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A review by lindzlovesreading
Little Failure: A Memoir by Gary Shteyngart
4.0
This is my favourite kind of memoir. Raw, exaggerated, neurotic, funny with an arragance that only a severely depressed narrative can achieve. Why do people write memoirs anyway? Because they can, because they have the confidence that their story usually of being the under dog deserves to be told. And yes the fact that this book is brilliantly written makes it so much more delicious.
Shteyngart portrays himself as the loveable loser, the immigrant red hamster in the middle of shiny big shouldered U.S of A. Forever fumbling, forever the son of very Jewish Russian parents. I love his descriptions of Soviet St Petersburg just before its collapse, where waiting in line for eggplant for three hours could lead to a zen like meditative state that most yoga junkies crave.
For me this was a book for Shteyngart trying to understand his harsh sometimes abusive mismatched parents. Trying to find out where they came from, and why he ended up the slightly bald, author that he did. Even though a lot of the time, this is a family that is often disconnected it is still very recognisably human.
Which should be the achievement of every good memoir.
Shteyngart portrays himself as the loveable loser, the immigrant red hamster in the middle of shiny big shouldered U.S of A. Forever fumbling, forever the son of very Jewish Russian parents. I love his descriptions of Soviet St Petersburg just before its collapse, where waiting in line for eggplant for three hours could lead to a zen like meditative state that most yoga junkies crave.
For me this was a book for Shteyngart trying to understand his harsh sometimes abusive mismatched parents. Trying to find out where they came from, and why he ended up the slightly bald, author that he did. Even though a lot of the time, this is a family that is often disconnected it is still very recognisably human.
Which should be the achievement of every good memoir.