Sometimes You Take Your Medicine and Enjoy It, or A Review of “City of Thieves”

So the bookmines have embarked on a new project wherein all of the “miners” are supposed to hand sell specific titles to customers. Every store has a weekly quota for each title, etc… My general attitude can be concisely summed up with one syllable: meh. I sell shit I haven’t read all damn day…whatever.

But a recent title caught my eye and I thought I might as well read at least one of these damn things. So two days ago I finished City of Thieves by David Benioff.

The book opens with a quick intro about a grandson traveling to Florida to spend some time with his grandparents. The author realizes that, though everyone in his family knows that grand dad stabbed two Nazi’s in WWII, he doesn’t know any of the specifics. So he sits for a week listening to grandfather tell the story. The intro ends with:

He tolerated this for a while, but eventually he leaned forward and pressed the Stop button on the tape recorder

“It was a long time ago,” he said. “I don’t remember what I was wearing. I don’t remember if the sun came out.”

“I just want to make sure I get everything right.

“You won’t.”

“This is your story. I don’t want to fuck with it.”

“David–”

“A couple of things still don’t make sense to me–”

“David,” he said. “You’re a writer. Make it up.”

Which, it occurs to me, is reminiscent to Vonnegut’s opening toSlaughterhouse Five in that the reader is told (not directly) that the following story is based on some sort of fact, but not to expect a historical retelling. And, I’ll be honest, I don’t know if David Benioff actually has a grandfather who survived the siege of Leningrad and stabbed a couple of Nazi’s in the process, but I sure do like the idea that someone lived this story.

And the story is this…

Lev (the main character) is 17 and still in Leningrad on January 1st 1942, about 6 months into the siege. His mother and sister had fled the city some months before. One night Lev and some friends spot a Nazi paratrooper fall into a nearby street. They go to investigate and find the Nazi has died of exposure, but are happy to relieve their dead enemy of his belongings and Lev gets his hands on a Nazi issue knife. Of course, the kids are out after curfew (which is punishable by execution…the Russian courts in Leningrad weren’t exactly up and running now that the city was slowly be starved to death during the day and bombed at night) and a military patrol comes across them. While the others get away, Lev is caught. Expecting a bullet in the head, he is instead thrown into a pitch black prison cell for the night.

This is where he meets Kolya, a 20 year old Red Army private accused of desertion (another crime punishable by summary execution). Kolya is brought into the cell after Lev and the two have a brief conversation before Kolya falls asleep. The next morning the two are brought before a Colonel in the NKVD (sort of like a Russian secret service). The Colonel tells the boys that his daughter is to be married in five days and that the mother has insisted a cake be baked for the event. The mother, it turns out, has hoarded all the dry goods needed but still needs eggs. The Colonel then tells the boys that if they can find one dozen eggs by the day of the wedding they will be released.

Five days to find 12 eggs in a city so starved that people are melting down book bindings and eating the glue because it contains protein.

Because I don’t want to spoil the whole plot (what I just game you is only the first 37 pages) I won’t talk about too many specifics from this point on, but what I will say is that someone (I won’t say who…he knows who he is and he won’t be mentioned by name until he shows up!) compared the book to Life is Beautiful. It’s a fair comparison, in that both highly comic and highly tragic (and graphic) things occur in the book. It isn’t a very satisfying comparison, though, because the film is more lighthearted than City of Thieves and, as a film, does not have any of the beautiful language that so effortlessly pervades the book. But if you’ve seen the Roberto Benigni film then you at least have an understanding of how the book’s story operates.

A better comparison, in terms of the underlying ideas, if not the actual narrative, is Everything is Illuminated (the awesome novel, not the so so movie).

In terms of narrative, there really aren’t a lot of surprises. The reader is told in the introduction that Lev stabbed two Germans during WWII, so we know that happens. Also, since David is around to tell the story, Lev must survive the war. We also learn, early on, that Lev meets the love of his life while searching for the eggs, and that he was quite the chess player as a boy. All these things must be of importance at end of the novel, and so while predicting what will occur throughout the story is not too difficult, the skill with which Benioff concludes his story is nothing short of masterful. There are a few plot turns I hadn’t expected that, even though they are infuriating, could not have been written any other way without sacrificing the power of the story. And that, I think, is the mark of a truly gifted writer. One who can both delight and anger you but, you must admit as a reader, made the correct choices for the story he was telling.

Furthermore, the character of Kolya, while not the main character or narrator (the book is told by Lev in first person), is written with such a deft touch. Here is a character that could have easily slipped into nothing more than a simple braggart, or a caricature, or simply an extended plot device, but what Benioff gives the reader is a fully realized, complex, young man. And the way in which is does it is impressive. Only as Lev begins to understand his companion does the reader. While Lev’s journey into manhood (above all else it is a coming of age story) is the main piece of the narrative, Lev’s ability to finally understand his companion is what allows this journey to be complete.

So how much of this book did Benioff make up? No clue…and I don’t care because the narrative works so perfectly that, real or not, it exists now in my imagination and that is good enough.

Intercooler — Futures Created