Kleiner Versager

Gary Steyngart was recommended various times on the radio book show “Büchermarkt” (Deutschlandradio). His biography and the style of humor caused my interest/ Since “Little Failure” (the original engl. title) is in fact an autobiography I started with this book. Little Failure comes from an eng.-russ. fusion word: Failure-chka. That should have been teh title for me. I had a lot of fun with the Russian words within the text. Gary Steyngart uses them in funny contexts, it seems he uses it to smooth the impact. The imminent divorce of his parents is always called by the Russian word развод. It also demonstrates that he was for a long time trapped in his immigration environment. His parants are Russian jews, who left Russia in 1979 but had a hard time to truly arrive in New York. They suffered from that strange emotional clash between gratitude to have a safe heaven, the difficulty to bend in, and the resulting despise of the “inferior” hosting society. Any expat has seems this effect. They are overprotective, extremely demanding, loving, and pretty much Russian.
We follow little Gary (Igor) during his first years in America. At the same time we see him to become the writer he is today. It is a book full of love, and very funny. I will read the rest of his books until I get bored since I suspect they have all the same subject: the jewish-Russian identity and their obsessions.