Word: russian
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...into satire, a genre that's easy to like but hard to love. It's thin, it's shallow, it dates easily, it rarely feels larger than the thing it's making fun of. A case in point would be Gary Shteyngart's first novel, The Russian Debutante's Handbook, a charming-enough outing about expatriates in Prague that has approximately one joke that gets steadily less funny over time. An exception would be Shteyngart's second book, Absurdistan (Random House; 352 pages), a satire that is profoundly funny, genuinely moving and wholly lovable...
Thirty-year-old Misha Borisovich Vainberg, the hero of Absurdistan, is in every way and dimension an exaggerated character: grossly fat, filthy rich, loudly sentimental and operatically miserable as only a Russian can be. Vainberg lives in St. Petersburg, but his spiritual home is America, which he adores beyond all reason. Unfortunately, he's stuck in Russia because of trouble with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Pines Misha: "I am an American impounded in a Russian's body...
...course, doomed to be disillusioned and heartbroken--the novel ends hopefully, but the dateline is early morning, Sept. 11, 2001. Still, there's no doubt that he will reillusion himself again, repeatedly, as many times as necessary. He believes in America unshakably, sentimentally, incorrigibly--the way only a Russian...
...Europe, and order a cappuccino. Walk out into Nikolskaya Street, and turn into posh Tretyakovsky Proezd Street, where Bentleys sell like hotcakes opposite the FSB (former KGB) headquarters. Walk up Petrovka Street and turn left to Pushkin Square, Moscow's real heart. Go to the Pushkin, the best Russian restaurant in town, pictured. Trust your waiter's taste-and order your vodka straight away...
...cathedral. The Bolsheviks tore it down in 1931, and the site hosted a swimming pool until the cathedral was re-erected in the 1990s. Mull over Russia's vagaries at the National Hotel's Moskovsky Restaurant on Mokhovaya Street, where the fabulous view of the Kremlin complements the traditional Russian food...