I would like to share my opinion on the critically acclaimed book,
‘Little Failure, A Memoir” by Gary Shteyngart. I anticipated reading a masterpiece, based on my enjoyment of author’s prior works: Absurdistan and Russian Debutante’s Handbook. Both books were rather funny and amusing. Moreover, critics raved about his newest story. For example: “Hilarious and moving” from the New York Times; “terrific- author’s funniest, saddest and most honest work to date” from the Guardian.
I found the book to be anything but funny or moving. Admittedly, I chuckled from author’s description of the Russian cure-all-colds remedy “banki” but there were no more “laugh-out-funny” moments happening to me, as the USA Today has promised.
Instead, Gary Shteyngart employed an old and true technique to amuse the American masses, that of self-deprecating himself and his dual cultures of upbringing. The book is basically a chapter upon chapter of portraying Russian and Jewish customs and idiosyncrasies as stereotypically laughable and idiotic. In essence, the theme of the book is that everything Russian and Jewish is bad while all American is great. While his pandering may work with an American reader, it won’t with the Russian-American one. The author is looking for sympathy for his childhood broken by the immigrant experience, his supposed bullying in Hebrew school and for demanding parents who yeaned for him to become a lawyer. He won’t find any sympathy with me. The immigrant experience made us stronger and determined to succeed, while Jewish-American support was instrumental in accomodating waves of Soviet refugees. The Jewish customs, no matter how odd to an outsider, is what bound and preserved the Jewish nation for thousands of years. I understand that levity could be found with some Russian and Jewish traditions. Our immigrant journey could have some hilarious turns. However, reading in the last paragraph of the book how Gary calls Kadish- a Jewish prayer for the dead as “gibberish” left me with a feeling of disgust.
Gary Shteyngart is indeed an extremely talented writer and is using his learned English literary language skills masterfully. Although his sentences often take sarcastic and unexpected turns to always keep you on your toes, taken as a whole, the book, to me, was over 300 pages of “gibberish”.
By : Michael Levitis