City of Thieves: A Novel by David Benioff
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Book Reviews of City of Thieves: A Novel
Book Review: Well Done, A Round of Applause
Summary: 5 Stars
Overview:
A well-told tale from the author's grandfather about his experiences during the brutal siege of Leningrad. The story includes the formative events of Lev Beniov's life, and discusses his coming-of-age, and how he ended up stabbing, and killing two Germans. (This is revealed in the first sentences of the book, so I am not really spoiling anthing.)
Overall, it is extremely well written, and David Benioff has made his grandfather into a very compelling character, as is his friend, Kolya.
Plot:
The plot of the book is deceptively simple. Kolya, who has been charged with desertion, and Lev, who has been charged with looting, have been tasked by a colonel in the NKVD, the predecessor of the much feared KGB, with finding a dozen eggs. During the infamous siege of Leningrad during WWII. If you know anything about the siege, you will realize just how insane that this is.
Within minutes of being released, they are attacked by cannibals. This is not particularly surprising, as the conditions in the city were horrifying, with most people getting somewhere in the neighborhood of 125 grams of bread per day. This is only the beginning of the adventures that Lev and Kolya share in their efforts to locate a dozen eggs.
I will say that the ending was not what I had hoped for. It wasn't surprising, per se, but it certainly wasn't what I'd hoped for. As this is based on the events that really occurred, it is hard to really fault the author for that. Although, I would note that I almost couldn't imagine a more apropos ending, considering the subject matter.
Characters:
The characters here are a bright spot. The interactions of Lev and Kolya are amusing on many levels, not the least of which is Kolya's constant efforts to help Lev with all aspects of his life.
None of the characters are really stereotyped, even the ones that are relatively minor. The characters are also really interesting.
Setting:
The book is set in and around Leningrad, during World War II, obviosuly, probably in around 1942. The setting is crucial for this book, as it forms the rationale for their insane quest.
Theme:
The theme of the book...well, it is hard to say, really. It does a very good job of demonstrating the crippling deprivation that the people of Leningrad and the corruption of the Soviet Union.
Point of View:
The story is naturally told from the point of view of Lev, who narrated its events for his grandson. It is also natural, therefore, that the perspective is limited to the events that Lev would have been aware of.
Aesthetics:
The aesthetics are good, which makes sense, since Benioff is a talented wordsmith. The parts of the story that are intended to be frightening are. The parts where he discusses the back-breaking deprivation ring true. It is well written and the aesthetics only add to the package.
Conclusion:
Well worth reading, and I will be recommending it to friends that I think may be interested in WWII.
It is a bit violent in places, so not for the squeamish. But, if you can tolerate it, it is worth it.
Grade: A
Harkius
Book Review: "Children of a Thousand Lost Battles"
Summary: 5 Stars
I guess I read enough fiction to set some pretty high standards - or least enough to qualify as a skeptical, even jaded critic, especially when sources like "The New York Times Book Review" gush such high praise, and "...remind us what a beautifully ambiguous world we live in." So I'm thinking, the siege of Leningrad, Nazi's, Bolsheviks, and starvation - yeah, lots of ambiguity there. Yikes! Time to batten down the hatches and prepare for the latest liberal barrage of revisionist history and moral relativism.
Wow, could I have been more wrong? David Benioff knocks it out of the park in this one, a landmark WWII novel that manages to capture the horrors of war and mankind at its most squalid depths while uncannily finding humor and dignity in settings and situations that could not be more incongruous.
