Maybe I bit off more than I can chew.

I finally got Europe Central by William Vollmann from the library. The reviews tell me he's a really acclaimed author (like the best in 30 years?). Other novels by him on the shelf seemed to focus on North American Indians, in different situations, but it seems his fascination is with violence and how people come to engage in violence. Well I guess the war between Hitler and Stalin is as good a case study for exploring that topic as any one could imagine.

The first chapter was about Nanya Krupskaya, Lenin's wife and Fanya Kaplan, the Social Dewmocrat who tried to assasinate Lenin. Some kabaalistic references I couldn't relate to, but interesting characters.

The next chapter was about Kathe Kollwitz, German painter. sculptor, printmaker, and socialist whose life was touched with tragedies common to her era, but burdened even before personal losses with sympathy for the suffering of the working class. Interestingly she was never imprisoned by the Nazi's, maybe because her art was in the tradition of naturalism, and she wasn't an expressionist creating what Hitler referred to as gutter art. She died in '45 a couple of months before the Russians overran Germany. Thank goodness she was at least spared that spectacle of suffering.

I think the next chapter may focus on Shostakovich. Am I ready for that? I've become so accustomed to perusing electronic journalism that I'd forgotten how challenging reading could be. Wish me luck.

PS I took the night off and watched High Noon.