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Khoa Le

Dr. Claudia Görg

05.866.410 Seminar 410 American Studies: Jewish American Autobiographies

25 February 2018

Parent-Child Relationship amongst Soviet Jewish Americans regarding Education and Love in Gary

Shteyngart’s Little Failure

Conjointly with other anthropological interconnections, Jewish parents and their

offspring are interwoven to one another by a sequences of mandatory obligations and spiritual

traditions. People in various societies dignify parents with reverence. In immemorial Judaism, it

appears to be more crucial than its contemporaries in commanding that parents should provide

their children with solid substructures for the future. We withal cognize that in Judaism parents

and children interrelate not only for obligatory or moral reasons, but a sign of honoring God as

well. Throughout the study of reminiscent literary works written about the Jewish Americans,

Gary Shteyngart by coincidence caught my interest by virtue of his struggles as an individual of

USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) Jewish origins trying to accommodate himself in the

juvenility to the American way of life; and an anthropomorphic love relationship which awaited

for years to blossom between the protagonist and his wellspring. Shteyngart sprang his beautiful

memoir with a bitter nostalgia in the childhood “I’ve returned to St. Petersburg to be carried

away by a Nabokovian torrent of memory for a country that no longer exists,” (15) and following

back-and-forth remembrances during his journey of idiosyncratic crystallization. It delineates the

entity and destiny of a delicate, fragile son born to a dynamic, eccentric Soviet Jew family, who

immigrated to the United States in the late 1970s, in their melodramatic approach to parenting,

advertently furnish that son to become an American successful writer- an “asthmatic immigrant
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learns to breathe by writing #AsthmaticRussianJew”- as he tweeted on Twitter. In my term

paper, I assert that Shteyngart’s fourth book and first memoir Little Failure treasures a potential

power of a Jewish child in conquering himself to prevail his parents and the world out there that

he is apparently a can-do being, and the Jewish parents’ education of “spare the rod, spoil the

child” with a hidden boundless love would wing children to grow more prominent. My objective

in this paper is to psychologically analyze Shteyngart’s endeavors with his parents to develop

himself throughout hardships when his family settled to the States and his parents’ different way

of upbringing, as he uttered, “the wonderful stuff, the humor, their value on education, the fact

that they kept up Russian with me- which was instrumental in my ability to write books”, to

illuminate the vigorous love for children from parental generation and the honored one in return.

Modern readers of Jewish American genre are familiar with the name Gary Shteyngart

not only because he is a Russian Jewish immigrant- a sampling epitome might be read- who is

tragic in love but wealthy in satirical sense of humor, stranded with domestic misgiving but

thriving in literary writing. He is moreover a fragile asthmatic boy who succeeded in managing

with barrier of language, self-evolvement, familial relationship, extrinsic impact, et al… while

exposing the comedic radioactivity from the collision between cultures. Born to a Russian Jewish

family in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in 1972 whilst the countries witnessed the sensitive

reformation. His parents left their hometown bearing a hopeful dream for better life in a better

world after the Soviet-American trade agreement: “Russia gets the grain it needs to run; America

gets the Jews it needs to run” in Vienna between President Jimmy Carter of the White House and

Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev (Rosenberg 424). At that instant, our protagonist aged seven and

everything forthwith turned newly dissimilar to him. He started learning English, befriended with

various kids from different backgrounds and cultures. Due to the language acquisition process at
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the early age, he did not shed his Russian accent until he became juvenile teenager (fourteen).

