Absurdistan

by Gary Shteyngart

Paperback, 2007

Status

Available

Call number

813.6

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Collection

Fiction

Publication

Granta Books (2007), Edition: 2nd, 352 pages

Description

"With the enormous success of the critically acclaimed The Russian debutante's handbook, Gary Shteyngart established himself as one of the most talented writers of his generation. Open Absurdistan and meet our hero, the outsize Misha Vainberg, son of the 1,238th-richest man in Russia, lover of large portions of food and drink, lover and inept performer of rap music, and lover of a South Bronx Latina whom he longs to rejoin in New York City, if only the American INS will grant him a visa. It won't, because Misha's late beloved Papa whacked an Oklahoma businessman of some prominence; now Misha is paying the price of exile from his adopted American homeland. He's stuck in Russia, dreaming of his beloved Rouenna and the Oz of NYC.

Media reviews

The New York Times

Like a victorious wrestler, this novel is so immodestly vigorous, so burstingly sure of its barbaric excellence, that simply by breathing, sweating and standing upright it exalts itself.

— 1 more

The New York Times

In the end Misha gives new meaning to that archetype of Russian literature — the "superfluous man" — while Mr. Shteyngart's novel manages to seem equally beside the point.

User reviews

LibraryThing member BeckyJG

Misha Vainberg, a 325 pound Russian Jew, is the son of the 1,238th richest man in Russia. Sent in 1990 by his Beloved Papa to get his education at the American Accidental College ("located deep in the country's interior and safe from the gay distractions of the eastern and western seaboards"),

Misha majored in multicultural studies, ate Doritos and Oreos and Cheetos and pizza, smoked dope, learned to rap ("My name is Vainberg/I like ho's/Sniff 'em out/Wid my Hebrew nose"), and picked up the nickname "Snack Daddy." Eventually, he ended up in Brooklyn. Misha is truly, madly, deeply in love with all things American. He's in love with American music and American people, especially the black and brown people of Brooklyn, with American smells and American food, and--most of all--he's in love with the large, street smart Rouenna.

But, as his story opens in June of 2001, Misha has been exiled back to Russia, far, far from all that he loves. Beloved Papa has killed--whacked, in the appropriate gangster parlance--an Oklahoma businessman, making Misha persona non grata in the States. But when Beloved Papa is himself murdered in turn, Misha sees his chance to leave the country he hates, and embarks on his quest to return to America. A Belgian passport is to be had, he's told, from a corrupt Belgian official who is posted in the oil rich country of Absurdvani. Run by Halliburton, on the verge of civil war (its two warring religious sects disagree as to which side the footrest in the image of Jesus on the cross should be), Absurdistan is a country desperately trying to fit itself into the twenty-first century. When war breaks out Misha is tapped as Minister of Multicultural Affairs and assigned the task of enlisting Israel's aid. Ultimately--in September of the year, and on the eve of the event that will change the country he loves forever--Misha must escape Absurdistan (and on an American Express train, yet).

Absurdistan is, well, absurd. It's also kind of wonderful, in a self-referential, self-conscious, post-modern, farcical way. Misha is the literary love child of Ignatius Reilly and Tyrone Slothrop, a blobby self-centered slob, who wants to do good but mostly wants to do good for himself, who is strangely attractive to women, who is paradoxically simultaneously hyper-aware of and utterly unaware of himself as he stumbles through the the war torn and often hallucinatory landscape (which, it must be noted, is quite the homage to Pynchon's bombed out Europe in Gravity's Rainbow). Absurdistan is brilliantly written and frequently hilarious--often uncomfortably so. However, in the end one is left feeling somewhat cold, and a little unsatisfied.

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LibraryThing member alienhard

A surreal satire of the fractured nations beholden to the oil interests of the United States, namely the chards of the U.S.S.R. in pre-9/11 times. The hero is a neurotic and obscenely overweight Russian Jew named Misha (a.k.a. Snack Daddy) heir to the 1238th largest fortune is Russia. Just like the

Hip-Hop stars he idolizes, Misha embraces excess at every turn, spending money lavishly, drinking and having lots of sex.

