Ward No. 6 by Anton Chekhov
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In Ward No. 6, one of Anton Chekhov’s novelas, readers are introduced to the colorful residents of Ward 6, a gloomy facility for the mentally ill attached to a run-down Russian hospital. The patients are diverse and interesting, but the story centers around the doctor in charge of the hospital, Andrei Yefimitch, who comes to the hospital with vision and energy, but is then ground down by the despair of not having resources or abilities to have any real impact. Chekhov’s description of the horrific downfall of this middle-class doctor due to his intellectual conceit and tendencies to idle routine is fascinating. The reader just can’t take their eyes away.
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