What Makes City of Thieves by David Beniof a Compelling Read
 UK hardcover edition encompass artwork | |
| Writer | David Benioff |
|---|---|
| Country | The states |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Historical fiction |
| Publisher | Viking/Penguin |
| Publication date | 2008 |
| Pages | 258 pp. |
| ISBN | 0-670-01870-viii |
City of Thieves is a 2008 historical fiction novel past David Benioff. It is, in part, a coming of age story set in the Globe War Ii siege of Leningrad. Information technology follows the adventures of 2 youths as they badly search for a dozen eggs at the bidding of a Soviet NKVD officer, a task that takes them far backside enemy lines.
Plot [edit]
The novel begins with David equally the narrator. He is an American who describes himself as growing upwardly knowing that his grandfather killed 2 Germans in a knife fight before he was xviii, even though he was never actually told the story. Equally a child, David lived 2 blocks abroad from his grandparents, who owned an insurance visitor. In the belatedly 1990s, an insurance conglomerate offered to purchase the company, and David'due south grandmother asked them to double their offer. Eventually the conglomerate agreed and David's grandparents retired to Florida. David lives in Los Angeles writing screenplays, but when he was asked to write an autobiographical essay, he decided he wanted to write instead nearly Leningrad, where his grandfather grew upward. He flies to Florida to speak with his grandfather, and for a week David records his grandad's stories.
The narrator changes to Lev (David's grandfather) and information technology's New Twelvemonth's Eve in 1942 in Petrograd, Russia, during Earth War II. Everyone'south been hungry since the German siege of the urban center began in September, although many, including Lev's mother and sister Taisya, have evacuated. Lev, at 17, is a firewoman for the city, and sits on the roof of his flat building with his friends Vera, Grisha, and Oleg. Vera spots a German soldier falling from the sky in a parachute and the 4 run downwards into the street to investigate. When the High german lands in the street, Lev takes the human being's knife while Grisha opens the human being's hip flask and passes it effectually, toasting the common cold that killed this soldier. Suddenly they hear a car coming and run, because what they're doing is illegal. Equally they race dorsum to the flat building, Vera falls. Lev goes dorsum to aid her and boosts her over the gate, merely the Russian soldiers out on patrol grab Lev before he can climb over himself. The soldiers take him to the Crosses, the prison house in Leningrad.
After hours in his pitch nighttime cell, Lev has come up to the grim conclusion that he'll never exist a great Russian, since he feels one-half-cleaved after just his curt fourth dimension in prison. He hears guards coming, the cell door opens, and a immature soldier is ushered into the prison cell. When they are lone, the young man introduces himself as Kolya, who accused of desertion, but he tells Lev that in fact he was defending his thesis on Ushakovo's The Courtyard Hound, a book and author whom Lev has never heard of.
The adjacent morning, Lev and Kolya are taken to a mansion where the NKVD—the Russian secret constabulary—are stationed. There, Colonel Grechko tasks them with finding a dozen eggs to make a cake for the Colonel'southward daughter's wedding the following Friday. He confiscates Lev and Kolya'due south ration cards and sends them off with a letter saying they shouldn't be stopped or harassed.
Lev and Kolya decide that the Haymarket, which is entirely black marketplace, is the place to first. As they walk in that location, Kolya teases Lev near being a virgin and begins to explicate his theory of calculated neglect to him, which he learned from The Courtyard Hound. They don't find eggs in the Haymarket, only a very big man approaches them and says that he has eggs at his apartment. The giant leads them to an flat edifice and refuses to bring the eggs down to the street. Kolya cheerfully agrees to practice business in the giant's apartment even after the man admits to being a murderer, only when Lev and Kolya enter the giant's apartment, they observe that the giant and the giant'due south married woman are cannibals. Lev and Kolya manage to escape unscathed.
Kolya and Lev determine to stay at the latter'due south flat that night, only when they plough on the street where the edifice is, they find the apartment edifice has been reduced to a pile of rubble. Kolya so leads Lev to the apartment of a friend, Sonya, where she welcomes them warmly and introduces them to the doctors also staying with her. Lev sleeps that night in the living room and listens to Kolya and Sonya have sex in the next room, thinking that information technology's the loneliest sound in the world.
