The Russian Debutante's Handbook Gary Shteyngart

The Russian Debutante's Handbook Gary Shteyngart

Overview:

“What is America? . . .
Is it a hamburger?
Is it a hot dog?
Is it a shiny Cadillac with a pretty young woman underneath a palm tree?”
— The Russian Debutante’s Handbook

The Russian Debutante’s Handbook tries to be an exploration of immigrant subculture within a global urban landscape. Beginning in New York, which offers the complete set of props needed to create a mise’-en-scene of raving immigrants and wealthy intellectuals, we follow 25-year-old Vladimir Girshkin on several bad decisions, and end up in Prava, the Eastern European Paris of the ‘90s. It is here that the roles of the privileged and unfortunate are switched. Vladimir sets out to make his fortune scamming clueless rich expatriate Americans.

The protagonist of Shteyngart’s book is the picture of insecure youth. Vladimir is seen to be forever coveting—may it be a look, a lifestyle, or a lover—and never being able to obtain what he desires because the opposition is running through his veins. Throughout The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, it is those who find themselves in this same position that are the saddest characters. They are the ones that Shteyngart paints as the most socially acceptable, and yet one can detect a bitter dissatisfaction beneath the Gladwrap personalities. On the flip side, the characters who possess more unconventional, if not slightly more embarrassing behaviour, seem to be those who have assimilated successfully into their foreign surroundings.

Shteyngart uses archetypes that are most commonly portrayed in media as a basis for his characters—characters that seem to jump right out of a Woody Allen film. This is where The Russian Debutante’s Handbook is both funny and disappointing. It is like seeing someone who resembles an old friend. You run up to this person with the anticipation of reacquainting yourself, and then disappointingly, with closer inspection, discover that the person is not whom you thought he or she was.

To answer the question of “What is America?” It could be a hamburger, a hot dog, a shiny Cadillac, and a pretty young woman underneath a palm tree, or all of these, as the character Lazslo proclaims. But for the satisfaction of the reader, it should be a lot more.

ENJOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

And Blessed Are The Ones Who Care For Their Fellow Men!