Gary Shteyngart: Little Failure (Satis Shroff)
GARY SHTEYNGART: melancholic slapstick failuchka (Satis Shroff) The room in the Altwiehre Bahnhof was full and a bearded American author of Jewish-Russian descent, a professor of creative writing from Columbia University, walked in and took his place behind the table with the microphones and a silly, old lamp. ‘It’s great to be back in Freiburg,’ he said and realized that he actually didn’t see his audience. He put the table-lamp aside and said,’ Now I see you.’ He brought out some photographs from his memoir ‘Little Failure’ and said, ‘ The photos are the best thing in the book. Here’s a snap of me: ‘boy with a toy car.’ So how do you become a writer? He said Brooklyn is full of writers. He went on to imitate Robbie Williams’ ‘Good Morning Vietnam,’ except this time it was ‘Good Evening, Leningrad.’ You know, my grandma said, ‘Hey, you wanna be a writer? For every page you write you’ll get a cheese. Russian cheese.’ Then he went on to tell a story...
