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Absurdistan A Novel Gary Shteyngart 9780812971675 Books

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Absurdistan A Novel Gary Shteyngart 9780812971675 Books

Sorta fun, sorta insightful, pretty good writing.... The plot held promise but that possibility was never fully realized. This book straddles a rather uninteresting line between serious and absurd: the main character being a grossly overweight Russian of college age, the son of a wealthy oilman who supposedly killed a rival Oklahoma oilman and so is in turn killed himself. Our newly orphaned obese protagonist, refused reentry to the U.S. to complete his college studies, instead drifts and schemes and finds himself in the capital of an oil-rich former Soviet republic on the shores of the Caspian Sea. That the self-described disgustingly fat Misha attracts one gorgeous girlfriend after another is hard to accept, despite his financial status. Much of the book is painfully sophomoric, like a tired and silly joke told one time too many--perhaps a dozen times too many. There is nothing particularly satisfying about finishing this book; it's more akin to switching off the TV after watching an old rerun of Beverly Hillbillies.


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Absurdistan A Novel Gary Shteyngart 9780812971675 Books Reviews

Funny, unapologetic, painfully awkward at times, and indeed, absurd, Shteyngart offers up a contemporary assessment of the reach and fumbles of modern America through the eyes of Misha, a wealthy-by-inheritance Russian who wants nothing more than to return to his true homeland... The United States of America.

Misha is obscenely obese, uncontrollably and unabashedly gluttonous, an alcoholic with a cringe-worthy lack of self-control, slightly-criminal, a student of the Marie-Antoinette School of Rich and Ignorant, and a curious, well-meaning, often-loveably oaf. In short, Misha is America.
Unforunately, Misha wasn't born in America, and he finds himself struggling to get back to New York after his wealthy gangster father kills an Oklahoma businessman and the entire Vainburg family is barred re-entry from his beloved New York, and from his actual beloved, a round-bottomed, foul-mouthed stripper with a heart-after-gold, Rouenna.

His adventures take him to Absurdistan, an ex-soviet state fractured by religious sectarian issues borne from laughable theological debate, overrun with Halliburton contractors, and absolutely lacking in that promised international currency, oil. Misha stumbles into the nascent civil war, and becoming enmeshed with the most corrupt characters by means of his honourable - if misplaced - intentions and his easily-swayed sex-drive.

Will Misha manage to detach himself from elite Absurdis pinching his every roll of lard? Will he manage to steal back his Rouenna from that god-awful, classless professor Jerry Shteynfarb? Those questions drive this contemporary reflection on the true absurdity of war, love, and INS.

My favourite book of 2012.
I kept waiting to stumble across a boring, unoriginal sentence in Gary Shteyngart's ABSURDISTAN. It doesn't exist. The story of Misha Vainberg, obese New York-phile Russian Jew bewildered in a post-perestroika world, is told with a voice that sings and dances (and often shows off). Misha , "A man of such few qualities," is the scion of a recently departed mini-oligarch. He struggles for identity as a 30 year old orphan, arriving in a fictional Caucasian country in a quest to return to New York.

He becomes embroiled with gangsters of all styles - from expansive dictators to American contractors seeking the spoils of conflict. The targets of Shteyngart's satire are wide but deep. Each character is bizarre and memorable. From his "manservant", Timofey to his ghetto-ripened sweetheart, Rouenna.

It's a strange, smart trip that poignantly ends on September 11, 2001, giving a look into a new era in history that can often be summarized in one word Absurd.

[To give some legitimacy to this review, I must point out a flaw. The flaw is Shteyngart's nerdiness. It comes through often in the jaunts into hip-hop lingo, in the zany corporate caricatures. For example, a background character by the name of Gary Shteynfarb lurks in the novel - a kind of lascivious, pompous alter ego for the writer. Yeah, we get the joke. Funny...nerd....]
This is a novel that is so incredibly fraught with potential to be the great comic novel of out time. I would go so far as to put it in the realm of Heller's Catch-22.

IF.

IF the book had been edited, I would say this. I don't blame Shteyngart. He writes some seriously hilarious stuff in here, even going so far as to posit the masterminds behind the Iraq war. (Who ever thought they'd read a comic novel featuring Halliburton?!) A good editor would have smoothed out Shteyngart's witticisms or, at the least, directed them in a different style. What should have been an overarching comedic theme winds up being a set of disjointed one-liners that are, at best, as another reviewer put it "Self-deprecating." Perhaps another way to express my distaste (though it may work for you) is to say that parts of this book made me feel like I was reading a script for a sequel to "Borat." With a decent edit, I would have easily placed this in the 5-star realm and added it to my own personal canon of great humorous literature.

Does that mean I would not recommend this novel? Hell no! It is truly awesome, and the work of a writer I'm sure we will be hearing much more of in the future. Shteyngart is a master of voice and character. No one is saved from the sweet cruelty of his pen. Our protagonist is a big fat jerk, but he's a lovable Train-Wreck of a big fat jerk, and one that we somehow pull for in the end. Not since O'Toole's Ignatius J. Reilly have we seen this class of unlikely protagonist.

All that said, is this a book for everyone? No. I can see where many people would not understand the humor. A reader who has an understanding of world events and geography will certainly benefit from that knowledge in regard to this novel.

I have spoken.
Sorta fun, sorta insightful, pretty good writing.... The plot held promise but that possibility was never fully realized. This book straddles a rather uninteresting line between serious and absurd the main character being a grossly overweight Russian of college age, the son of a wealthy oilman who supposedly killed a rival Oklahoma oilman and so is in turn killed himself. Our newly orphaned obese protagonist, refused reentry to the U.S. to complete his college studies, instead drifts and schemes and finds himself in the capital of an oil-rich former Soviet republic on the shores of the Caspian Sea. That the self-described disgustingly fat Misha attracts one gorgeous girlfriend after another is hard to accept, despite his financial status. Much of the book is painfully sophomoric, like a tired and silly joke told one time too many--perhaps a dozen times too many. There is nothing particularly satisfying about finishing this book; it's more akin to switching off the TV after watching an old rerun of Beverly Hillbillies.