Having grown up in a household without media entertainment like TV would take the positive

responsibility for his adoration in books and literature. His pieces of literary work somehow was

profoundly inspired by the greatest Russian authors of preceding times. Being descended from a

colossal realm Russia, he is proudly aware of his identity and lives up with the personality that

he himself defines even though he was soaked into the two different worlds full of “messianic

visions” (Shteyngart). He journeyed to Prague where he gave birth to his premier novel The

Russian Debutante's Handbook in, set in the fictitious European city of Prava, won 2002 which

won the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction, the Book-of-the-Month Club First Fiction

Award and the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. Later 2006 he published the fictional

work Absurditan. In June 2010, Super Sad True Love Story was launched and won the 2011

Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic literature, which brought him one spot in The

New Yorker magazine's “20 under 40” luminary fiction writers. His non-fictional work as a

memoir Little Failure, thirty-five years later he settled in the U.S, was a finalist for the 2014

National Book Critics Circle Award. He is a graduate of Stuyvesant High School in New York

City, Oberlin College in Ohio, Hunter College of the City University of New York. Shteyngart

now locates in the Gramercy vicinity of Manhattan. He has taught writing at Hunter College, and

currently teaches writing at Columbia University.

Having caught readers’ initial attention is an ironic title of the book, Little Failure. As he

would utter the nickname, in Anglo-flubbed Russian Failurchka, comes from his mother

regarding him as her pet son. They called him Little Failure for the reason that his results at

Stuyvesant High School were not bad but not good enough to give him a spot in Ivy League

college, which gives them a disappointment and despair that they “may as well have never come
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here.” (219). Utterance Little Failure is repeated nearly 10 times throughout the book. I asserted

himself to be sick and “runny nosed” more often in the childhood and also in his maturity, his

father called him Soplyak, or Snotty, which draws us an imagination of a slovenly child with

snotty nose. His mother was inventing “an interesting fusion of English and Russian” name

Failurchka.

Because I was sick That term made it from her lips into the overblown manuscript

of a novel I was tying up in my spare time, one whose opening chapter was about

to be rejected by the important writing program at the University of Iowa, letting

me know that my parents weren’t the only one to think that I was nothing. (4)

Shteyngart also suffers an asthma which prostrates him all the time to breathe like a tiny

fish out of water and its lungs are swollen to store the air, revealed Shteyngart, “it looked

vaguely like a child overdressed for a ceremony. Like a little red-faced, tiny-bellied falure.” (8).

Or it comes down to his self-assumption that his mother diminished in her way of regarding her

son, “my mother’s favorite childhood diminutive for me? Little Failure? No! It was Solnyshko.

Little Sun!” (10). Mr. Gary Gnu is super sophisticated in selecting the word “sun” not only

because it represents for the light, warmth, existence on earth, but also hints the reader of its

homophonic pair of word “son” as he is her spirit, soul, liveliness or whatever matters to be good

to her. She as a Jewish mother would not tell her son that he is her vitality of life. But her son

from time to time recognized the message.

His parents might confront with their troubled marriage. His father was a working-class

mechanical engineer. And his mother, from a comparatively-cultured family, was a piano teacher

at a kindergarten. “The couple are handsome and hale, and evidently bewildered by the scrawny

and sickly creature they have created.” (Lennon). They fell in love, fell into trouble with each
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other, having a privileged life in their own apartment centered Leningrad than they would ever

be in the States. It would take him most of his life to figure out that his parents are too dissimilar

to have a successful marriage.

The Soviet Union is supposed to be a classless society, but my father is village

boy, from difficult stock, and my mother is from a Petersburg cultural class, a

class that has its own problem but whose miseries are laughably minor by

comparison. To my mother, my father’s kin are savage and provincial. To my

father, hers are pretentious false. Neither of them in entirely wrong. (21)

His parents never tells him to become writer and he would have known that “immigrant

children have to go into law, medicine” (140). Jewish parents desire their children to become the

best of all. They wish to have strong emphasis on their offspring’s profession, marriage, and

even lifestyle. They believe that education is essential component for the future success; and also

because the matter of fact that “you have to study, so that you won’t be like me” (Yakhnich 393).