The book's title refers to the fictitious nation of Absurdistan (read: Kazakhstan), an oil-rich home to Halliburton that falls apart when a civil war breaks out between its two ethnic groups, the Sevo and the Svanis (read: Tutsi and the Hutus). Things would have been fine had one group not shot the other's leader out of the sky while landing at the local airport (read: Rwanda circa 1994). In the chaos that follows, set in the summer of 2001, Misha becomes romantically attached to the daughter of the Sevo leader and is soon placed in a Ministry position. All he really wants is to return to the United States, who so cruelly exiled him two years earlier.

While Absurdian is at times funny, it mostly struck me as repetitive and trite. I suppose if I was well-read in Russian Lit (see heavy Russian Lit tagging in my profile), I would better appreciate the novel's many subtle jokes and references. Alas I'm just an ignorant American who barely got the endless Hip-Hop jokes. In the end, I was restless to get the self-indulgent, whiny hero out of my life. I choked down the last 50 pages like a bad side dish. Oh, and if you don't enjoy reading the particulars of sex with really fat people, then maybe this isn't the book for you either.

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LibraryThing member suesbooks

I did not care for this book. I felt the humor was quite juvenile and the characters not interresting. I got very tired of hearing about body parts, especially Misha's botched circumcision. I had hoped to gain some insight into recent Russian immigrants, but I didn't.

LibraryThing member midlevelbureaucrat

Several months ago, I added Gary Shteyngart's novel, Absurdistan, to my bedside pile of books. Listed on the NY Times book review as one of '06's 10 best books, the Times promised me "smart, funny and incredibly moving". They suggested the creation of a 21st century antihero in the grossly

overweight, self-centered Russian oligarch, Misha Vainberg.

Hoping for some needed humor and light reading wrapped in clever, modern writing, I found neither. The story plods, with little that felt plausible or even all that interesting. The characters, the hapless Vainberg, his Bronx Puerto Rican girlfriend, his modelesque Absurdistani lover, all rather dull and ephemeral. The fictional and fractious nation of Absurdsvani was neither plausible nor interesting enough to matter. I felt at times as if I was listening in on a conversation between strangers, full of inside information I was never supposed to understand and that no one really wanted to let me in on. Shteyngart's imposing of an alter ego (perhaps?) of the Russian emigre writer Jerry Shteynfarb who becomes the American lover of Vainberg's ghetto girlfriend, was annoying at best.

I didn't get it. Perhaps I'm not deep enough, or literate enough to understand the style and references of this contemporary acclaimed writer. I finished the book more in the hope that it would redeem itself in the end. And in the end, it didn't.

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LibraryThing member drmarymccormack

I read this book a few years ago. I don't remember all that much about it, I am sad to say. I know that I enjoyed it quite a bit. It was very funny.

LibraryThing member MeditationesMartini

Shteyngart had the talent to write a better book, perhaps a very good book (maybe he has done?), but the Americans in this are all wrong, the pastiche tone-deaf as opposed to knowing, especially the poor ones, and the Russians seem pretty sleazy-huckstery-stillweirdlyinnocenty-right, but after the

Americans you kind of wonder, and the insistent proactivity with which Shteyngart manages his own rep, cynically knowing that if you write yourself as a fake and a buffoon that it'll charm all the NYC and MFA types who might otherwise hold themselves aloof from the claims of a fresh post-Soviet-global-migrant "the Warsaw Pact writes back" voice that you're selling, that is to say, just flogging PR hackery on a larger scale Shteyngart. And the Central Asians are just bogstandard sheepfuckery really. There are moments of stagy poignancy and I got pretty interested in the big fat sad rich just-wanna-be-loved-if-I-weren't-like-a-mansized-cyst-full-of-everything-that's-wrong-with-the-world-2006 main dude's relationship with his dad. He wanted cuddles from his dead dad and to be told he was pretty so much and a lot would have to go weird before most aspects of my situation with my new son would resemble Boris and Misha Vainberg's but let me tell you though sir that at least my boy will never lack for cuddles and blandishments and I hope he stays a mild to moderate daddy's boy for life and never either trundles idiotically through a gross fake Baudrillardian war like childlike Misha or strikes out on his own and turns into a self-made semi-fraud like how Shteyngart comes across a few too many times here.

