The book is about a land where its richness in oil leads to a conflict among the foreigners interested in its deposits.
Absurdistan uses one main character, a homesick Russian Jew, named Misha Vainberg, who longs for a lost paradise. In his case, Eden is the South Bronx, where he once indulged in all sorts of junk food and canoodled with his beloved Rouenna, a girl he got hooked up with in a tiny bar.
It starts with Misha, stuck in St. Petersburg, as he writes to the generals in charge of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. He says that he cannot get back into the States because his father one of the riches in Russia, has murdered an Oklahoma businessman (an allusion to the murder of Oklahoman Paul Tatum in 1996) and unlike the Russians, the American authorities wouldn’t take kindly the sons of murderers. When his father is also murdered this compels him the more to leave since he is an easy target for this fathers enemies.
Due to his fathers wealth acquired through various dubious enterprises, Misha lives pretty comfortably. However he longs for New York and his girl ‘Rouenna,’ especially when he learns that she is up and about with another fellow. This shows how naïve and easy going Misha is. All he cares about is his girl.
Misha decides to get back to New York and this leads him on a whiskey-soaked journey to the obscure nation of Absurdistan, a former Soviet satellite on the Caspian Sea. Living there he gets caught up in the rising tensions between the Svani and Sevo, two local groups whose primary difference seems to be which way they think Christ’s footrest should tilt on the Orthodox cross.
The Essay on Murdered Girl Husband Father Dummy
Respect for Our Humanity: 180^0 of Difference For purposes of this assignment I have selected the Raymond Carver stories 'So Much Water So Close To Home' and 'The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off'. The wife in the first story and the father in the second both undergo change when placed in situations which cause them to consider the value and dignity of human life. These reactions are called ...
War breaks out in Absurdistan, he takes up the Sevo side, and he prays that for once he has made the right decision.
On the contrary the plot of Absurdistan, is nothing but a pretext to bedazzle the reader with a series of rowdy and satirical events of life in contemporary Russia. Courtesy of his father, Misha obtained a worthless degree in multicultural studies at “Accidental College,” a private (very) liberal arts college in the Midwest.
This education ensures that Misha is utterly unprepared for the new Russia, where he listens to a hired thug (Ruslan the Enforcer) complain that a rival (Ruslan the Punisher) has stolen the url for his nickname.
As he is famous for, Misha attracts an Absurdistani girlfriend, an NYU student on break. To local leaders hoping that the West will intervene in their conflict and help them out, Misha explains the sad truth: “No one knows where your country is or who you are. You don’t have a familiar ethnic cuisine…”
The Sevo appoint Misha as Minister of Multicultural Affairs (even though they don’t know or care what this may mean.) He begins writing grant proposals to set up a Holocaust museum in the capital.
In Absurdistan however, almost everyone is working some kind of angle or wearing some kind of disguise, mostly intended to manipulate the prejudices and ignorance of romantic, patronizing, uniformed Americans. The hotel manager, an Armenian-American born and raised in Glendale, California., sends out notes in semi-literate English to the guests, trying to pass himself off as “a wily local instead of some middle-class brat from the San Fernando Valley.”
The book has a host of real and fictional characters and settings through it. Vladimir Putin and Dick Cheney make appearances with Putin described as looking “like a mildly unhappy horse dipping his mouth into a bowl of oats.” The author includes himself as a conceited author who comes to the United States as a child and writes a breakthrough novel whose title bawdy reworking of his book “The Russian Debutante’s Handbook.”
His attempts at humor are unrelenting, and more often than not they are highly effective. All the citizens including Shteyngart like the States. The primary target of his satire is the Soviet and ex –Soviet world. Shteyngart reminds us that no matter how corrupt many perceive America, ‘it is better to see a murderer in a court of law than at a victim’s funeral.’
The Term Paper on World War Ii 16
As a person looks at the last thousand years of history, many events come to mind. To be more specific, many world-changing events have occurred. Many of them have good explanations, or just reason as to why they happened. There were also a handful of events that had no rhyme or reason. These are the events the world may never understand. In the writer's mind, these are the events that changed the ...
There is much sociopolitical chaos in “Absurdistan;” one could make a hobby of interpreting the many allusions and the many points of view that the author offers.The most compelling absurdity, though, has nothing to do with politics: It is that a self-pitying Russian millionaire meets his match in a Bronx behemoth. A satirist like Shteyngart isn’t prone to write a straightforward love story, which is why, in “Absurdistan,” it’s the love story that with a difference. (One that works)
When civil war erupts between the ethnic Sevo and Svanï minorities Misha is trapped in the city. But the inconvenience is bearable. He has a good enough supply of Atavan and the bar is kept stocked with Johnnie Walker Black.But with time the governing elites hire Armenian mercenaries to begin shelling the ethnic neighborhoods from the hotel roof, and that’s when the real trouble starts.
Misha’s innocence throughout all this is rather charming. Absolutely oblivious to the political treachery swirling around him, his only goal is to return to his darling Rouenna in New York. He is living in a world of his own and his geographical environment is unimportant to him.
What is important is that the author is able to create endearing characters that appeal to the reader regardless of their shabby pursuits. He also illustrates vivid and brutal pictures of the kind of strife that rakes Third-World oil countries. He does not spare the Americans the reproach for their interest that cause the citizens to suffer.
