Required Reading #1: Absurdistan

There are all of these terrible people in the world who will insist that you ought to read John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces. To get you to take the bait, they'll use all of the right words - "cult favorite," "biting social commentary," and "wickedly hilarious." And, if you're particularly weak, or if the pusher is particularly malevolent, you find yourself knee-deep in the midst of this vile, vile tome.

I propose that Gary Shteyngart's Absurdistan is exactly what those Confederacy of Dunces admirers hoped their book would be. A few examples:

- it features a hygenically-challenged and obese protagonist in Misha "Snack Daddy" Vainberg;
- it critiques modern intelligentsia by exposing the role of Accidental College and its Multicultural Affairs major and its motto "Do you think one person can save the world? So do we!"
- and, most damningly, it combines the role of the media, petroleum, war, and the American firm "Golly Burton."

But mostly, it's just really hilarious. How can you lose with lines like "Along the way, we took turns hitting the driver with birch twigs, ostensibly to improve his circulation, but in reality because it is impossible to end an evening in Russia without assaulting someone" (Shteyngart 2006 : 76)?

Also, and not to be petty about it, but doesn't the author kind of look exactly how a brooding Russian author ought?