Blog Post 5: Overview

Absurdistan was really unlike any other book I had ever read. Shteyngart has an incredibly unique writing style, that was enjoyable at some points but after awhile it just became abrasive. This was certainly true of the unfortunately descriptive sexual scenes. Another thing that bothered me about the book was the main character. I simply didn’t like Misha. Despite his revered “American education” he came off as extremely unintelligent and uncultured. His constant self-gratification was also annoying to me, and left me with no pity for his enormous weight. Personally, I more enjoy books with characters that are smarter than me. That was not the feeling I got reading about Misha’s pathetic exploits. I was happy that he seemed to get more competent towards the end of the book. The thing I truly enjoyed about was the satire and political commentary. The satire of Haliburton was, in my mind, spot-on and well deserved. The scene of the barbeque with “laid-back Texans” was probably the funniest in the book. To be honest, I didn’t feel that strongly about the book one way or another. The storyline was interesting, but it was presented in a way that only started enjoyably, but became less and less so very quickly.