Absurdistan...

...is perhaps the best fictional work about the former Soviet Union that i've encountered. I've read Prague by Arthur Philips and other expat novels of the early 1990s, but this takes the cake. Although for the uninitiated (i.e. never been to the ex-USSR) you may find yourself pondering the uniqueness of his ethnographic fictions while in reality these things pretty much happen to anyone who spends more than a month in those parts and can speak a lick of Russian (offering family members, multiple scam opportunities, the gluttonous consumerism of novi russkis, etc.)

I have a fondness for Gary Schteyngart because he went to Oberlin College (Accidental College in Absurdistan), where one person can change the world. hah. that's funny. but seriously, from the "tent of consent" (oh, all you non-Obies are wondering what that's like) to the infamous multi-cultural studies program.

Personally i can relate to two characters: Misha Vainberg and Alyosha-Bob. Let's face it. I like to eat and want to be Russian, whatever that means. Well, actually I just want to speak it fluently, but that's beside the point.

His thoughts are right on target. Check out this interview with him...

Highlights re: Oberlin...

Dave: In Absurdistan, Misha notes that Brookline, Massachusetts, is the most Jew-tolerant place on earth? Have you been to Boston since the book was published?

Shteyngart: The biggest audience, I think, came out in Brookshtein, a hundred fifty people or something. They were not pissed off at me. Well, one guy was kind of pissed off — he wasn't happy with Russian Jews in general, but for the most part I haven't been getting a lot of angry responses, which surprised me. So they're not just Jew-tolerant in Brookline, but Shteyngart-tolerant.

Dave: Where does Misha's rapping come from? More evidence of his multiculturalism?

Shteyngart: "My name is Vainberg / I like ho's..."

Where does it come from? I went to Accidental College, also known as the Oberlin Institute for Special People, and we were all pretty much white there, but we would bust out rapping at the drop of a dime. Or the drop of a dime bag, if you will. It felt like our national patrimony. This was '91. We're talking about Ice Cube. He was doing malt liquor commercials, so we would drink the malt liquor.

Looking back, it was all very sad and pathetic, but there was some kind of freedom there, too. You have to remember, I grew up in a highly conservative, Jewish family, so to sit with a six-foot bong and drink malt liquor and listen to the Cube, that was my emancipation. I felt alive.

You know, wherever I go in the world, there's rap. I was recently in Brazil. Everyone was rapping in Brazil. Another time, I was hanging out in Moscow in some club, and this oily gangster was trying to serenade his girlfriend. He was singing Biggie:

Damn you look fine
You just shine
I like that waistline
Let me hit that from behind
Which wall you wanna climb
My style's genuine
Girl I love you long time

I think it's the lingua franca of this strange, commercialized world we live in. It's less and less authentic by the day, and I think the way Misha employs it is incredibly inauthentic. Although he's got some pain. He's got some issues.

Dave: How did you wind up at Oberlin, then?

Shteyngart: I was in love with a girl who went there.

Dave: Ah.

Shteyngart: And also, I did want to smoke a gigantic six-foot bong while listening to Ice Cube on an $18,000 speaker system.

Dave: The six-foot bong is actually available in most college towns.

Shteyngart: But at Oberlin it's the official emblem. Instead of carrying the saints down the street, we would carry this bong.