What inspired me about this book of courage and humour in a planet gone mad by war was the imagery vivid and surreal scenes that bring a hackneyed theme to life, and sets this novel apart from the pack.

Lev, the half Jew (nicely, his father is the Jew, so that does not count, proper?) and his Russian foil Kolya are released from a Russian jail in the besieged city of Leningrad during WWII to discover scarce eggs for the Colonel, whose daughter is finding married and would so want a cake in this city where cannibalism has taken hold of the less fortunate. Our Daring Duo go more than to the German-occupied side on their egg-hunt and encounter a myriad of adventures, some hair-raising, other individuals side-splitting, as they locate their treasure and bring it back to their Colonel, who has forgotten all about the incident in the meantime and has become the beneficiary of a raft of smuggled goodies, far exceeding eggs, for his beloved daughter’s wedding. So a lot for the story – sounds like one of those old westerns, eh?

Now for the pictures that stuck with me: a dead German floating more than the starving city in his parachute, killed by the cold rather of bullets, the well-fed Colonel’s daughter skating on the Neva even though her city starves, the dying boy guarding his solitary chicken whilst his grandfather’s frozen copse reposes subsequent to him, the human sausage factory for those who aspire for a bit of “meat” in the course of the siege, Kolya and Sonya getting sex and creating loud conversation amidst a area full of starving refugees, dogs strapped with explosives and employed as mines against the advancing German tanks. These are but a sample.

The ebullient Kolya and the gangly Lev are wonderful foils despite their physical and psychological differences. For all his gregariousness, we also uncover that Kolya is attempting to write the Excellent Russian Novel in snatches for the duration of breaks on their quest, writing furiously with a pencil stub on scraps of paper. The ruthless sniper, Vika, a young woman who dresses like a man to hide from the Germans, offers the enjoy interest for the restrained Lev in ways that even surprise him. The burly Abendroth, the German Einsaztkommando (an elite group of killers deadlier than the Waffen SS), is the epitome of an arch villain, swilling schnapps, playing chess, seeing via our heroes’ guises, and killing individuals at random.

Even although the ending was predictable, some of the lines stuck with me long soon after I completed the book, etching the characters indelibly in my thoughts: Kolya, who stumbles on a farmhouse with four healthy Russian ladies kept as sex slaves for the invaders, recounts the episode as, “my balls were ringing like a pair of dumbbells,” even though Lev, seeing his raunchier buddy blissfully producing out with an old girlfriend, remarks “the loneliest sound in the planet is other people making love.”

And as for the author, who appears to have borrowed a lot of the story from his grandfather, he follows Grandpa’s guidance when issues do not make sense and “makes it up” for the reader, therefore giving us a memorable read.