Shteyngart's second novel (The Russian Debutante's Handbook, 2002, was the first) is a wild ride that follows its protagonist and narrator, Misha Vainburg, from St. Petersburg (or St. Leninsburg as he prefers to call it) to a tiny country in the Caucasus called Absurdsvani, with occasional detours via flashbacks to New York City and Misha's midwestern alma mater, Accidental College.
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Shteyngart's second novel (The Russian Debutante's Handbook, 2002, was the first) is a wild ride that follows its protagonist and narrator, Misha Vainburg, from St. Petersburg (or St. Leninsburg as he prefers to call it) to a tiny country in the Caucasus called Absurdsvani, with occasional detours via flashbacks to New York City and Misha's midwestern alma mater, Accidental College.
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The author has a joke going from start to finish. The trouble is, the joke never changes, the anti-hero narrator never develops as a character, and the reader is left wondering just why he/she should spend good time on material that has nowhere to go and no points to make. Sorry, Gary, better luck next time.
WillM3
Jul 26, 2007
Good one
I enjoyed this book thoroughly. It's a different take on a society that the media and other authors are marching very much in lockstep to criticize. It is a very thoughtful and witty lampooning of our own idiosyncrasies and predilections toward modernity and comfort at the expense of decency and others. Well recommended.
