City of Thieves: A Novel
by David Benioff
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Book Summary Information
Author: David BenioffEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2009-03-31
ISBN: 0452295297
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: Plume
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780452295292
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Book Reviews of City of Thieves: A Novel
Book Review: New Generation of Skewed Histories
Summary: 1 Stars
Like the work of Foer, who also reads history like a suspense novel, with more concern for the sensationalism of the tale than realism or an adherence to historical facts, Benioff's City of Thieves drops all pretense of any understanding of Russia during WWII, and plays at being a sort of post-Tarantino rampage through all the cliches associated with Jews, Germans and Russians from the period. Perhaps because Russian history is so well known from this period, Benioff decides to do a revisionist reading, making the Jews the enemies of everyone, and the Germans stereotypically brutal and at the same time nonchalant. The anachronistic voice of his narrator is a mix between Harry Potter's stupidity and Haddon's autistic, emotionless droid--with the exception, of course, of sex, which is exploited as the narrator's only driving thought throughout the novel. If we didn't know better, we might think Benioff himself seventeen years old. The "historical details" of the novel fall prey to a cutesy insider joke mentality, complete with "Peter" as the name for Leningrad, as if no one was really a Communist back in those days, and everyone was just waiting for the return of the Russian Orthodox church. As lame as calling San Francisco "Frisco," the echoing Americanism makes everyone in the novel sound like a teenage hipster. But then it is unlikely that Benioff did enough research to be aware of how he was twisting the facts. When the author here becomes aware somehow that his narrative is dragging even lower, he finds ridiculously drawn out torture scenes to try and revitalize his ahistorical and anachronistic egg quest. With all the melodrama of a bad soap, the novel exploits cliched situations and renders nearly flat characters, and readers would be better off reading Salisbury's history, which without being fictional is still a far better story.
Summary of City of Thieves: A Novel
From the critically acclaimed author of The 25th Hour, a captivating novel about war, courage, survival-and a remarkable friendship that ripples across a lifetime.During the Nazis' brutal siege of Leningrad, Lev Beniov is arrested for looting and thrown into the same cell as a handsome deserter named Kolya. Instead of being executed, Lev and Kolya are given a shot at saving their own lives by complying with an outrageous directive: secure a dozen eggs for a powerful Soviet colonel to use in his daughter's wedding cake. In a city cut off from all supplies and suffering unbelievable deprivation, Lev and Kolya embark on a hunt through the dire lawlessness of Leningrad and behind enemy lines to find the impossible.
By turns insightful and funny, thrilling and terrifying, City of Thieves is a gripping, cinematic World War II adventure and an intimate coming-of-age story with an utterly contemporary feel for how boys become men.
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