Europe Central

This is a very fine audio book - well read and engrossing. I have given it one less star than the ultimate because you cannot listen to a book like this will all the concentration necesary.
Long, sometimes repetative, often messmerizing - Europe Central tells the story of men and women caught up in the greatest struggle of the 20th century - the struggle of the individual to survive in a dictatorial world.
Each of the central characters are given his or her own section - book length parts - to tell thier stories. The Russian composer D. Shostakovich is the spine of the book. His story is a primer on how an artist survives in sea of repression: learn to hold your breath under water. Others make significant appearances including General Paulus in a haunting set peice on the Battle of Stalingrad. The "Sleepwalker" (Hitler) and his Russian counterpart - Stalin - pervade the work as they did the first half of the 20th century - and still influence how the world operates.
This book is a lenghty journey - you will not be the same at its end as you were at its start. Isn't that what great literature is all about?

This book sucks. It nothing but rambling drival. Diarrhea of pen/keyboard. I can not get through the first two hours without turning on the radio. Probably the worst book of the two hundred I have listened to this year.