MixedThe Financial TimesShteyngart, like the zoo animals he chronicles, seems to have lost the ability to look over the horizon: is life any better in thriving communities such as China or London? If not, how can he possibly expect us to care about Lenny’s fretful attempts to prolong his captivity? The book is more successful when it shows us the puffy fist of totalitarianism, descending towards all these maddened narcissists as they scurry round, oblivious ... maybe Shteyngart is simply better at chatting than at ruminating, which may indicate that the real adolescent here is, in fact, our miserabilist author, whose imaginative excesses do occasionally feel like an act of teenage rebellion against the hopes of immigrant parents such as Lenny’s or Eunice’s or Gary’s own ... Humour appears to have gone the way of the finer feelings: there is nothing here as sourly funny as Misha Vainberg’s vodka-soaked encounters with friends, thugs and potential fathers-in-law in Absurdistan. Which is a pity: there’s only so much super sadness a reader can take ... Shteyngart is smart, certainly, and adept at conveying the horrors he has dreamed up. But cleverness without hope is like a love story without laughter: super sad indeed, and as cold as the grave we all contort ourselves to avoid.
