My father was a formidably erudite man who wore his wide-ranging scholarly acumen lightly and conveyed it deftly often with a kind of mordant humour.  He was fluent in German and French and read Russian somewhat haltingly (it is a difficult language).  Born in 1920, it was not surprising that, given his cultural interests and intellectual talents, the totalitarian nightmare and world war that framed his youth and early adulthood, preoccupied him.  He wanted to understand what at the deepest level seemed to defy comprehension.  When I became old enough (12 maybe) we would talk often about [...]