The following morning, Lev and Kolya decide to investigate a rumor that they heard in the Haymarket that there's an old homo keeping chickens on a roof. They get into the old human being'due south building by offer to behave buckets of ice for two girls who live there. When Lev and Kolya become to the roof and detect the coop, they open the door to find that the old man has been dead for days, and the chickens are gone. His grandson, Vadim, is still guarding the absent chickens and is very weak. Vadim refuses Lev and Kolya's offers of assistance and finally offers them the final chicken he'd been keeping warm under his coat. They take the craven back to Sonya'south apartment and debate how long information technology'll take for her to lay a dozen eggs. During this time, Lev reveals that his father was Abraham Beniov, a famous poet who was arrested by the NKVD and never returned. Timofei, one of the doctors, returns to Sonya'southward apartment and incredulously explains to the others that the chicken is really a rooster and will never lay eggs. So, that nighttime, they cobble together a fabulous chicken soup.
Kolya wakes Lev the next morning and informs him they're going to walk to Mga, where there'southward a poultry collective that's surely being kept functional past the Germans. As they walk, Kolya shares more than well-nigh The Courtyard Hound and they discuss Lev's male parent. They hear a howl and follow the sound, eventually coming across a clearing littered with expressionless dogs. One is nonetheless alive. Kolya slits the dog's pharynx and explains that the dogs were strapped to bombs and intended to blow upward German tanks, merely were shot past the Germans instead.
Lev and Kolya proceed their march to Mga, although every bit night falls, Kolya admits they're going the incorrect way. Lev notices a farmhouse with lit windows and decides that he'southward going to attempt to stay there for the night. He and Kolya creep upwardly to the business firm and peer in a window. They run into four teenage girls dancing inside, and Kolya looks angry. Kolya knocks on the door and has a short standoff with one of the girls, and Lev finally realizes that the girls are being kept past the Germans as sex slaves. Lev and Kolya make peace with them, however, and the girls offer them nutrient and share that the soldiers who visit them are Einsatzgruppen (Nazi death squads).
Kolya asks the girls why they don't walk away, and Lara tells them about Zoya, who was a immature girl who was captured with this group of girls. She tried to run away one twenty-four hour period, and to punish her, Abendroth, the Einsatzgruppen officer in charge, fabricated the others scout as he sawed Zoya'south feet off. Lev and Kolya make up one's mind to try to kill the Nazis when they come afterward that night.
Lev is terrified, and Kolya offers him a pack of playing cards with naked women on them to distract from his fear. The Nazis arrive earlier than expected, just are ambushed by Russian partisan fighters exterior. The partisans almost shoot Lev and Kolya as well, just finally agree not to. Lev, meanwhile, is surprised and intrigued to find that their best sniper, Vika, is female person.
Korsakov, the partisans' leader, gives everyone an hour to warm upward and then they all depart the farmhouse. The girls head south and Lev and Kolya follow the partisans to try to hunt Abendroth. As they walk, Kolya tells Lev more than about The Courtyard Hound and Lev asks Kolya if he's writing it. Kolya doesn't deny this theory. They soon come across villages that the Einsatzgruppen are burning and caput for a nearby safety house to sleep. While anybody is sleeping, Kolya explains to Lev that he was actually accused of desertion considering he spent New Year'southward Eve trying to find a woman in Leningrad to have sex with, but he grossly miscalculated how much time he had to become back to his team.
The adjacent morning time, the partisan on guard duty wakes everyone, yelling that the Germans are coming. They all try to run but it's likewise late. Korsakov is killed. Lev tries to hide. Vika, Kolya, and a partisan named Markov detect him, merely the Germans are still approaching. Vika decides they should effort to infiltrate the group of prisoners who are with the Germans, and they successfully do and then, but then one of the prisoners starts yelling that Markov is a partisan, and the Germans shoot Markov.
When the company reaches a schoolhouse, an Einsatzgruppen officer tests the prisoners' literacy. Lev, Kolya, and Vika all pretend to be illiterate. All the literate prisoners are shot and the residuum are squeezed into a toolshed for the dark. The following forenoon when the Nazis motility the prisoners out of the shed, they observe that the prisoner who betrayed Markov had been murdered in the nighttime. As they march that 24-hour interval, Kolya suggests that Vika certainly killed the human, and is likely NKVD. A convoy of High german vehicles passes the prisoners, but one of the arms vehicles breaks downwards, and all the German soldiers take the alibi to stop and urinate. Vika points out Abendroth's car at the cease of the convoy and Kolya, who speaks German language, approaches a group of soldiers and begins to banter with them. When he returns to Lev and Vika, he said that he bet their lives and a dozen eggs on Lev winning a chess match against Abendroth.
