Absurdistan: A Novel [Hardcover]

Gary Shteyngart (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2, 2006

“Absurdistan is not just a hilarious novel, but a record of a particular peak in the history of human folly. No one is more capable of dealing with the transition from the hell of socialism to the hell of capitalism in Eastern Europe than Shteyngart, the great-great grandson of one Nikolai Gogol and the funniest foreigner alive.”
–Aleksandar Hemon

From the critically acclaimed, bestselling author of The Russian Debutante’s Handbook comes the uproarious and poignant story of one very fat man and one very small country
Meet Misha Vainberg, aka Snack Daddy, a 325-pound disaster of a human being, son of the 1,238th-richest man in Russia, proud holder of a degree in multicultural studies from Accidental College, USA (don’t even ask), and patriot of no country save the great City of New York. Poor Misha just wants to live in the South Bronx with his hot Latina girlfriend, but after his gangster father murders an Oklahoma businessman in Russia, all hopes of a U.S. visa are lost.
Salvation lies in the tiny, oil-rich nation of Absurdistan, where a crooked consular officer will sell Misha a Belgian passport. But after a civil war breaks out between two competing ethnic groups and a local warlord installs hapless Misha as minister of multicultural affairs, our hero soon finds himself covered in oil, fighting for his life, falling in love, and trying to figure out if a normal life is still possible in the twenty-first century.
With the enormous success of The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, Gary Shteyngart established himself as a central figure in today’s literary world—“one of the most talented and entertaining writers of his generation,” according to The New York Observer. In Absurdistan, he delivers an even funnier and wiser literary performance. Misha Vainberg is a hero for the new century, a glimmer of humanity in a world of dashed hopes.


From the Hardcover edition.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Misha Vainberg, the rich, arrogant and very funny hero of Shteyngart's follow-up to The Russian Debutante's Handbook, compares himself early on to Prince Myshkin from Dostoyevski's The Idiot: "Like the prince, I am something of a holy fool... an innocent surrounded by schemers." Readers will more likely note his striking resemblance to John Kennedy Toole's Ignatius Reilly. A "sophisticate and a melancholic," Misha is an obese 30-year-old Russian heir to a post-Soviet fortune. After living in the Midwest and New York City for 12 years, he considers himself "an American impounded in a Russian body." But his father in St. Petersburg has killed an Oklahoma businessman and then turned up dead himself, and Misha, trying to leave Petersburg after the funeral, is denied a visa to the United States. The novel is written as his appeal, "a love letter and also a plea," to the Immigration and Naturalization Service to allow him to return to the States, which lovingly and hilariously follows Misha's attempt to secure a bogus Belgian passport in the tiny post-Soviet country of Absurdistan. Along the way, Shteyngart's graphic, slapstick satire portrays the American dream as experienced by hungry newborn democracies, and covers everything from crony capitalism to multiculturalism. It's also a love story. Misha is in love with New York City and with Rouenna Sales, his "giant multicultural swallow" from the South Bronx, despite the pain they have caused him: a botched bris performed on Misha at age 18 by New York City's Hasid-run Mitzvah Mobile, and Rouenna running off with his stateside rival (and Shteyngart's doppelganger), Jerry Shteynfarb (author of "The Russian Arriviste's Hand Job") while Misha is stuck in Russia. The ruling class of Absurdistan is in love with the corrupt American company Halliburton, which is helping the rulers in a civil war in order to defraud the U.S. government. Halliburton, in turn, is in love with Absurdistan for the money it plans to make rebuilding Absurdistan's "inferstructure" and for the plentiful hookers who spend their nights and days by hotel pools looking for "Golly Burton" employees to service. And everyone is in love with America—or at least its money. Everything in Shteyngart's frustrated world—characters, countries, landscapes—strives for U.S.-style culture and prosperity, a quest that gives shape to the melancholy and hysteria of Shteyngart's Russia. Extending allegorical tentacles back to the Cold War and forward to the War on Terror, Shteyngart piles on plots, characters and flashbacks without losing any of the novel's madcap momentum, and the novel builds to a frantic pitch before coming to a breathless halt on the day before 9/11. The result is a sendup of American values abroad and a complex, sympathetic protagonist worthy of comparison to America's enduring literary heroes. (On sale May 2)
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From Bookmarks Magazine

In his rambunctious follow-up to The Russian Debutante's Handbook (2002), Shteyngart explores the disillusionment surrounding the creation of sudden democracy. Despite its historical bent, Absurdistan is more a cultural and political satire than a work of geopolitical fiction. Critics agree that Shteyngart is an inventive, witty writer, whose self-defeating hero and dark humor tempered with pessimistic social realism rarely fail to entertain. Shteyngart's humor may have been more effective in smaller doses; the plot falls apart in the last third of the novel; and the sheer number of names and references can overwhelm. If Absurdistan sometimes goes too far over the top, it masks its painful global issues not far beneath its surface.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1ST edition (May 2, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400061962
• ISBN-13: 978-1400061969
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (127 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #303,751 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gary Shteyngart was born in Leningrad in 1972 and came to the United States seven years later. His debut novel, The Russian Debutante's Handbook, won the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction and the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. His second novel, Absurdistan, was named one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review, as well as a best book of the year by Time, The Washington Post Book World, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, and many other publications. He has been selected as one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, GQ, and Travel + Leisure and his books have been translated into more than twenty languages. He lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gary Shteyngart is a comic genius, February 14, 2006

By 

Richard Cumming "dick" (the heartland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Absurdistan: A Novel (Hardcover)

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.

65 of 79 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars From Here to Absurdity, May 11, 2006

By 

Leonard Fleisig "Len" (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Absurdistan: A Novel (Hardcover)

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

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A heaping dose of hopeful cynicism., February 5, 2007

By 

M. Strong (Milwaukee, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Absurdistan: A Novel (Hardcover)

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.