Absurdistan: A Novel [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Sometimes the 2nd novel is a let-down. ABSURDISTAN follows a debut, THE RUSSIAN DEBUTANTE'S HANDBOOK that is frankly, hard to top. Shteyngart has done it. ABSURDISTAN is the story of Misha Vainberg aka "Snack Daddy." The son of a Jewish Russian Gangster, "Snack" got an education at a ritzy private American college called Accidental, kind of a cross between Antioch and Oberlin. After his father assassinates a competitor, a guy from Oklahoma, "Snack Daddy" is unable to obtain a visa to return from Russia to his beloved New York. His girlfriend is back in New York and Misha finds out that she is being seduced by one of his former classmates, a Professor Shteynfarb. Misha is determined to find a way back to America. He heads to Absurdistan, an oil-rich former Soviet republic on the Caspian. From his perch in the penthouse of the Hyatt Snack Daddy watches the country dissolve into civil war. All he wants is a Belgian passport and his next meal. ABSURDISTAN is a comic farce and a tour de force. I laughed my way through it.

I approached Gary Shteyngart's second novel, "Absurdistan" with a mixture of anticipation and fear. I very much enjoyed Shteyngart's first novel, "The Russian Debutante's Handbook", and thought it held the promise of even better books to come. But second novels pose a challenge for both the author and the reader. The author must face the dreaded "sophomore slump" and live up to the heightened expectations for his next piece of work. The reader faces a similar challenge. It is one thing to pick up a book and be pleasantly surprised. It is quite another to pick up a book expecting it to be excellent. Shteyngart has passed this test with ease. "Absurdistan" is a page turning farce that kept me laughing throughout.

Absurdistan traces the life, loves and misadventures of one Misha Vainberg. Misha is the 1,238th-richest man in Russia. He is a man of immense proportions (Shteyngart has a number of amusing ways to describe how various parts of his body quiver) and appetites. When he eats his intake of food is enormous and the process of mass ingestion is treated by Misha with something akin to an orgiastic spiritual exercise.

Misha was raised in Leningrad, now known as St. Petersburg. His father was a minor-league Jewish dissident whose chief claim to fame was relieving himself on the dog of an officious Soviet bureaucrat. After the fall of the USSR, Papa rose to wealth and fame by becoming a successful criminal in the "new Russia". Educated in the U.S. at the prestigious liberal-arts Accidental College where he is known as "snack daddy" to his friends, Misha finds his way to New York where he falls in love with Rouenna, a sultry young lady from the South Bronx (think J-Lo but with a bigger trunk). Life falls apart for Misha after his father kills an American competitor. He finds himself stuck in St. Leninsburg (Misha's hilariously apt description of post-Soviet life) with no possibility of obtaining a visa to return to the U.S. In short order Misha's father is murdered. After receiving a multi-million dollar `settlement' from the mobster that killed his father, Misha schemes to return to New York. The plan calls for him to travel to the Republic of Absurdistan, a former Soviet state on the Caspian Sea, obtain a Belgian passport, move to Brussels and from there find his way back to the United States.

As one might expect, the best laid plans of mice and the son of the 1,238th richest man in Russia don't turn out for the best. Rouenna falls into the arm of another man, the unscrupulous Jerry Shteynfarb, an incurable lothario, Russian emigre and author of a well received book with a title very similar to The Russian Debutante's Handbook but which cannot be set out on a family site. The Absurdistanis are divided into two competing sects, the Sevos and Svanis and before too long the nation is embroiled in a civil war for reasons that will remind the reader (as a previous reviewer noted) of Peter Seller's movie The Mouse That Roared. I agree although I would add "as influenced by Heller's Catch-22".

Will Misha make it out of Absurdistan? Will he win Rouenna back or marry the beautiful daughter of one of Absurdistanis leaders? Those questions are answered in the book but the enjoyment is as much in the journey as in the conclusion. Shteyngart has a keen eye for the social and racial distinctions that run through life in the US and in the "new Russia". The dialogue is mordant, sharp, and almost invariably funny. The book is not without its flaws. Misha is not a very attractive character even when he elicits our sympathy. It is hard to get emotionally vested in a character imbued with the gargantuan tastes and appetite of Misha. That is clearly Shteyngart's intent and it serves a purpose in terms of the novel's underlying themes. However, the reader should be aware going in that the 'hero' of the book bears little resemblance to George Clooney. Some may find the descriptions of Misha's loves (eating and women) to be just a bit crude. I thought it worked, but readers should not expect to see refined descriptions of high cuisine and gentle love making. Last, although I thought using Gerry Shteynfarb as a sort of alter-ego nemesis for Misha was amusing, if a bit self-referential, the connection may not be made by those who haven't read The Russian Debutante's Handbook.

All in all, Absurdistan is funny, irreverent, and also in many ways a thoughtful reflection on how our relationship with our family (even if they aren't as wealthy as Misha's) influences our own life choices. Absurdistan was an excellent book and one that I do not hesitate to recommend.

L. Fleisig

Absurdistan is a satire that skewers virtually every topic it touches; it manages to cover plenty of ground. As the reader, it's strangely difficult to get your intellectual bearings, but you never become completely unmoored - it's an interesting sensation, something similar to how I feel reading Vonnegut and quite an accomplishment for an author.

The book follows the misguided adventures of an overweight, Russian secular Jew who studied at a small liberal arts college in the United States. In doing so, Shteyngart manages to mock being overweight, Russian, Jewish, non-Jewish, secular, American and liberal arts educations circa 1990 (great fun if you went to one of those schools around that time). In other words, Shteyngart shows all of us to be worthy of some mockery. At the same time, however, the inherent good points of everything Shteyngart mocks show through quite clearly.

Our anti-hero takes us through St. Petersburg, New York (through flashbacks and imagination) and a fictitous country that was a former republic of the USSR. The result is really rather good and often very funny.

If you like "Confederacy of Dunces," anything by Vonnegut, or generally consider yourself to be a hopeful cynic - you're going to like this book. Even as Absurdistan pokes fun at everything in its path, it also brings out the redeming qualities of each of its targets.