Ask Gary Shteyngart - Friday, March 7th! discussion

Welcome to the group! Gary will be answering questions throughout the day on Friday, March 7th in this thread only. In the meantime if you have a question for the author or just want to introduce yourself feel free to do so in this thread.

In The Russian Debutante's Handbook, you satirized what was essentially a hipster culture, back when the hipsters were in Prague. Now that they've settled in Brooklyn (and seemingly grown in number), what effect, if any, has this had on the culture, and does this movement (it feels icky to call hipsterdom a movement) still interest you as a writer?

All my respect and love, Gary. Thank you for creating the worlds you give us. How would you feel about Absurdistan starring Seth Rogen as Misha Vainberg? It has been my dream since reading the book and getting punched in the face with a re-cognition and of my own Soviet Jew past.

What part of Super Sad True Love Story do you think was most eerily prescient?

I don't have a question. I just want to say how I have loved your writing since I first read The Russian Debutante's Handbook. I bought it on a whim and I have sought your books out since then.

Please continue to create worlds imagined yet real.

Hi Gary,

I'm reading Little Failure and was wondering if you think it's possible to be such a thing as a "good parent"?

Dear Gary: I ask on behalf of all Canadians: what are your thoughts on the socialist paradise known as Canada?

Привет! - (I'm not Russian but I'm presently learning the language. :) )

My question: Have you ever considered writing a book wherein the main character is a dictator of a Communist regime? I think, with the combination of your insight and authorial prowess, you'd be uniquely poised to tell such a tale.

Also, I just wanted to say thanks for pursuing writing and to wish you all the continued success in the world. The Russian Debutante's Handbook is tied for first place on my list of all time favorite books. ;)

I loved your memoir and as a second-generation immigrant, I could relate to your narrative about the losing battle to ever be good enough. I was interested to read in the acknowledgements about your parents' support of the memoir project and I was wondering about their attitudes towards "Little Failure," since it was not uncritical of them and their parenting.

Dear Gary,

Do you refer to yourself as a literary bad boy, the bad boy of the literati, or just a bad boy?

Gary, I loved Little Failure and I wondered what kind of influence Nabokov has been to you? Your favorite and least favorite books of his and why?

I forgot to mention something earlier:
I've been living in Bucharest for several years now, and I simply can't overstate how much I relished the shots you took at the city in The Russian Debutante's Handbook. It was unexpected and pure enjoyment. :)

Gary: Are you and your parents available for my 1/2 Jewish kid's bat mitzvah in 2017? She needs to hear slaptalk from them and maybe you could give the vodka toast (I'm not the Jewish half!)? That year in Jerusalem, nu?

Hey Snotty,
I read most of your memoir in a rented Airstream camper in a South Texas KOA, with occasional breaks to watch Weather channel coverage of the rest of the country digging out of a paralyzing winter storm (just thought you’d like to know). As someone who reads a great deal, but will only write at the point of a gun, I appreciated how frank you are in the memoir about how much rotten junk even a talented writer who enjoys the task has to turn out before producing something worth reading. Is it really just a matter of time and persistence, or was there advice, or other things that helped you get there?

Warm regards.

Hi there!

Of all the books/stories you have written, I would love to know which is your personal favorite, and why. Thank you!

What do you think of Pale Fire? I tried to read it last year and just couldn't finish! Which makes me so sad because I LOVED Pnin!

I met you at a book signing in union square last month and gave you the Rob Lowe suggestion. Did you pass it onto the producers? Btw, I'm teaching LF and Absurdistan this semester. I taught the other two previously but not these two.
Peter Conti
PC2005@columbia.edu

Hey Gary. When you were in Jerusalem last year I got you to blurb my copy of Absurdistan "A better, funnier Confederacy of Dunces" but now I'm not so sure. If I send you my copy can you please scribble that out and just write, "with love, Gary"? I think that would be best for everyone.
Also, I haven't read the memoir yet. I'm waiting to see if the cool kids like it before I make the leap. Do you know of any cool kids that have liked it? It would really help me decide whether or not to purchase. Thanks.

You should definitely do Mark Maron's WTF podcast. What will you satirize in your next novel?

I'm curious why, as a relatively young man, you decided now was a good time to write a memoir. What prompted "Little Failure"?

As a native Moscovite, who emigrated in 1979, at the age of 20, and a big Shteyngart fan, I was taken aback by the perceived cruelty and disdain for the son (you) shown by parents in your memoir. You seemed to imply that this attitude (nicknames, hitting etc.) was a part of the culture, a strange way to express love. I was astonished at this because having grown up in a very similar subculture (Soviet Jewish "intelligent") in Brezhnev's USSR, I saw tenderness, spoiling, warm love to children. Never heard of physical punishment or humiliation of children. Care to comment?

Gary,
Are you planning to have children? If so, How will your past affect your future parenting style?
Fellow '79er

Shteyngart is married to Esther Won who is of Korean descent. In October 2013, they became parents to Johnny Won Shteyngart.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Sht...

Hi Gary! My onionskins are restricting blood flow to my feet, so I can't really think on them enough to ask you an intelligent question. But heeeeey, and thanks for writing brilliance!

Sent via my apparat

Hey Gary, Do you think Vladimir Putin should read carefully "Super Sad True Love Story" and "Little Failure" and think seriously of their meanings as he continues to plot the restoration of the Soviet Russian Empire?

@Others posting here, I think my friend Gary Shteyngart is the "Mark Twain of our time" and he's been demonstrating it consistently in his fictional - and now nonfictional - prose.