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LibraryThing member jiles2

Throughout this book I found the title completely accurate in a completely ironic manner. Shteyngart both captures an era and an environment with this story, and although I'm not an oligarch's son, I found myself identifying with his characters in many of their situations.

LibraryThing member lyzadanger

I'm not sure if I found this book amusing because of its inherent goodness or because I dated a Russian for five years, and--boy howdy--this really has certain things about that culture dialed in, at least from a humor vantage.

Part "Borat," part "Everything is Illuminated" (Jonathan Safran Foer),

this book keeps the butchered English and ridiculous hijinks flying at you at the expense of any sort of plausible plot. It's raunchy, it's irreverent, it's the travesty of the Second World in the limelight.

Absurdistan, of course, doesn't really exist. But that doesn't stop Shteyngart from pretending it does and sending our protagonist, the 350-pound son of a recently-offed crime boss, there to flounder through various life-threatening, world-peace-threatening adventures.

Funny. Shameless. Somewhat tiring by the end.

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LibraryThing member shawnd

Non-starter. Shteyngart has his creative juices, good plot idea and character development going. However I couldn't continue because he inserted unnceccessary graphic deformation of genitalia repeatedly. Disgusting and in my mind ruined my ability to read and enjoy this book.

LibraryThing member kd9

I could not finish this book. The characters were repellent and their situations uninteresting. I cannot even imagine what the people who actually like this book see in it. If you wish to read an absurdist fantasy, you would be much better off reading John Kennedy Toole's Confederacy of Dunces. At

least that book was funny, where this book only points to itself and declares that it is funny, really.

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LibraryThing member bostonbibliophile

A funny, bittersweet picaresque satire of contemporary Russia and Russian-Jewish ennui. Misha is a mixed-up sweetheart, lovable yet deeply dysfunctional. A good read, well-written.

LibraryThing member Replay

Shteyngart leads his character through interesting states of mind but fails to really get the reader into it. Why did he choose to dot his book with digusting genital detailed descriptions (i hate the Russian word "khui")? is it meant to keep any normal reader away? If so, goal is achieved.

Otherwise, it was totally and utterly unecessary.

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LibraryThing member jdmays

I never finished this book. The main character didn't seem all that likable or interesting to me. Perhaps if I were Jewish, Russian, or from New York City I might find something here that's compelling. If I could give it negative stars I would.

LibraryThing member readabook66

Why did I choose this book? Why did I finish it?
Horrors!
March 2007

LibraryThing member tzurich

I hardly got past the description of a botched circumcision, but I continued to read. Why?
Parts of this story seem to appeal to a human urge to gawk at roadkill or other horrors - like reality TV. There are some really funny moments and intelligently written passages in this gluttenous "coming to

america" story, but I don't think I'll ever really like or understand Misha, the Russian immigrant.

The book (being either too cerebral, political or satirical) is certainly beyond my reach, but one thing is for sure, it did live up to the title.

Then again, using the LT unsuggester on this one, brings up some of my favourite authors.

: )

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LibraryThing member abirdman

Funny, solid, political. This book's connection to (and references to) current events makes me worry it won't age well, but this was great fun to read.

LibraryThing member thatwoman

I didn't enjoy this book at all. It tired me and I found very little even moderately amusing. It is readable but the most absurd thing about the book was that I kept reading it.

