This is a slightly different take on the topic than the one that has been going on, and slightly influenced by some of the conversations going on in the comments section of Lenin's Tomb, but I was wondering what folks thoughts were on the literary reputation of S. I had read both One Day in the Life of and Cancer Ward some time ago, and thought that the first novel was quite good and that Cancer Ward was good if somewhat uneven. I tried to read some of the later work and thought that it read like turgid Tolstoy fanfic (not at the time, but that is the best term that I can come up with right now). I didn't really get far enough into it to get to the politics. I've had the opinion that the work really went downhill fast after the first two novels (and that the Soviet editor that S. ignored on Cancer Ward was probably right in his comments), but I would be curious to get other views on this, particularly folks who made it through some other books like First Circle.
robert wood