Last summer I was invited to join an online book club. As you can imagine, the lack of face-to-face interaction made it very difficult for me to stay committed to the text. Well, that and the fact that The Brothers Karamazov was not an ideal pick for light summer reading.

The thick beige and red book has been patiently waiting for me on my bookshelf and I have decided to give good ol' Fyodor another shot. I am 19 pages in and already in love. Not because it is incredibly easy, or because I feel as if I've been hooked by action or glamour... but, rather, because it is just beautiful.

This book is going to be no small task for me - mostly because my nursing school experience has resulted in the development of a special reflex. The one that makes me go to sleep two paragraphs into any kind of reading. I have determination, though, to retrain my attention span to not only stay focused during these long pages, but to actually .... get ready for it... enjoy reading again.

In hopes of "setting the stage" for this endeavor, I went to the Russian Museum of Art in Minneapolis last weekend. I don't know much about Russia - at all - and I thought that maybe by getting a small glimpse of how Russian artists interpret their culture, I'd be in a better place to enjoy this novel.

But, it didn't really help. Well, ok, that might not be true. It just didn't help as much as I had hoped. What I did find is that a.) I love Russian art (at least the art they have at this museum) and b.) I want to learn more about Russia.

I was talking to one of the museum volunteers and he was telling me about an exhibit they are trying to bring in this coming spring. It is composed of art that came from the Siege of Leningrad. Now many of you, I am sure, have heard of this part of history. I will blame my ignorance on my intense participation in biology and anatomy during college and less interaction with the "arts" and history classes. It is probably fine that I am learning this late. Anyway, I have spent some time exploring the details of this 900 day siege - a siege that took more lives than any other modern day conflict. And what I have found is actually quite amazing.

From what I can tell, this siege did many things to Leningrad. Mainly - and I'm not trying to make light here - it destroyed it, right? But, like Annie Dillard taught me to say, there is so much evidence of "the inrush of power and light" in the stories I've read tonight. Stories of human resiliency and motivation to cling to good and deny evil. The German and Finnish armies cut off all sources of life from Leningrad - it started in September and by winter there was no heat, no electricity, only ounces of bread for each person. But, in the face of this all, the people of Leningrad did not surrender. FOR 900 DAYS. I also read stories of people risking their lives to dig up potatoes in forbidden fields, only to then surrender their sweet harvest to authorities so they could be distributed equally among all the civilians. The city even commissioned cooks and chefs to "invent" high-calorie soups and breads to be distributed in the bread lines. Granted, their supplementation of cotton for flour didn't provide what people needed. Most during this time died of starvation or from the actual bombings. I think it is only accurate to say that with each sweet story of devotion to the whole community, there were also terrifying stories of human desperation. Factory workers eating oil off machines to satisfy hunger.... and of public authorities creating special forces focused primarily on attacking the cannibalism that eventually developed.

One might think the end of this siege was a beautiful day for Russia. I'm sure it was in many ways, but I think it was probably also a quiet victory. An unbelieving sigh of relief, or whatever could be mustered up by the souls who still stood 900 days after suck darkness struck their city. The Red Army, an army of Russian revolutionaries, eventually brought defeat to the German forces.

My visit to the museum did good things for my curiosities about Russia, although, like I said, none actually lead me any closer to understanding The Brothers specifically. But, I'm just going to say that is okay. Because there is a lot to know about the world, and learning it a little at a time is just fine.