LibraryThing member xcia0069

A novel of dazzling comic invention, spraying its satirical fire in many different directions - the moral and democratic vacuum in the New Russia, leaving it in thrall to tacky gangsters and prey to cheap Americanisms. The utter folly of the US attempts to export democracy to regimes 'in need of

changing'. And the popular wave of corruption that follows this greenback route to democracy, with multiple parties jumping on multiple bandwagons - multiculturalism, free market trade, private finance, energy panic, holocaust studies. All undertaken by parties exploiting liberal blindess as to the whereabouts of the limits of tolerance.

At times, the book is little artificial, as characters pop up on springs and then are pressed back down again once they have had their comic effect. But the creations and conceits have a laugh out loud quality. Oleg the Moose and his syphilitic sidekicks; the war of the Sevo / Sveni footrest; or even the eye-poppingly risky chapter-length bid for an Museum / Institute for Holocaust Studies. And by intertwining the comic and the political so effectivly, the author manages to hit many of the festering political themes that fertilise satires such as this.

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LibraryThing member big_brother

I bought this book by chance. It was a genuine impulse buy. I was on my way home from work and passed buy a bookstore in a train station. I came in and started bookshelf shopping. I passed by historical literature, pocket boks in Swedish and then stopped by “Best-sellers in English” self. The

first place was occupied by “Absurdistan”.

The introduction said that the book was about an emigrant from Russia to the USA, who hated Russia. The word "Absurdistan" seemed vaguely familiar and somewhat funny. After all – the first place on a best-seller bookshelf! Well, I bought it, and did not regret a second.

Russian critics usually love to hate the book. It is easy to understand why. The book is full of words such as "St Leninsburg", and phrases like "Now it's no secret that St Petersburg is a backwater, lost in a shadow of our craven capital Moscow, which itself is but a third-world megapolis, teetering on the edge of some spectacular extinction". The main character desperately wants to get out from Russia, and that is what the whole book is about. And the last but not least reason for that strong aversion is the writer himself. He is a Jew, whose parents moved from Leningrad to the USA when he was 7 years old.

In fact, all the critics that point out the inaccuracy of author's description of ex-USSR society miss the point of the book completely. The focus of that book is not the ugliness of Russia or disgusting Russian girls at all. The focus of this book is a person who hates the place where he grew up and who wants to get out from it as soon as possible.

The book is full of caustic sarcasm and is full of hillarios jokes, which are especially great when you can speak Russian. Recommended, especially for people from ex-USSR countries.

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LibraryThing member Narboink

I actually freaked a lady out while on the train while reading this book. My stifled and convulsive laughter was apparently indecipherable from some sort of dangerous psychological malady. Absurdistan is, simply put, a 21st century Confederacy of Dunces set in a former Soviet satellite state;

complete with a latter-day Ignatius P. Reilly in a Puma track suit. Very funny stuff. Personally, I could have used more atmospheric touches – the kind of whole world immersion that you normally find in sweeping emotional epics. The story moves along at a nimble clip, but it could have been about 100 pages longer. Plot and character are all well and good, but the richest literary experiences are often replete with time consuming diversions and flights of fancy. The descriptions of our protagonist eating and fornicating are positively hysterical.

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LibraryThing member uncultured

This book is fantastic. Shteyngart writes great dialogue--"To the khui with him!"--and Misha Vainberg is a great character. His fancy loafers, his replica of his therapist's office, his acceptance of the horrid violence all around him. He's like a criminally neurotic Forrest Gump, though much more

interesting. The whole thing has a wonderful sort of deadpan Russia Meets West air about it. I was really interested in reading about how bizarre Russia has become since the Communist collapse, and though I know it's a hilarious exaggeration, there's something beguiling about extracts like this:

"Timofey trudged in, a weak, servile smile hoisted onto his grim physiognomy. 'I brought you a fresh bottle of Ativan from the American Clinic, batyushka,' he said, brandishing a large sack of medications. 'You know, Priborkhin's master was also in bed with depression, but then he took a little Zoloftushka and some Prozakchik, and off he went to run with the bulls in spain!"'