Hey Gary,
I just read your blurb on the jacket of the new Walter Kirn book. You have acheived the impossible, suggesting that you may not have read the thing, but somehow, I must not miss it. So, what does the twittersphere have to learn from the blurb and vice versa?
Your facebook friend,
Kevin

In Super Sad True Love Story, you wrote, “Reading is difficult. People just aren't meant to read anymore. We're in a post-literate age. You know, a visual age. How many years after the fall of Rome did it take for a Dante to appear? Many, many years.” I am married to a librarian who specializes in digital media, while I on the other hand study and teach about ancient texts. As you can imagine, we sometimes argue about the future of reading. In your opinion, are we now living in a post-literate age, or is that still to come -- and is there anything that we can do to stop it?

Such difficult questions about Russia and Stability-Canada and the future of reading for you to ponder! Here's a nice easy one for you, about my favorite novel of yours, followed by a curve ball question.

The "easy" one: tell us what was the germ of a story idea that got you started on _Super Sad True Love Story_, and what was the most difficult problem you had to solve in writing the novel and how you solved it.

Harder topic: the wild postscript makes me wonder just what the content of _The Lenny Abramov Diaries_ as published by the Beijing/NY house is like. You drop hints that the English version could be very different from the book we've actually read. For instance, how would the publishers get their hands on Lenny's actual handwritten diaries, not just the GlobalTeen posts? Also, given the wacky faux-American title the publisher gave Larry Abraham's "Notes," "Welcome Back, Pa'dner," I wonder how much of both Eunice's and Lenny's different idioms have been totally mangled in the "People's Literature" English version of this novel. (Traduced perhaps not quite as badly as what that racist actress does to Eunice in that Italian TV version, but maybe close). And the Chinese translation must be even more surreal. Tell me, please, am I crazy to be worried about such stuff? I think you hint to us that the "book" we're reading (either in print or on our favorite screen) actually _doesn't exist in the future_ -- and that we, like Lenny, should be mourning what has been lost. PPS, surely there's a little tribute here too to the end of Humbert Humbert's comments in _Lolita_, no? ;)

Let's talk food (because I enjoy your social media pictures of things you are about to eat):

What is your favorite, go-to, weekday meal?

Favorite junk food?

Your final meal?(god forbid that happens anytime soon)

Super Sad True Love Story is hilarious and depressing, because it's so close to reality. Your critique of our narcissism, consumerism and blindness to the world is brutal. Big question: how do we turn this country around?

Dear Gary,

As an American child of a Polish-born Jew with very high expectations for his kids, I connected with and loved "Little Failure."

Actually, I listened to the audio version, and especially enjoyed the reader's accents and interpretations. Do you as the author have a say in who records the book?

Keep writing, and I'll keep listening!

Hi everyone! Thank you so much for reading my books! I'm in the middle of a book tour and it always moves me nearly to tears when I see so many smart and kind people show up to hear me sing my song. I love you, Goodreaders! And now to the questions.

Corey, I think there have always been hipsters around the world. I've always been interested in expat hipsters which seemed to have made the move from Prague to Berlin. In New York, the migration may have been from Downtown to Brooklyn. This culture fascinated me when I was young but it fascinates me a bit less as I stumble into middle age.

Anita, Seth Rogen as Misha Vainberg would probably be the best thing that ever happened to me.

Jamie, when I heard Lady Gaga was wearing transparent jeans a la Onionskins I was truly stunned. Why is this happening so quickly, I wondered.

Thank you so much for your kind words, Elizabeth. Yes, I will keep writing. It's all I know how to do.

Brian, I think there are better parents and worse parents. I think my own parents did the best they could with what they were given.

Jason, I like Canada quite a bit. If there's ever some kind of nuclear meltdown near where I live Upstate, I'll gladly move to Vancouver's Yaletown or that Kitsilano.

Brandon, Thanks for your good words about Handbook. Dictator idea is quite funny, but I might take a slight break from all things Russian. I'm up to my ears in cabbage soup by now.

Amar, funny you should mention that because I think my next novel will be set in Shanghai, Dubai, Mumbai, anything ending with "ai." The future is definitely pointing east, as we all know.

Alexandra, my parents usually read things when they're translated into Russian, so there's been no response to Failure yet. Also, no rights have yet been sold into Russian. I look forward to hearing from them if it ever does get translated (the novels are in Russian translation already).

Eric, I am just a bad, bad boy.

I love Nabokov, maybe too much. In descending order of love, my top 5: Pnin, Speak, Memory, Pale Fire, Lolita, The Defense.

Thanks, Mary. I don't do Bar Mitzvahs because of liability issues. L'chaim and good luck, though!

Kevin, yes time and persistence. Writing is just endlessly slamming your head against a wall. Don't stop doing it until you bleed!

--Snotty

Steph, as with children it's hard to pick favorites. Russian Deb was my first book, Absurdistan my funniest (in my mind), Super Sad the most difficult to write (what do I know about science or the future?) and Failure the most frank.

Shelly, I love Pale Fire but Pnin is my favorite. I teach both books at Columbia.

Gary do you plan a tour in France or Europe in the next future?.. You have readers there too :)

Elyse, someday I'll come back to the bay area. We all have to come back there eventually.

Peter, nothing is more exciting than casting Rob Lowe in Super Sad except maybe the Seth Rogen as Misha Vainberg suggestion. Thank you for teaching my books!