A review by gvenezia
Our Country Friends, by Gary Shteyngart
1.0
Soft-woke liberalism ruins all of the novel’s political, moral, and satirical potential. Outlandish drama and unconvincing obsession render it melodramatic. Redundant symbolism, punny puns, and obvious pandemic observations make it a chore.
To be fair, the setup as theater play and the first quarter establishing the group dynamics was promising (4/5 stars). Characters were differentiated well and the tone moved easily from satire to drama to comedy to initial pandemic experiences of uncertain vulnerability and tragedy.
However, as some of the initial conflicts came to a head and the plot developed, all was ruined by Shteyngart’s cringe symbolism, mundane pandemic observations, soft-woke liberalism, and random narrative shifts. It's 1/5 stars from here on out...
Toward the end Shteyngart starts narrowing in on one character, except it’s primarily through flashbacks and/or dreams, but they aren't differentiated all that well at first? Like the dreams don’t seem that crazy or meaningful? Feels more like the author had a daydream about the characters while going back and forth between several backstory ideas.
Eventually there’s supposed to be an emotional event, but the backstory was so confused and the relationship repair scenes so staged and superficial so as to take all wind out of any emotional payoff.
/rant
Anyway here’s a short selection of more 1-star worthy material:
One character develops a “kink” for his partner to wear a mask during sex. How unexpected and edgy!
There’s an ominous truck that gets read as a racist country person, but it basically amounts to nothing? There’s also no real escalation of the “threat"? It just shows up every now and again? Vroom Vroom Big Doom!
Bad 2020 puns:
Shteyngart mentions 2020 as the year of imperfect 2020 vision.
Lit 101 symbolism:
As tensions rise, a storm is coming. The tensions rise some more and later on we again hear the storm is coming. Then we also get mentions of the birds who also know that the storm is coming. Ah yes birds == bad omen. Storm == tension.
No really we’ve read other serious novels before, we get the symbolic idea:
"Karen lifted [Natasha] up. . . That wast the idea: that she would lift Natasha up."
To be fair, the setup as theater play and the first quarter establishing the group dynamics was promising (4/5 stars). Characters were differentiated well and the tone moved easily from satire to drama to comedy to initial pandemic experiences of uncertain vulnerability and tragedy.
However, as some of the initial conflicts came to a head and the plot developed, all was ruined by Shteyngart’s cringe symbolism, mundane pandemic observations, soft-woke liberalism, and random narrative shifts. It's 1/5 stars from here on out...
Toward the end Shteyngart starts narrowing in on one character, except it’s primarily through flashbacks and/or dreams, but they aren't differentiated all that well at first? Like the dreams don’t seem that crazy or meaningful? Feels more like the author had a daydream about the characters while going back and forth between several backstory ideas.
Eventually there’s supposed to be an emotional event, but the backstory was so confused and the relationship repair scenes so staged and superficial so as to take all wind out of any emotional payoff.
/rant
Anyway here’s a short selection of more 1-star worthy material:
One character develops a “kink” for his partner to wear a mask during sex. How unexpected and edgy!
There’s an ominous truck that gets read as a racist country person, but it basically amounts to nothing? There’s also no real escalation of the “threat"? It just shows up every now and again? Vroom Vroom Big Doom!
Bad 2020 puns:
Shteyngart mentions 2020 as the year of imperfect 2020 vision.
Lit 101 symbolism:
As tensions rise, a storm is coming. The tensions rise some more and later on we again hear the storm is coming. Then we also get mentions of the birds who also know that the storm is coming. Ah yes birds == bad omen. Storm == tension.
No really we’ve read other serious novels before, we get the symbolic idea:
"Karen lifted [Natasha] up. . . That wast the idea: that she would lift Natasha up."