There is so much that is funny about those two lines that I believe Gary Shteyngart should write a sequel to this book. The addition of "Jerry Shteynfarb", predatory writing teacher at NY's Hunter College, seemed unnecessary to me...kind of Philip Rothy, and god knows he wore out the whole "I star in my own books" thing some time ago.

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LibraryThing member ggodfrey

The commercial for Tempurpedic mattresses features a young lady in pajamas jumping on one side of a mattress fashioned from "space-age foam" while an unmolested wineglass stands firm before her bouncing feet. We have a Tempurpedic and typically I'd agree with that infomercial's assessment of the

stability of its product.

But while reading Absurdistan I was beset by a storm of guffaws so potent the resultant quaking could have bounced an entire wine cellar off our Tempurpedic and clear down York Road to the Chesapeake Bay. I'm afraid A Confederacy of Dunces has been dethroned as the funniest book I've ever read.*

In Gary Shteyngart's novel the Apocalypse doesn't arrive with a bang or a whimper, but with great gales of laughter. In fact, the Apocalypse is unfolding around us right now, a great drama of hilarious doom. Laugh while you can.

*Mr. Toole's masterpiece, remains, however, a superior literary achievement--Shteyngart's is funnier, but less substantial, and does lose its potency about two-thirds of the way through. Buy them both!

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LibraryThing member clogbottom

I went into this book under the impression that Gary Shteyngart was the actual grandson of Nikolai Gogol. This wouldn't necessarily mean that Shtyengart was any good, but I had some expectation of literary acumen. As it turns out, this was not true, and I can't figure out where I got the idea,

which doesn't even really make sense chronologically. Best I can figure is that a blurb somewhere implied figuratively that Shteyngart was blood kin to Gogol,and I misunderstood it.

At any rate, it's good that it's not true, because if it were he would not be doing the family name much honor.

I have a theory as to how this book was written. Gary Shteyngart keeps a journal or list of all the jokes he comes up with so he'll remember them. He then picked all the jokes he wanted to use, and proceeded to write a novel around them.

That being the case, he did a fairly good job of concocting themes and a plot after the fact, but the novel still smacks strongly as one that is cobbled together around jokes Shteyngart liked a lot.

This novel should be put on the stove and boiled until reduced by half. There is good stuff in it, but it is buried among myriad unrelated debris, like so many slices of American hot dog hiding in a vat of macaroni and processed cheese. (If you liked that metaphor, and think you would enjoy 330 pages of similar material, you will like this book.)

I laughed out loud a few times in this book, but all before page 40. After that it was rather boring. And rather full of some of the most nauseating sex scenes I've ever encountered.

I'm sure there is great symbolism in Misha's butchered 'khui' and rolling expanses of fat, but Shteyngart didnt' make me care enough to try and figure it out.

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LibraryThing member mxmcleod

You know those books that are so vague and literary and strange that they don't even use quotation marks or whatever? This is almost like those books except funny. And properly punctuated. About a hugely fat, young Russian guy who's trying to get back into the US and ends up stuck in some former

Soviet bloc Caucasus country called Absurdistan. Seems very satirical, but in an even-I-get-it-and-find-it-amusing way.

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LibraryThing member susannag

The main character's ignorance in this book is partly what makes it simultaneously funny and sad. The author's incredible ability to capture stereotypes and co-mingle elements of Eastern European and American modern culture - such as hip hop - painting a picture of a wealthy modern cross-national

youth absorbed in consumer culture and plopping him into a destitute war torn society. The book is filled with cracks toward the author himself and pretty much every Eastern European, Jewish and American stereotype, and yet the main characters are all very sympathetic. You will grow to love Snack Daddy Misha. My only criticism of the book was that the humour was a bit redundant and by the end of the book I wasn't laughing so much anymore.

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