Into the Archive: Serious Business

Cancer Ward, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1969 Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)

"Cancer Ward tells the story of a small group of patients in Ward 13, the cancer ward of a hospital in Tashkent, Soviet Uzbekistan, in 1955, two years after Joseph Stalin's death. A range of characters are depicted, including those who benefited from Stalinism, resisted, or acquiesced. Like Solzhenitsyn, the main character, the Russian Oleg Kostoglotov, spent time in a labor camp as a "counter-revolutionary" before he was exiled to Central Asia under Article 58.

The plot focuses on a group of patients as they undergo crude and frightening treatment in a squalid hospital. Writer and literary critic Jeffrey Meyers writes that the novel is the "most complete and accurate fictional account of the nature of disease and its relation to love. It describes the characteristics of cancer; the physical, psychological, and moral effects on the victim; the conditions of the hospital; the relations of patients and doctors; the terrifying treatments; the possibility of death." Kostoglotov's central question is what life is worth, and how we know if we pay too much for it. – Extracts from Wikipedia.

I have been trying to grow my familiarity with the work of Solzhenitsyn so I was pleased to find this copy for $20 at our library’s used book shop. The publishing history of Cancer Ward is fraught: it first came out as samizdat (self-publishing, without state approval in the USSR) with various unauthorized translations in the UK (Bodley Head) and the US (Dial Press) following soon. I am not sure what the status of this copy is; first authorized American edition? The bookplate inside says it belonged to ‘The C. R. Spences’ and there was a magazine review clipping from ‘SR’ (Southern Review of Books?) November 9, 1968 to help confuse dating. Hard cover.

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1965; first Vintage International Edition 1994)

“In Cold Blood is a non-fiction novel by the American author Truman Capote, first published in 1966. It details the 1959 Clutter family murders in the small farming community of Holcomb, Kansas.

“Capote learned of the quadruple murder before the killers were captured, and he traveled to Kansas to write about the crime. He was accompanied by his childhood friend and fellow author Harper Lee, and they interviewed residents and investigators assigned to the case and took thousands of pages of notes. The killers, Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, were arrested six weeks after the murders and later executed by the state of Kansas. Capote ultimately spent six years working on the book.

“In Cold Blood was an instant critical and commercial success. Considered by many to be the prototypical true crime novel, it is also the second-best-selling book in the genre's history, behind Vincent Bugliosi's Helter Skelter (1974) about the Charles Manson murders. Some critics also consider Capote's work the original non-fiction novel, although other writers had already explored the genre.” – Wikipedia.

Capote is another writer I’ve been interested in for a while, though I have never been too compunctious about getting his books. The fact that they had two copies there seemed to be a hint that now might be the time to expand. It’s a little battered but was only $2 and in a very readable softcover form.

Kim, by Rudyard Kipling (1901; this Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics Edition, 29^th Printing 1989)

“Kim is a novel by Nobel Prize-winning English author Rudyard Kipling. It was first published serially in McClure's Magazine from December 1900 to October 1901 as well as in Cassell's Magazine from January to November 1901, and first published in book form by Macmillan & Co. Ltd in October 1901. The novel is notable for its detailed portrait of the people, culture, and varied religions of India. "The book presents a vivid picture of India, its teeming populations, religions, and superstitions, and the life of the bazaars and the road." The story unfolds against the backdrop of the Great Game, the political conflict between Russia and Britain in Central Asia. The novel popularized the phrase and idea of the Great Game.

 “The story is set after the Second Anglo-Afghan War (which ended in 1881), but before the Third (fought in 1919), probably in the period of 1893 to 1898.

“Kim (Kimball O'Hara) is the orphaned son of an Irish soldier (Kimball O'Hara Sr., a former colour sergeant) and a poor Irish mother (a former nanny in a colonel's household) who have both died in poverty. Living a vagabond existence in India under British rule in the late 19th century, Kim lives by begging and running small errands on the streets of Lahore. He occasionally works for Mahbub Ali, a Pashtun horse trader who is one of the native operatives of the British secret service. Kim is so tanned and immersed in the local culture that few realise he is white.

“Kim befriends an aged Tibetan lama on a quest to free himself from the Wheel of Things by finding the legendary "River of the Arrow". Kim becomes his chela (disciple) and accompanies him on his journey, initially walking along the Grand Trunk Road. On the way, Kim learns about the Great Game and is recruited by Mahbub Ali to carry a message to the head of the British Secret Service in Umballa.” -Wikipedia. And so on.

Kipling is another familiar author I’ve wanted to expand into, and Kim seems the logical next step. Is it a kid’s book or not? It is about a kid. “Roger Sale, in his history of children's literature, concludes "Kim is the apotheosis of the Victorian cult of childhood, but it shines now as bright as ever, long after the Empire's collapse..." Sounds intriguing enough for me.

The Cricket in Times Square, by George Selden (1960; Thirteenth Dell Printing, January 1976). A Dell Yearling Book.

“On an early summer evening, Mario Bellini finds a cricket chirping near his parents' newsstand in the Times Square subway station. Papa Bellini allows Mario to keep the cricket in the newsstand as a pet despite Mama Bellini's fear that the cricket will attract more bugs.

“The cricket's name is Chester. That evening, Chester meets Tucker Mouse and Harry Cat, best friends who live in an abandoned drainpipe near the newsstand. Chester tells them that he is from Connecticut and that he came to New York by being accidentally trapped in a picnic basket. Tucker and Harry show him Times Square, which he finds overwhelming.” – Wikipedia.

Now this copy might be considered a re-buy, as I have a very wrinkled paperback already, and this is a nice pristine soft-cover copy. I first read it back when I was in McQueeney Elementary. It became quite a series: “There were several sequels; Selden wrote six sequels to the book: Tucker's Countryside (1969), Harry Cat's Pet Puppy (1974), Chester Cricket's Pigeon Ride (1981), Chester Cricket's New Home (1983), Harry Kitten and Tucker Mouse (1986), and The Old Meadow (1987).” As you can see, most were published at a time when I was not following new children’s literature. I did get a hardback of Tucker’s Countryside (now in the Shadow Library) and they had a copy of Chester Cricket’s New Home there at the bookshop that I passed by. Chuck Jones adapted the original book into a half-hour animated special (April 1973), followed by two sequels, A Very Merry Cricket (1973) and Yankee Doodle Cricket (1975).

Going for $150 on Amazon. It figures.