Lev Beniov is a teenager, arrested by his Soviet comrades for looting the corpse of an unfortunate German pilot who, apparently ejected from his broken Junker, freezes to death during his parachute's long journey through an impossibly frigid Russian winter night. Thrown into Leningrad's dreaded "Crosses" prison, Lev is sure he'll face the execution squad in the morning. Joining him in the cell is Kolya, a gregarious young Soviet soldier and, as a deserter, assigned to the same fate. There could not be an odder couple: Lev, the scrawny, gloomy, and introverted Jew matched with the brawny, handsome, confident, and sexually active Kolya. But rather than facing the noose or firing squad in the morning, the Soviet Colonel in charge of the prison offers to his captives his own mission impossible: "find me a dozen eggs for my daughter's wedding cake next week, and you'll earn your reprieve". So young Lev and Kolya set out across the barren and brutal ghettos and outskirts of Leningrad on a futile search for eggs in a famished city, where beloved pets have long ago been reduced to meals, where wood chips or a leather strap serve as a passable meal in a nightmare urbanscape of canals and streets clogged with stacks of the forsaken city's dead.
Benioff spins his tale with the easy banter of a master storyteller, a talented writer whose easy prose ebbs and flows in stark contrast to the horrors of old St. Petersburg's brutal siege. This is an author whose keen insight manipulates the reader's emotions from one atrocity to the next, uncannily injecting black humor and suspense, while all the while crafting a beautifully poignant coming of age tale of love, loss and survival.
"City of Thieves" is a rare treat; a literary gem that deftly navigates that fine line between despair and triumph, and in the process defines the art that separates the truly great novel from the rest of the pack. So, to The New York Times Book Review - my apologies - you nailed it - a remarkable effort that indeed captures that "beautifully ambiguous world" in which we live. My candidate for "book of the year' - bravo, Mr. Benioff.
Book Review: AMAZON #12? Am I the the last person on the planet to read this book?
Summary: 5 Stars
For a multiplicity of reasons, I pray not.
In one of history's greatest blunders, on June 22, 1942 Germany declared war on its ally, Russia, allowing for the subsequent development of major fronts both east and west of the Fatherland.
Overshadowed by Hitler's criminal stupidity and suicidal hubris is the wonderful irony that ambushed Joseph Stalin. Famously known as a raving paranoid, relish the black humor of Stalin's betrayal by the only person he ever trusted ... Das Fuhrer.
Russia's defense of Stalingrad, that death dance on the Volga, is the one of the most famous battles in all of history, as well as the bloodiest, with some records claiming up to 2,000,000 dead. Militarily, it changed the war. Geopolitically, it changed the world. The events at Stalingrad are well-recorded on paper and film.
Less known is the siege and attempted starvation of the citizens of Leningrad, some 1500 kms west-northwest of Stalingrad at the eastern end of the Baltic. It is here, in the Czarist capital of St. Petersburg, a classic example of the Mother Russia's self-defining psychological characteristic, a schizophrenic combination of pessimism and optimism, unfolds as Philip Benioff retells his (maybe) grandparents' story as fighters and survivors in one of the horrid atrocities so blithely subsumed today into what is fast becoming a rote phrase - World War II.
In "City of Thieves" Philip Benioff has crafted five magnificent sentences that define the life and death of an artist's talent. In a "book within a book" the author's character's author says
She (the creative muse) is a fanatical mistress. She's beautiful; when you're with her, people watch you, they notice. But she bangs on your door at odd hours, and she disappears for long stretches, and she has no patience for the rest of your existence: your wife, your children, your friends. She is the most thrilling evening of your week, but some day she will leave you for good. One night, after she's been gone for years, you will see her on the arm of a younger man, and she will pretend not to recognize you.
-The Courtyard Hound
Read this book and reap the rewards of Benioff's enormous talent. Apparently his mistress is still beguiled by his charms.
The book tells a vivid and memorable story of friendship, courage, humor, love, weddings, murder, Nazi death squads, collaborators, traitors, deserters, partisans, snipers, starvation, cannibalism, Commies, Cossacks, hope, endurance, imagination and poetry in the horror that was Leningrad's winter of 1941.
And oh yes, the eggs. Don't forget the eggs.
