Misha Vainberg has a problem. He is in Russia but he wants to be in the United States. Too bad for Misha that the US won't let in. Seems like his father, the gangster, has murdered a citizen of the US and thus Misha is not welcome. Sons of murderers can just stay home.
Misha is not a stranger to America. He went to college there. But now he is back in Russia where his father wants him. Next thing he knows, he father is blown up by a rival gangster and Misha is free to do as he pleases except the only thing he wants is to get back to America.
Misha is told that if he goes to the former Soviet satellite country of Absurdistan he can buy a Belgian passport and use it get to America. Happily he heads off to Absurdistan and gets his Belgian passport. He is scheduled to leave the next day when a revolution breaks out and Absurdistan's borders are closed. Misha is now trapped in the crazy political crisis that has overtaken Absurdistan and he finds himself allied with the very people who have engineered the country's downfall. Getting to America is farther away than ever.
One of the biggest jokes in the story is Misha's weight problem and his gluttony. His eating habits are minutely described and the gyrations of his blubber are gone into in depth. All of which was very gross and akin, I think, to pointing and laughing any disabled person's trials. I did not find it amusing. Another big joke is the political double dealing that is the theme of the whole Absurdistan experience. Again, I did not find it amusing. I just don't find liars and corruption to be funny. Still, this book does have its funny moments. It wasn't exactly my cup of tea but it paints a vivid picture.
Review by Patrick Ness in The Guardian.
New Words:
Agitprop: Communist term meaning revolutionary agitation and Propaganda. Khui: Penis. "After decades of listening to the familial agitprop of our parents ('We will die for you!' they sing), after surviving the criminal closeness of the Russian family ('Don't leave us!' they plead), after the crass socialization foisted upon us by our teachers and factory directors ('We will staple your circumcised khui to the wall!' they threaten), all that's left is that toast between two failed friends in some stinking outdoor beer kiosk."
Laphroaig: Scotch whiskey. "In the next 318 pages, you may occasionally see me boxing the ears of my manservant or drinking one Laphroaig too many."
Popka: A Russian term for a baby's behind, considered more polite than ass. "'Because there's no future in this country for a little popka like you.'"
Oblomov: Oblomov is a character in a novel of the same name written by Ivan Goncharov. Oblomov is indecisive and lacking in will power and self-confidence. "The Oblomov inside me has always been fascinated by people who are just about ready to give up on life, and in 1990, Brooklyn was an Oblomovian paradise."
Vitrine: Cabinet with a glass door. The sides and top may also be of glass, and it is designed to store and display china and curios. "She reminded me of a lovely olive-colored mannequin I had seen in a store vitrine."
Shapkas: A Shapka is a Russian fur cap with ear flaps that can be tied up to the crown of the cap, or tied at the chin to protect the ears from the cold. "I had seen a dozen kindergarten pupils trying to cross the boulevard, each bundled in a jaunty collection of misshapen coats, their shapkas falling off their tiny heads, their feet encased in monstrous hand-me-down galoshes."
Oligarch: Oligarchy is government by the few, especially by a small faction of persons or families. "The Yeltsin era was still ten years away, but already Papa was angling to become an oligarch."
Shtetl: A small Jewish town or Jewish enclave within a town in eastern Europe. Klezmer: A style of Jewish or Yiddish music. "It was a shtetl funeral, in many ways, a kind of impromptu klezmer act minus the musical instruments."
Shawarma: A Middle Eastern-style sandwich featuring shaved lamb or chicken or other meats. The typical shawarma is pita bread filled with meat, hummus, tomato, cucumber and toppings like tahini. "The windswept Fontanka River, its crooked nineteenth-century skyline interrupted by the post-apocalyptic wedge of the Sovietskaya Hotel, the hotel surrounded by symmetrical rows of yellowing, waterlogged apartment houses; the apartment houses, in turn, surrounded by corrugated shacks featuring, in no particular order, a bootleg CD emporium, the ad hoc Mississippi Casino ('America Is Far, but Mississippi Is Near'), a kiosk selling industrial-sized containers of crab salad, and the usual Syrian shawarma hut smelling invariably of spilled vodka, spoiled cabbage, and some kind of vague, free-floating inhumanity."
Baldachinos: A baldachino is a canopy. "The palaces of Nevsky Prospekt, wishing to properly say goodbye to me, dusted themselves off and bowed their chipped baldachinos in my direction..."
Superannuated: Obsolete; antiquated. "After we'd boarded and the plane had hobbled down the rutted runway and ascended, we looked down at the country beneath us, at the strange shaped of superannuated factories squatting below."
Payess: The uncut sideburns worn by male Orthodox Jews. "By the time they started boarding our flight to Svanï City, he had curled me a nice set of payess."
Fin de siècle: Of or characteristic of the last part of the 19th century, especially with reference to its artistic climate of effete sophistication. "I could even make out the fin de siècle Parliament building on the Pest side and the old Austro-Hungarian seat of power on the Buda..."
C'hai: A Hebrew symbol and word which means "living" and it is worn as a medallion. "He was wearing nothing but sweatpants, his naked chest sporting a standard Orthodox cross and a Jewish c'hai."
Dyophysitism: A theological term refering to the two natures of Jesus Christ, human and divine. Monophysitism: The theological position that Jesus Christ has only one nature which combines both the human and divine. "She used complex terms to describe the religious differences, such as 'dyophysitism' and 'monophysitism,' along with frequent allusions to some Holy Council of Aardvark that rocked the region in A.D. 518, not to mention that whole Good Thief, Bad Thief hullabaloo."
Knout: A leather scourge formerly used for flogging criminals in Russia. "I was ready to reach for my knout."
No comments:
Post a Comment