It is stated that in psychological research that parental generations always want to be give their

younger generations whatever called “the best”: best education, best service, best living

standard… because they could have suffered from the misery in the previous years or in their

entire life. We can see that they sacrifice for their children with betterment. They also require

much from their children’s achievements in return that they must be a doctor, a dentist, a lawyer,

or earn a profession which can bring more fame and prosperity for the family’s pride and

prospect. This phenomenon is not only seen in Jewish religion, or in immigrant families, but also

in Asian countries. Parents believe that their kids must be their pride and always comparing their

children with other kids surroundings. This wonder would intendedly cause a lot negative

pressure on children’s psychology for their natural development. However it would coincidently
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bring plenty of positive results in the future life. As it was narrated in the book, we are able to

observe that Shteygart’s family categorizes itself with Protective Family typology of parent-

adolescent interaction patterns, defined Shapiro in his research Perceived Family Structure as an

Explanation of Jewish Intellectuality:

Protective families stress socio-relations at the expense of concept relations. The

child is encouraged to get along with others by steering clear of the controversial

realm of ideas. Not only is he prohibited from expressing dissent, but he is given

little chance to encounter information on which to base his own views. (450)

Gary Shteyngart would bear his hatred over his parents for his dynamic movement in the

younger adulthood. He psychologically describes his vigorous desire under the oppression of his

mother’s doubt: “but what kind of this profession is this, writer? You want to be this?” (4) to

become a writer. The word this was italicized in the book somehow implies the sarcasm and

disapproval that she would throw them over her son’s face. Yet the dream of becoming a

successful write is always burning inside of him, which his grandmother used to encourage him

to write in exchange of cheese. His desire was so gigantic that could crush his parents’ prejudice

on ceasing him from a determined writer-to-be dream: “I want to be this”.

Misfortune little Shteyngart could neither resist his mother nor father. “I read on the

Russian Internet that you and your novels will soon be forgotten” (39), revealed his father on his

mother’s birthday in View Restaurant of Marriott Marquis Time Square after he read an online

comment by a blogger. As a fragile child, he could not believe in his eyes that his father would

straightly and hurtfully punch those words into his face. He was attacked and spoiled and

speechless:

Father
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What are you doing?

What are you saying to me?

Who is speaking through you?

Do you want me to be forgotten, Father? Do you want me closer to you? (39-40)

His introspective monologue hovers an unspeakable bitterness deep down in his

innermost. Gary’s italic sentence brings us to light that his heartful longing to get a nearer

approach towards his father. He doesn’t want to hold up the conversation against his father for

his judgement. He surely wants to deny his father’s idea of underestimating him and stands up to

convince them that he can make it, begging for a trust to carry a try on him. Their way of

education seems to be bizarre that they are fond of giving strict judgements; however, by means

of giving you kind of positive pressure for your self-improvement. His father’s favorite saying

towards him “Maybe after I die, you will come pee on my grave.” (321). It seems to be satiric

but Shteyngart interprets it in a motivational way “Don’t let go”.

In light of Jewish Parents’ educational methodology, another contemporary best-selling

book Call me by your name (2007) by André Aciman, which was adapted on screen in 2017 and

the movie has earned 4 nominations (Best Picture, Best Leading Actor, Best Original Song, Best

Adapted Screenplay) in the upcoming Oscar 2018, hints me an idea of another different Jewish

upbringing. I would dig further this novel out of Little Failure to illuminate the power of love

within Jewish parent-adolescent interrelation. The conversation happens between Elio, a 17-year-

old-boy, and his beloved father after the farewell with his totally intimate male friend- Oliver-

who is a PhD student of his father. His parents figures out that Elio and Oliver, both of them

were born into Jew family, have a blooming friendship or even more than their intimacy and

their son may struggle with his unspeakable secret for this entirely beautiful romance, juvenile
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purely love. The father sophisticatedly unfolds the story in a way that it doesn’t hurt his son.

