Austinist Review: Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart
The hip-hop references alone had us smitten… we would like to add our gyrating crotch to the many crotches already gyrating upon the leg of Gary Shteyngart. His latest novel, Absurdistan, kept us rapt for the past week. Goncharov's Oblomov and Biggie Smalls alluded to in one book, frequently... who does that?
Absurdistan is the narrative plea issued by the extremely corpulent man-child Misha Vainberg, "son of the 1,238th richest man in Russia," to regain admission to the United States. Educated at an American university and cultured by several years of penthouse life in New York City, Misha is obsessed with returning to the U.S., but it's never that simple. His father, decapitated by an explosion at the novel's start, had killed an Oklahoma businessman thus ruining the Vainberg ethos with the State Department.
Orphaned and stuck in Russia what could Misha do? Sell off beloved papa's assets to the guys that killed him; screw papa's 20 year old widow; and, on the advice of a corrupt police chief, leave St. Petersburg for Absurdistan to buy Belgian citizenship. It only makes sense…
Life is precarious in Absurdistan, but only slightly more than in St. Petersburg. Once thought of as the Norway of the Caspian, Absurdistan is in fact a barren country that nobody in the U.S. cares about. The country is on the brink of a staged war concocted by the ruling elite. Misha gets his Belgian passport and more than he bargains for when he shacks up with Nana, the daughter of one of the local warlords. The war starts and within a few days turns from campfire to conflagration.
While repulsive in many ways, Misha Vainberg is a pathetic figure:
Like Prince Myshkin [from Dostoyevsky's The Idiot], I am not perfect. In the next 318 pages, you may see me occasionally boxing the ears of my manservant or drinking one Laphroaig too many. But you will also see me attempt to save an entire race from genocide; you will see me become benefactor to St. Petersburg's miserable children; and you will watch me make love to fallen women with the childlike passion of the pure.
Maybe it's the mutilated penis, the result of an over-zealous, unsanitary States-side bris at the age of 18, or the ease with which he can cry at any moment, or the intimations of abuse and neglect provided by his father, or all of the above, but he proves to be quite endearing. It's a testament to Shteyngart's skill as a writer that you can ever feel sorry for all 325 lbs. of Misha.
While we were originally entertained and sucked in by the pop culture correlatives, we soon found that Absurdistan is a complex and enthralling commentary on the world we live in complete with bureaucratic negligence, corporate corruption, and easily-exploitable ethnic differences. Awesome! Absurdistan also features compelling commentary on post-Soviet culture and the mixed tidings of capitalism. A world in chaos as observed by a large "American impounded in a Russian's body" sporting vintage Puma tracksuits: the irony is applied with a thickness and the story is rife with tension. In fact, the story unfolds under an unspoken pre-9/11 heft, starting on June 15, 2001 and ending on September 10, 2001. Hilarious and highbrow all at once, Absurdistan is a brilliant read.
Absurdistan
By Gary Shteyngart
(Random House, $24.95)
Note: Gary Shteyngart will be at BookPeople on
Thursday, May 11th at 7PM.
