February 25th through March 3rd is Peace Corps Week, when Returned Peace Corps Volunteers celebrate 47 years of continuing service around the world. In 1998, Congress named a Peace Corps Day, but that just couldn’t contain all the Peace Corps love, so they extended it in 2003 to a whole week. I know that there are contributors and readers that served in the Peace Corps, and I suggest they leave a note in the comments and be recognized! Volunteering is one sure way to make a difference in the world, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant!
– Michael Hancock (Uzbekistan, 2005) (Kazakhstan, 2005-2007)
I’ve been reading quite a bit over the last weeks, but they have been books covered in previous posts. Namely Absurdistan, by Gary Shteyngart, and God Lives in St. Petersburg, by Tom Bissell. I have to say that I enjoyed both of them for completely different reasons.
Absurdistan was 
much thicker and went a lot deeper into the post-Soviet mindset, which you’d expect from a full length novel versus Bissell’s collection of short stories. Mr. Shteyngart’s writing was very funny, but as Joshua pointed out previously, most people can only tolerate so many fat jokes, especially from a character that really isn’t so much morbidly obese as just very unhealthy in habits. Misha Vainberg, the main protagonist, is trapped by missed opportunities, tragedy, and bureaucracy in the Caucasian seaside republic of Azerbaijan-in-bizarro-world, Absurdistan. It’s unclear to me exactly why these two different strategies of satire exist: Borat’s Kazakhstan is a bunch of lies based loosely on a real place, whereas Vainberg’s Absurdistan is a bunch of sarcastically exaggerated truths about a fake-place-inspired-by-a-real-place. What’s the real difference? [Note: Does it qualify as allegory? Now I begin to wonder - is it supposed to seem like social satire like Swift's Gulliver's Travels or the slavishly allegorical Pilgrim's Progress?] It seems that Borat is aimed at the less educated crowd, where Absurdistan is the same kind of satire and hate-speech-as-comedy served up for the Starbucks and Too-Good-for-Starbucks elite. It seems as if Shteyngart hates the former Soviet Union while wanting us to think that we know that he hates it, even though he secretly still loves it. The feelings are never less mixed than that, and I had a hard time understanding if actual moments of sentiment were more sarcasm, with the author only approaching it with more subtlety. The book was extremely funny, I’ll grant you that. However, I even laughed at Borat’s Kazakhstan movie, and I was more than a little offended on behalf of the Kazakhstani population as I watched it. In all honesty, it’s worth a read just to watch Shteyngart work through his own mixed up relationship with the former Soviet Union and its detritus cast around Central Asia.
As for God Lives in St. Petersburg, I found it better and worse than Chasing the Sea. It was better in that it dug deeper, but worse in that Bissell seems to have taken a too visceral approach to writing. The brutality he shows towards characters almost seems masochistic to me, as I continue to relate the author with his lead characters because of the amount of Tom I see in each protagonist he creates. The Ambassador’s Son was probably the best of the lot, if only because it was lighter and very funny, and the main character wasn’t horribly abused or dead by the end of the story. The eponymous story was probably the best crafted, but I didn’t really feel it like the others. I don’t know if Bissell ever watched anyone deal with sexual orientation issues in Central Asia, but I couldn’t help but think there’d be a lot more to write about than just the competing affections of two adolescent Russian children in Uzbekistan. It seemed too prepared, too neat and tidy, and aimed at the readers of the slick magazines it was published in – in other words, not so true to Uzbekistan and Central Asia. That being said, I really enjoyed the book, and I’m glad I read it. I just picked up his The Father of All Things, but since it has nothing to do with Central Asia, don’t expect a review on Registan.
I’m currently finishing Elinor Burkett’s So Many Enemies, So Little Time, which has been excellent so far. It might have single-handedly inspired me to apply for the Fulbright program someday, though I’m sure that would surprise the author. The book chronicles her misadventures as she tours the ‘other side’ of the globe, hitting most of the hot spots of Reagan’s Evil Empire and Bush’s Axis of Evil, with nice breaks in-between where she discusses the annoyances of teaching University students at the best school in Kyrgyzstan in sunny Bishkek. Following that, I’ll serve up another Central Asian author, Mukhamet Shayakhmetov, whose The Silent Steppe: The Memoir of a Kazakh Nomad Under Stalin I just picked up yesterday.
This post was written by...
Michael Hancock-Parmer – author of 158 posts on Registan.net.
Michael earned an MA in Central Eurasian Studies in 2011 and remains a student at Indiana University pursuing a dual PhD in Russian History and Central Eurasian Studies. He served 6 months in the Peace Corps in Uzbekistan in 2005. After the events in Andijan and the subsequent closure of the program, he served 2 years in southern Kazakhstan, returning to the Midwest in 2007. His general area of interest is on post-Timur Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, centered on the Syr Darya river valley.
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I’d also like to point out that Luke Wilson’s “Idiocracy” comedy-cum-educational-cautionary-tale was released in some countries under the title “Absurdistan.”
