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  • Reading Absurdistan

  • Absurdistan chronicles the adventures of Misha Vainberg, a character who puts me in mind of a Russian Ignatius J. Reilly. Like the infamous character in A Confederacy of Dunces, Misha is hugely fat, comments frequently on his toilet habits, and is on his own personal quest - though it's not quite th ... Continue

    Absurdistan chronicles the adventures of Misha Vainberg, a character who puts me in mind of a Russian Ignatius J. Reilly. Like the infamous character in A Confederacy of Dunces, Misha is hugely fat, comments frequently on his toilet habits, and is on his own personal quest - though it's not quite the same as that of Reilly's.

    Misha loves the United States. Thanks to his father's decision to send him to America for college, Misha has experienced all that the US has to offer and he likes it. He loves the food, he enjoys the music (especially rap) and he misses his Bronx girlfriend, Rouenna, terribly. Trouble is, he's back in Russia and is no longer allowed to travel to the US thanks to the fact that his father killed a man from Oklahoma. With help from friends, Misha hatches a plan to break through the red tape. He'll journey to Absurdsvanï, where he'll be able to obtain a Belgian passport and sneak his way overseas. Of course, complications arise when fighting breaks out in the small nation. The airport is closed, and Misha is stranded. Havoc and hilarity ensue.

    Absurdistan can be very, very funny. It can also be quite graphic when it comes to descriptions of sexual acts, which Misha is quite prolific at performing throughout the novel. While the book is compulsively readable, I sometimes found myself wondering what the point was. Early on, Absurdistan seems to present itself as a reflection on 9/11 from a different point of view, and while Misha's story takes place in the days leading to the tragedy, the dots are never really connected. Author Gary Shteyengart is gifted when it comes to style. I'm hoping his next effort provides a little more substance.

    

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• ― moogle said on May 21, 2007 about the Hardcover edition| Add your feedback

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  • I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I feel I should warn some potential readers that it gets sexual at times, however, the overall concept of the book is worth it.

    I found the book to be extremely readable and addicting, I struggled to put it down each night and day and even sacrificed doing homew ... Continue

    I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I feel I should warn some potential readers that it gets sexual at times, however, the overall concept of the book is worth it.

    I found the book to be extremely readable and addicting, I struggled to put it down each night and day and even sacrificed doing homework for the sake of reading it.

    If you've ever read The Idiot, Misha is a very Prince-like character, and he does make that comparison himself. He is a holy fool caught in a world of corruption. You come to love him and grow to find the world he finds himself in, our world, despicable.

    Be prepared to read about how brutal people can be to each other over nothing, how desperately and futilely people can try to gain attention in our media, and how oil affects countries around the world.

    Misha is obsessed with America, but after reading the book, I see a country that baits other smaller countries into its greedy hands.

    It's definitely an interesting read.

    

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• ― elyseston said on Apr 25, 2007 about the Hardcover edition| Add your feedback

“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.