City of Thieves by David Benioff
or
A buddy comedy in wartime
WWII. During the nazi's siege of
Leningrad, the young Lev Beniov is arrested for looting a corpse of a
frozen german soldier and put in a cell with Kolya, A handsome
deserter and oddly obsessed with literature. It's certain death for
both of them in front of the rifle of the red army but suddenly they
have an opportunity to save their lives: they'll be to set free if
can find a dozen eggs for thewedding cake of a powerful Soviet
Colonel’s daughter. For Lev it's the beginning of the more
dangerous and interesting days of his life: travelling under the
guidance of Kolya, Lev will discover much about life and about
himself.
David Benioff is well known for
his book "The 25th Hour" on which Spike Lee
based the movie with the same name; Benioff is also known for his
work on the HBO show, "Games of Thrones".
In City of Thieves Benioff takes
the memory told to him by his grandfather and makes a weird version
of the World War II: usually in stories based on the WWII the tone is
serious, pompous and rhetoric and self celebrative (the last one is
mainly an attribute of the american Blockbuster) but Benioff
introduces something different, irony.
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| George R.R. Martin and David Benioff |
His characters are brilliant and
the dialogues have a really good rhythm and are punctuated with
humourous jokes. The tone isn't always light and the change in
relation with the situation: Benioff is not a stupid
and knows about what he can makes joke about and what he cannot.
The tone of the book is a weird
mix of the strange character Pynchon's Style and of the adorable
losers of Graham Greene: there's no place for A hero here, just for
stupid, presuntuos, greedy, needy, beautiful human beings.
In conclusion "City of
Thieves" is a really good book if you are sick of all the
blockbusters about WWII, and you're looking for something different,
something with less heroism and more humanity in it!
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