Book Review: A stunningly real and moving historical novel
Summary: 5 Stars
This novel was recommended to me by a book-store employee, who summarized the plot and setting, sounding very interesting, and then added that the author was also the writer of the Wolverine screenplay -- I immediately lost interest. However, for some reason I still ended up buying the book a month or so later, and I'm very glad that I did -- I can't believe author Benioff's talent is wasted on super-hero screenplays. Of course, his accountant probably disagrees that those efforts are "wasted."
Regardless, City of Thieves is written with tremendous skill. From the opening pages, detailing how Benioff interviewed his grandfather for the novel's source material, I was immediately hooked. Once the story gets under way, with Benioff writing in first-person as his grandfather, City of Thieves becomes impossible to put down. Lev, the protagonist, is a 17-year-old boy in St. Petersburg Russia, a city and country besieged by Nazi invaders. Ultimately, he is forced on an impossible quest with Kolya -- a silver-tongued sage of twenty -- to find a dozen eggs in the war-torn land.
The humanity expressed through Benioff's characters and the sense of realism evident in every word of his prose are astounding. As Americans, we often have a very one-dimensional view of World War II: "we" took out the Nazis and the Japanese. That the Soviet Union -- soon our enemy for the next forty-plus years -- was our ally, and probably had more to do with Germany's defeat than "we" did, is not something that's part of our collective consciousness. This novel puts the reader in the thick of the Russian theater, showing how the war affected the everyday lives of real people. The injustice, regimentation, scarcity, and cruelty of life for the Russian people imposed not only by the Nazi invaders, but their own government as well, is almost unfathomable.
Ultimately, City of Thieves is a story about protagonist Lev's transition from boy to man over the course of a week-long adventure during which his life is almost constantly in grave danger. There's plenty of humor, action, and even romance, with historical, political, and ethical issues all explored. The book is well-written, with stunningly real characters, crisp dialog, and excellent pacing. I really have no criticism to offer and can only give this book my hardiest endorsement.
Book Review: "City of Thieves": Like a fine wine, savor this novel.
Summary: 5 Stars
I've read 20 books this year, most of them really good, both fiction and history and without a doubt, this is at the top of list of my best reads of 2009. I've been interested in reading "City of Thieves" since it first came out in hardcover, but for some reason just never got to it. Boy was that a mistake. This is an almost flawless piece of literature, a novel that caused me to slow down my reading because I never wanted this book to end.
Benioff takes us to Leningrad during WWII as the Russians are surrounded in their city by the Nazis. Those not killed in the air raids or from starving or freezing to death, are left to deal with animal like conditions to survive these conditions. Lev, a scrawny, awkward late teen, and several friends find a dead German paratrooper outside their apartment complex. When they go to check it out, the Russian soldiers come after them for "stealing" and breaking curfew. Lev sacrifices himself by getting caught so one of his friends can escape. As a result, Lev winds up in one of the jails in the city and meets, Koloya, a Russian soldier just imprisoned for deserting his unit.
Lev and Kolya are given a surprising and puzzling proposition by a Russian colonel in Leningrad -- gain your freedom if you can get a dozen eggs in the next four days because his daughter wants a wedding cake. This proposition leads us into the heart of this magnificent novel, Lev and Kolya's hunt for a dozen eggs behind enemy lines.
In the space of four days, we encounter the insecurities, weaknesses, hopes, fears and ultimately character of Lev and Kolya. Benioff delivers across such a wide swath in this book: suspense, laughter, fear, horror, desperation, hope, love and compassion. The pictures Benioff paints of the bitterly cold, snowy, sparse landscape evokes such dramatic imagery that we can feel the chill of the frigid Russian winters within our own bodies. When circumstances lead to an encounter with Russian partisans and a sharp-shooter named Vika, Lev becomes captivated.
"City of Thieves" does what all great works of art do -- it connects with you, rationally and emotionally, is thought provoking and leaves an indelible mark on you. Celebrate the power of a great book by picking up this book and savoring a masterpiece.