Barren landscapes in Russia with randomly scattered mosques.
More barren desert space in Absurdistan surrounded by far off oil drills.
The lack of landscape and excess of imagery on what actually exists truly makes Absurdistan the series of locations that it is. Misha gets off a plane in Absurdistan, immediately I picture heat. The kind of heat that only sun and little or no grass can bring. Like Las Vegas, the awkwardly placed and hyper-stimulating strip surrounded by unnoticeable strip malls for the locals in the first ring, residential districts of worn out southwestern style ramblers in the next tier, and finally, the distant wall-like stretch of desert that surrounds the completely libertarian and seemingly self-governed crater that houses our very own western city of lights, Las Vegas.
Absurdistan reminds me of this.
Yet, if Gary Shteyngart used that much imagery to describe Misha's place in the world at any given moment, not only would I have lost the book already but I'd be as over-stimulated while reading it as I was as a fifth grader gazing at the Las Vegas strip. By describing only those things that make an average American cringe (the tongue...the insect/iguana khui... his tree-trunk like father...the list goes on) the story is effective at bringing back the awkward post-soviet Russian feel so essential to Misha's character.
Possibly the best description of Misha yet was where he says "I'm an attractive kind of fat person..." and elaborates. Up until then, Misha was to me a disgusting creature living for nothing but food and sex. The sex was the puzzling thing to me... I hate to be the one to bring it up, but ew. Though Misha didn't rank astronomically higher on any desirability scale after his self critique, I was somewhat relieved. In addition to being less disgusted by the girls who do sleep with Misha, I was slightly happier with Misha's personality. It's as if he finally stands up for himself and admits he sees himself as deserving of something.
Way to go, Misha!
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Anna! i am most impressed with you UTTER COMMITMENT to posting an intellectually engaging thread! after swimming through you DEEP ANALYSIS i can find no fault or argument against your case and point of view other than I DO NOT see Misha as an attractive kind of fat, but a kind of food-fetish lonely blimp. by jove, i sound down right mean right there. I DO NOT MEAN TO OFFEND ANY FLUFFY PEOPLE i respect you all.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your comparison of Las Vegas to Abstudistan. I'm not sure I completely understand your comments on Misha's self criticism. I don't think Misha ever particularly cared f he was attractive or not, he just cared that women would give him what he wanted.
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