A Forsley Feuilleton: Gary Shteyngart Can Afford As Many Bottles of Vodka And “Double-Cured-Spicy-Soppressata-And-Avacado” Sandwiches As He Craves

As far as the schools of literary criticism go – and damn do they go far, so far that you need a dozen diabeticless Labrador Retrievers with MFAs to fetch them – I’ve always favored those theories, like Historical-Biographical criticism, that focus on the author of a work because, if you ask me, every work of literature is a direct reflection of its author’s life and times and. . . mental illnesses.  Vladimir Nabokov wouldn’t have written Lolita if he didn’t have pedophilic desires – desires masked through his fetishizing of butterflies, which are just like pubescent girls: nice to look at but bad to touch.

Bret Easton Ellis wouldn’t have written American Physco if he hadn’t worked in advertisement during the 80s, a career that gave him, like Patrick Bateman and Christian Bale, “all the characteristics of a human being: flesh, blood, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust.”  And I, Christopher Forsley, wouldn’t have written last week’s Forsley Feuilleton, An Open Letter To The Anti-Ginger Grocery Store Night Managers, if Cryos International, one of the world’s largest sperm banks, didn’t announce that they’d no longer accept my redheaded tadpoles.

Some authors successfully hide the biographical reflections in their work. . . but Gary Shteyngart, even though he looks like a vampire, isn’t one of them.  After reading his three novels – The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, Absurdistan, and Super Sad True Love Story – back to back to back, I’ve concluded that all three of his protagonists are direct extensions of himself:

Vladimir Girshkin, the protagonist of his first novel, is “the immigrant’s immigrant, the expatriate’s expatriate, enduring victim of every practical joke the late twentieth century had to offer.”  The 325-pound son of the 1,238^th-richest man in Russian and hero of Shteyngart’s second novel, Misha ‘Snack Daddy’ Vainberg is “a grossly overweight man with small, deeply set blue eyes, a pretty Jewish beak that brings to mind the most distinguished breed of parrot. . .”  And Leonard Abramov, who has “the grossest feet, bunions and this gigantic heel spur that sticks out like he’s got a thumb glued to his foot,” doesn’t have a lyrical description to quote because he’s the protagonist of Shteyngart’s most recent novel, Super Sad True Love Story.  I believe Shteyngart wrote it using his own diary entries and the transcribed e-mails of one of his young Korean mistresses because – based off the far-fetchness of Historical-Biographical criticism – by then he was a best-selling author with money to afford as many bottles of vodka and “double-cured-spicy-soppressata-and-avocado” sandwiches as he craved and had neither the time nor desire to write the dense, original prose that made his first two novels great.

I’m not saying the lack of dense, original prose in Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story makes it worse than his first two novels.  I’m saying it’s worse than his first two novels because Leonard Abramov only did one woman in it, whereas Vladmir Girshkin, in Debutante’s Handbook, did three, and Mish ‘snack daddy’ Vainberg, in Absurdistan, did two.  And, for me, the most interesting biographical reflections found in Shteyngart’s novels are not those of his own pathetic persona – they are those of  the women he,  through characters like ‘Snack Daddy’, puts his “crushed purple insect” into.

I find these women interesting – so interesting that the novels, like my pecker, rise and fall with them – because I’m certain they had, or have, real life parallels in Shteyngart’s own life, times, and mental illnesses.  Some say he writes his novels as a way to better understand his second generation Jewish Russian immigrant New Yorker experience, but I say he writes them to better understand the dysfunctional relationships he’s had with the American women he’s encountered.  And because Shteyngart is the greatest contemporary second generation Jewish Russian immigrant New Yorker writer of satire under the age of forty who’s partially bald, kind of funny, and incredibly impotent, I want to use the remainder of this Forsley Feuilleton to take a quick look at the women in his three novels with hopes of learning how he can afford as many bottles of vodka and “double-cured-spicy-soppressata-and-avacado” sandwiches as he craves while I – as a contemporary second generation Catholic Irish immigrant San Franciscan writer of satire under the age of thirty who’s longhaired, very funny, and incredibly potent – can only afford moonshine and Ramen.

In The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, Shteyngart, through Vladmir Girshkin, puts his “crushed purple insect” into three women: Challah, Francesca, and then Morgan.  Challah is an obese red-haired dominatrix with “bulging cheeks and determined radish of a nose,” who looks “ever matronly and suburban, despite all the torn black shirts, gothic bracelets, and crucifixes.”  Vladmir leaves this “queen of everything musky and mammal-like” because the “gradients in status” between them were no longer enough to arouse him.  He leaves her for a young, wealthy Manhattanite-by-birth named Francesca with small eyes “as perfectly oval as Faberge miniatures, their gray the sobering shade of a Petersburg morning. . .”  Then, after wasting his life-savings in an attempt at keeping up with Fran’s lifestyle, he takes his “crushed purple insect” to Europe and beds with Morgan, a girl from Cleveland, because “it was time for someone innocent and pliable.”

In Absurdistan, Shteyngart, through Misha ‘Snack Daddy’ Vainberg, puts his “crushed purple insect” into two women: Rouenna and then Nana. Misha met Rouenna – who in her own words is “half Puerto Rican. . . half German. . . half Mexican and Irish. . . but raised mostly in Dominican” – at a “titty-bar” where her breasts, “tied back with a kind of wide summer bandanna, were a reassuring presence against the toxic hump and the warm, sweaty flesh that gathered around it like the foothills of Mount Etna.”  Misha loses Rouenna, who he believes is his true love, to Professor Shteynfarb, author of The Russian Arriviste’s Hand Job.  Then, while stuck in Absurdistan because of the “sins of his father,” a young tour guide named Nana takes his “crushed purple insect” and sticks it “inside of her in one lubricated motion, without the usual series of soft cries women produce upon being entered.”

Lastly, in Super Sad True Love Story, Shteyngart, through Leonard Abramov, puts that same “crushed purple insect” into only one woman: Eunice.  “Young, stoic, and flat” with a “sharp nose and little arms,” Eunice is a self-destructive American struggling with the pressures of her traditional Korean family.  Leonard falls instantly in love with her and then, later that night, “talked her out of her pants, cupped the twin, tiny gloves of her ass with (his) palms, and pushed (his) lips right inside her soft, vital pussy.”

A Note: in these three novels, Shteyngart, through his protagonists, puts his “crushed purple insect” into other women besides the aforementioned. . . like Fabriza who, if I remember correctly, had Mediterranean pubic hairs that popped through her neon panties, and I also recall one of Shteyngart’s biographical reflections hooking up with his widowed stepmother. . .

But who cares?  What have I learned by taking a quick look at the women in Shteyngart’s three novels?  Not much.  Maybe, because the quality of his novels depend on the number of female characters they include, I have learned that a writer – a straight male writer   – is only as good, or interesting, or unique as the women he chooses to put his “crushed purple insect” into.  Or maybe I just learned that Gary Shteyngart – as the greatest contemporary second generation Jewish Russian immigrant New Yorker writer of satire under the age of forty who’s partially bald, kind of funny, and incredibly impotent – can afford as many bottles of vodka and “double-cured-spicy-soppressata-and-avacado” sandwiches as he craves while I – as a contemporary second generation Catholic Irish immigrant San Franciscan writer of satire under the age of thirty who’s longhaired, very funny, and incredibly potent – can only afford moonshine and Ramen because instead of writing directionless, longwinded, unclear Forsley Feuilletons, he writes novels featuring complex, unique, interesting female characters.