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A review by jdintr
Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart
4.0
Absurdistan is really two books. The first 100 or so pages are the musings of a self-obsessed Russian Jew who is prevented by his gangsta-oligarch father's murder of an Oklahoma businessman from returning to the United States and his Bronx lover, Rouenna.
There is little to admire about Misha--who bears a passing resemblance to Ignatius J. Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces. Misha, morbidly obese, narcissistic, and obscenely rich, certainly didn't impress me. That was when I put the book down for a few months.
It was Twitter that brought me back, where I follow @Steyngart, who often posts political musings. After he liked a reply I had posted, "If only Gary Steyngart would publish 'Absurdistan II: Puppet State,'" I knew I had to finish the book. Can a reader's attention be purchased with a simple 'like' on one's tweet? Absolutely, Gary. Absolutely!
The last two-thirds of the book take us out of Misha Vainberg's id into a hilarious mock up of a "war for oil," drummed up by Halliburton in league with fasco-racists in a fictional Caspian republic. Here, Steyngart's satire is spot-on, pointing out the silliness in worldwide materialism, lampooning global symbols like Hyatt, Golly-Burton (Halliburton in whore-speak), and the corruption and oil-rush that lies deep, close to the heart of American foreign policy, even today, when we distinguish "good muslims" as those which come from oil-rich countries, as opposed to "bad muslims," which are those that come from terror-rich countries--funded, of course, by the very oil-rich countries we mis-lable.
I worried that this Worst-bush Era novel would feel dated. It didn't. I really enjoyed the read.
There is little to admire about Misha--who bears a passing resemblance to Ignatius J. Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces. Misha, morbidly obese, narcissistic, and obscenely rich, certainly didn't impress me. That was when I put the book down for a few months.
It was Twitter that brought me back, where I follow @Steyngart, who often posts political musings. After he liked a reply I had posted, "If only Gary Steyngart would publish 'Absurdistan II: Puppet State,'" I knew I had to finish the book. Can a reader's attention be purchased with a simple 'like' on one's tweet? Absolutely, Gary. Absolutely!
The last two-thirds of the book take us out of Misha Vainberg's id into a hilarious mock up of a "war for oil," drummed up by Halliburton in league with fasco-racists in a fictional Caspian republic. Here, Steyngart's satire is spot-on, pointing out the silliness in worldwide materialism, lampooning global symbols like Hyatt, Golly-Burton (Halliburton in whore-speak), and the corruption and oil-rush that lies deep, close to the heart of American foreign policy, even today, when we distinguish "good muslims" as those which come from oil-rich countries, as opposed to "bad muslims," which are those that come from terror-rich countries--funded, of course, by the very oil-rich countries we mis-lable.
I worried that this Worst-bush Era novel would feel dated. It didn't. I really enjoyed the read.