That night, Abendroth calls for Lev, Vika, and Kolya. He'south a hulking man but very smart and sees through their ruse, stating that Lev is a Jew, Vika is female, and they're all certainly literate. He finally agrees to the lucifer and adds a dozen eggs to the pot per Kolya'southward request. The iii are searched but the young soldier who searches them misses their subconscious knives.
Lev wins the chess game against Abendroth, and realizes it'southward going to exist up to him to stab Abendroth. He makes his move and a fight ensues. He kills Abendroth and the soldier fighting Kolya, losing his left index finger in the process. Vika grabs the Germans' guns, Kolya grabs the box of eggs, and the three jump out the window and run for the woods. When Petrograd is in sight, Vika asks Lev for his total name so she tin find him later, kisses him, and leaves to observe another group of partisans.
When Lev and Kolya reach the defenses of Leningrad the next morning time, the soldiers on duty shoot at them and hit Kolya in ane of his buttocks. When the lieutenant realizes that Kolya and Lev are working for Colonel Grechko, he loads Kolya and Lev into a truck and heads quickly for the hospital, afraid of making a powerful enemy. Kolya is incensed at having been shot by his own people but tries to tell Lev that everything's going to be fine. As Kolya's lips turn blue, it becomes obvious that Kolya is going to die. He smiles at Lev and Lev wishes he could brand a joke.
Lev delivers the eggs to Colonel Grechko after that forenoon and discovers that Grechko has already procured three dozen other eggs. Colonel Grechko grants Lev two ration cards and tells him he'll alive a long life by keeping his rima oris close.
The German siege is lifted in January of 1944. In 1945, Lev is in his apartment reading when he hears a knock at the door. He answers it, and Vika is standing in the hallway with her suitcase and a dozen eggs. Lev suggests they make an omelet, and Vika states that she doesn't cook. City of Thieves was released by Plume on May 15, 2008.[1]
The audiobook, narrated by Ron Perlman, was released by Penguin Audio on January 8, 2009.[2]
Reception [edit]
The book was well received past nearly critics, including Jesse Berrett of SFGate and Boris Fishman of The New York Times.[3] [4] According to Jennifer Reese of Amusement Weekly, "Benioff has produced a funny, distressing, and thrilling novel. A-".[five] However, Donna Rifkind of Los Angeles Times wrote that while the book "features a snappy plot, a buoyant friendship, a quirky courtship, an assortment of menacing bad guys, an atmosphere that flickers between grainy realism and fairy-tale grotesquerie and a grim but irrepressible sense of humour," it left her "thoroughly and discouragingly unmoved."[6]
The novel was too a major creative inspiration for the post-apocalyptic video game The Terminal of Us.[vii] The game'southward director Bruce Straley said: "It's nice to be inspired by [...] the right things. City of Thieves is an amazing book. Everybody should bank check that out."[viii] The volume makes an appearance in the sequel, The Terminal of Us Part II, where the character Abby is seen reading the book. Abby, subsequently in the game, meets a boy named Lev.
References [edit]
- ^ Benioff, David (2008-05-xv). Urban center of Thieves: A Novel . New York: Plume. ISBN9780452295292.
- ^ Benioff, David; Perlman, Ron; Sound, Penguin. City of Thieves. Penguin Audio.
- ^ Jesse Berrett (2008-05-thirteen). "Fiction review: Benioff'south 'City of Thieves'". SFGate. Retrieved 2013-09-sixteen .
- ^ Wartime Rations - Volume Review - 'City of Thieves,' by David Benioff, NYTimes.com, July 6, 2008.
- ^ Jennifer Reese (2008-05-20). "City of Thieves Review | Volume Reviews and News". EW.com. Retrieved 2012-09-04 .
- ^ "'City of Thieves' by David Benioff | A teen fights for survival during the Siege of Leningrad", latimes.com, May 11, 2008.
- ^ Minkley, Johnny (2011-12-thirteen). "The Concluding of Us Preview • Previews •". Eurogamer.net. Retrieved 2012-01-xiv .
- ^ "The Terminal of Us: Naughty Domestic dog On Elevating the Interactive Medium | GamesIndustry International". Gamesindustry.biz. 2012-07-xviii. Retrieved 2013-09-16 .
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Thieves_%28novel%29
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