RPCV Kyrgyzstan 2004-2006
I like the thesis Nathan
Argh, you’re beating me at my own game! I’ve about finished Craig Murray’s book, and I’m curious if I can add anything to the reams Nathan has written here about the man. Similarly, I have God Lives… and I just picked up The Silent Steppe. I’m particularly excited about the latter, considering I was recently complaining at the lack of literary attention paid to the Great Kazakh Famine.
On the other hand, it’s nice to see I’m not the only one with my reading habits
Maybe I’ll read Opium Season instead and bore everyone with another post on drug cultivation in Helmand…
Anyway. Great Minds and all that.
i like nathan too.
RPCV Uzbekistan 2004-2005
UZ volunteers have mixed feelings about Bissell. For starters, he ET’d from one of the cushiest posts in the country. Gulistan basically a suburb of Tashkent, the capital.
Tackling Central Asia is never an easy task. It is a region of contradiction which is what draws people to it.
Anyway, SP will try to read the books mentioned.
Stank-O, Peace Corps Uzbekistan was very different back when Bissell was a volunteer. I think that he did a fair bit of honest reflection in his first book about his experience.
Until group 8 in 2001, no group had a completion rate of over 50%, which compared to the rest of the world, was atrocious. My group, 10, was probably going to do 8 a little better than where they ended up. Things were getting better, but I don’t think there were any really cushy posts until 2000 or so.
It sure sounds gross. I guess there really is nothing to the Russian Fulbright in 2001 and the new one.
Ditto what Joshua said — I’ve had The Silent Steppe since summer, but haven’t managed to write my review yet (I meant to do it after Josh’s earlier review. Sigh). It’s quite good and informative though not compelling literature, more of a “this happened, then that happened” narrative. Still, it stands out as a lone primary source of Kazakh life in the Great Famine.
I really hated Chasing the Sea. It felt like a book he wrote about stuff that was important to him while trying not to feel too much or think about anything too hard. Also, I spent four years in Uzbekistan and his descriptions seemed kind of lazy.
Or maybe I am just jealous that he wrote a book and I never finished mine.
I agree, Nathan, re: “cushy” PC posts – and then, even places like Tashkent or Angren or Navoi, with more conveniences, could make a person crazy pretty easily.
My sense was, UZ volunteers who didn’t like Chasing the Sea either resented that Bissell left early, or resented that he wrote the book they secretly wanted to, or resented that what he wrote didn’t match their experiences…or all three.
Alanna, I had your same reaction to God Lives in St. Petersburg. Stupid, stupid book. My thing is, I can’t tell if Bissell really is a jerk, or if he just writes himself to seem that way.
I thank Michael Hancock for his close reading of my stories, and for writing about the collection here, my favorite Central Asia-related site. And while I’m a little saddened to hear about the mixed feelings Uzbekistan’s returned volunteers have for my stuff (or, for that matter, me), I can attest to the estimable Mr. Hamm’s view that Gulistan in 1996 was not the most attractive place to have served, but it wasn’t the place that led to my quitting but rather a whole host of other stuff, much of it maturity-based, which I tried to address in Chasing the Sea. As for Frank’s comment about my “stupid, stupid book,” and Alanna’s comment that my descriptions were lazy, I suppose all there is to say is that I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy my stuff more. Please know, though, that I really am a jerk.
I’m glad and a little embarrassed that you saw my criticism, Tom. I remember thinking when I was a fresh-faced Volunteer in Uzbekistan that one day I could be “the other ex-Uzi-Volunteer-from-Michigan.” I fancied myself quite the aspiring writer with my little BA from WMU, and couldn’t wait to write my own autobiography as some kind of adventure-slash-cautionary-tale…
But I’m no Johnnie-come-lately! I wouldn’t want to play second fiddle – my ego wouldn’t handle it well. I promise that my first Volunteer-inspired art-form will be either musical comedy or misguided poetry. Interpretative Dance, on the other hand, is right out.
Well, nine very long-feeling years elapsed between my ET-ing and Chasing the Sea’s publication, so I wouldn’t worry too much about second-fiddling anything. There’s plenty of room for wayward Michigan boys and their collisions with Central Asia, at any rate. The one thing I’ve learned about writing, which may not be much, is that you never really have any idea what form your experiences will take on the page, or what other, unexpected directions you will be pushed toward. When I ET’d, the idea I’d ever write anything about Uzbekistan seemed about as likely as my living in a geodesic dome on the moon with my wife, Tyra Banks. But I wish you much more than luck in your literary endeavors, whatever form they take. Thanks again.
Now I feel guilty for saying mean things about Chasing the Sea where the author could read them. I’ll point out that everyone else I knew loved the book, so probably it really was envy on my part.
And I read a review of God Lives in St. Petersburg and have wanted to read the story about the couple in the zoo – the synopsis was just that compelling.