This book is certainly good, probably great, and perhaps even brilliant. David Benioff really takes us on a strong journey of coming of age, of exploring an area in the past that isn't really explored in this way. Essentially the brilliance of the book lies, I think, in the introduction. The introduction makes it genuinely unsure whether or not this is non-fiction or at the very least a memoir-like recounting of events versus a completely fictionalized version of events. Especially when I read this I had no idea that it was fiction. I saw that it said a novel on the front but I wasn't sure what that meant.
That brilliance carries it so far in the book that it essentially made the stakes real and not fleeting. It turned it from a historical fiction about an interesting era or epoch in history and turned it instead into a psychological study in storytelling. The prose is not particularly memorable, not going to lie, pretty run of the mill. The plot and the narrative, though, is where the book starts to shine because the plot is strong. It starts with very simple fundamental basics of storytelling: establish stakes, establish the win-loss. In this case find the eggs and you're good, don't find the eggs and you're done, and then just moves through that adventure story.
It's an adventure for all intents and purposes. It's a hero's story, a coming of age, almost fantasy in its simple chosen one, archetypal archetype. You have essentially the story of Randalf Thor leaving the village or Frodo Baggins leaving the village, but it's a flawed child who we know nothing about. We don't know why he's important. It seems like a series of unfortunate events that gets him to the starting point of this entire saga.
As the story progresses we come to know that while he isn't ordinary, considering his father's background and his obvious ability to withstand tough situations, he can't just be a normal kid. We come to realize that he is normal and he is us and if we were stuck in that situation, we would be very similar. Yes our fathers may not be famous poets. That means we've dealt with some form of loss before.
At the same time we are adolescents shoved into an adult world. With that being said because the book is set up as a retelling of a story in which we know the resolution and not just the resolution, it's that we met that grandfather at the beginning. We met the grandmother at the beginning. We met the eventual grandson who writes the story and we think we know that grandson who writes the story because of that and because we see who this man ended up becoming. It infuses the character as they come of age with a real sense of poignancy because we know this isn't a lamb for the slaughter. He clearly didn't get slaughtered. He built a family. He has a grandkid and he seems to have a pretty good life after the war so the lamb to the slaughter is completely bypassed in a brilliant way.
As far as the character work is concerned there are really only two characters that we care about and that's the titular character and his non-Jewish Russian companion, who I think is brilliantly written. He is like a Gogol character coming to life in his absurdity and surrealness. It's like taking inspiration from the Russian classics to paint a stereotype and caricature that lives and breathes in such a likable way. Yes some of the things that he does are quite ridiculous but we forgive him because he's so likable.
The thematic depth is there. The story does say something behind the story and that's the power of the human spirit, the unbreakableness, as the Jewish aphorism goes: "Nothing stands in the way of will. If you want to do something, you'll get it done." They wanted eggs. As impossible as it seemed, that didn't stop them. There is a real bonding that happens and really the theme is they're all under siege. Again the Jewish teaching teaches that everyone is under siege. The Jewish word for siege is "samach," which is the letter that is completely enclosed because everybody's trapped inside and everyone is the same.
I think there's some thematic depth. Maybe I have to think of that a little more. As far as the atmosphere is concerned, you feel like you're in siege Leningrad. You feel the cold, you feel the grayness, you feel everything about it. The originality, as I described, because of that introduction, changes it from a well-written historical fiction novel to a brilliant look into what it means to survive.
The resolution is strong. It probably borders on cute more than strong. That end scene with the chess game is, to be quite frank, ridiculous. Up until that point I thought maybe it's just a crazy story that happened to someone. The chess game made me realize that, "Oh this is fiction." Even the scene in the middle with them discovering the cabin in the woods with the imprisoned girls, while improbable, felt a little bit more likely but that chess game really just took me out of it. That was pretty much where the resolution started.
The emotional impact is not really there. I don't think this is a book that is aiming for emotional resonance. Rereadability, absolutely. I will reread this again. That je ne sais quoi is there. As a writer I could not have thought of this, something this brilliant. Now that I read it I think, "Oh what could I do with this, with my skill set and with my life story?" The immersion is there. I couldn't put the book down. The genre satisfaction is beyond there because it goes beyond historical fiction and creates a unique pocket within it. The author's voice is absolutely there. It's right, it's funny, it's serious. It's, in my opinion, as I said, absolutely good. It's quite frankly great and it may just be brilliant.