Rusanov are two major characters the former a distinguished soldier expelled to the Gulag immediately the war ended, the latter is a party functionary who comfortably spent the war as a ‘manpower manager’, heroically informing on his fellow citizens. Each patient has his own political/historical background which Solzhenitsyn uses to relate to Soviet history-both past and contemporary. However, here is where all similarities break down. It is not only the weather which is a powerful symbol, but the practice of medicine which Solzhenitsyn compares to the USSR's political culture.ĭiverse characters, put together in the oncology ward of a provincial hospital, have two things in common: they all suffer from a malignancy and all are citizens of the great USSR, which is going through the momentous changes of de-Stalinization. These natural phenomena stand as a metaphor for the unnatural decisions of the powers that thaw and freeze political freedom. ‘One of the sub-themes involves changing weather: premature spring thaws are followed by cold spells with everything freezing over again. The book's literary device is simple but clever, offering a mirror of Soviet society-especially around one of the ‘cultural thaws’ which the USSR repeatedly experienced.
On re-reading it recently, the novel's magic remains. About to enter medicine, I found the book's clinical aspects exciting, although I was not yet able to interpret it with the eye of a practicing physician.
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