> That "realism that approaches Tolstoy's" you mentioned is actually mostly folklore and vastly exaggerated for propaganda purposes I can only vouch for the re

> That "realism that approaches Tolstoy's" you mentioned is actually mostly folklore and vastly exaggerated for propaganda purposes I can only vouch for the realism of his description of a hospital in his Cancer Ward (published in 1966), and for a scene of phonetic spectral speech analysis in In the First Circle (1968). Both unusually lifelike and showing first-hand experience.