(no subject)

[kolya]

history

Kolya's life could be summed up with a handful of numbers:

1 - World War II, rather City of Thieves is set during the Nazi invasion of Leningrad.
2 - Kolya's inability to put a leash on his sex drive ( which is not really an event so much as a perpetual bother in his life, but it seems to amount to the same thing as this leads to ... )
3 - Trying to get laid and consequentially through a convoluted series of events be charged with deserting the Russian Army
4 - Being given an opportunity to save his skin ( re: punishment for deserting is execution ) but getting sent off to collect a dozen eggs for the colonel's daughter's wedding. ... a dozen eggs in the middle of the German sieve on Leningrad in the middle of Russian winter.
5 - meeting Lev

Meeting Lev gets its own slot as Lev is Kolya's constant, and at times, reluctant partner on his crazymad adventure to find a dozen eggs. They're both given the same deal, bring back the dozen eggs and they won't be executed. Kolya likes Lev from the start, but it's hard to tell how much is his perpetual attitude and how much of it is because Lev is a slightly endearing, if not young and occasionally cranky, person.

Oh, the sixth event, which is not sixth chronologically, but rather because Kolya himself would keep it a hidden fact — the writing of The Courtyard Hound, his own book which he always refers to as someone else's book because the idea of his brainchild novel getting rejected is too difficult for him to bear. Which is a bit odd considering that events seven through twelve involve running away from cannibals, running away from nazis, running towards nazis, fighting off cannibals and so forth.

And of course, lucky event number thirteen, which was getting "shot in the ass by my own people."