Because he would know that his son and his assistant student might never truly find again the

experience which marks them for a lifetime. Psychologically understanding that, he lures the talk

and gives his son more freedom, reliability and confidence for the open talk in this beautifully-

worded prone:

[Elio’s father]

“Parce que c’était lui, parce que c’était moi” [Because it was him, because it was

me- Montaigne]

Perhaps you never wished to feel anything. And perhaps it’s not with me that

you’ll want to speak about these things. But feel something you did.

You had a beautiful friendship. Maybe more than a friendship. And I envy you. In

my place, most parents would hope the whole thing goes away, or pray that their

sons land on their feet soon enough. But I am not such a parent. In your place, if

there is pain, nurse it, and if there is a flame, don’t snuff it out, don’t be brutal

with it. Withdrawal can be a terrible thing when it keeps us awakes at night, and

watching others forget us sooner than we’d want to be forgotten is no better.

Then let me say one more thing. It will clear the air. I may have come close, but I

never had what you had. Something always held me back or stood in the way.

How you live your life is your business. But remember, our hearts and our bodies
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are given to us only once… Right now there’s sorrow. I don’t envy the pain. But I

envy you the pain.

We may never speak about this again. But I hope you’ll never hold it against me

that we did. I will have been a terrible father if, one day, you’d want to speak to

me and felt that the door was shut or not sufficiently open.

But even if she [Elio’s mother] did, I am sure her attitude would be no different

than mine. (223-225)

In the similar context of Father-Son conversation, there is a contrary way of education via

communication. Elio’s father is more luring to let his son speak by understanding and support.

Shteyngart’s father would choose to give more sharp judgements, straight criticism and

sometimes severe humiliation as if he would determine that is true without any doubt or examine

again when Shteyngart tells his father that he starts psychoanalysis: “It would have been better if

you told me you were homosexual”, actually he is not. Both families are typical instances for the

parent-child typology, one is Protective Family, the other is Pluralistic Family as Shapiro

categorized:

Pluralistic Family emphasize the development of strong and varied concept-

relations in an environment comparatively free of social restraints. The child is

encouraged to explore new ideas and is often exposed to controversial material;

thus, he can make up his own mind without fear that reaching a different

conclusion from his parents will endanger social relations in the family. (450)
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Swinging back into Shteyngart’s family reveals unfolds the story of his protective

mother- a Jewish iconic statue of affection and protection. “My son is sneezing, what should I

do?”, hyperventilates his mother. And then the nurse instructs her to say “Bless you” to her son. I

may assume that the overprotection is always in their mind, or is that the fear of the external

danger which might harm their children. Parents, or Jewish mothers appear as symbol of caring

and guardianship. This episode reminisces us about a natural habit in animals to protect their

babies, for instance, a scene of mother hen would take care and protect her little chicks from

danger and mortality. As a human being, we also protect our offspring from risk and menace.

Shteyngart’s mother, in his childhood mind, she would be a loud mother always complaining,

yelling, shouting and scolding at him. However, we can interpret it is the way that she was trying

her best to take care of her son, finding him a part-time job as a “staff writer” at an immigrant

resettlement agency where she was working, or showing her anxiety when her son left the house

for university for the first time being away from home, or hiding herself somewhere to wait for

her son after school and walk him home, or unnecessarily warning him not to get vaccinated

when he is about to travel to India “because they will give you autism” (320)

Our Little Failure would suffer these strange behaviors, judgements, criticisms, scolds,

shouts for his childhood and he might hate them, or bear a hatred inside. But all of his responses

to these eccentric ways of parenting is silence

Because instead of my fighting back, instead of my indignation, what he hears is

silence.

…
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When he tells me that one of my post-college girlfriends is too fat, that he’s

personally affronted by her weight, although he does “respect her right to exist”,

there is a silence.

When my mother tells me…that I should get vaccines “because they will give you

autism,” that canard of the extreme right wing, there is silence.

Silence instead of the yelled rebuttals, the peeing on the grave. (321-322)

The quietness does not reflect his disability of communicating with his parents. It may

reflect a reticence in his personality. He is silent because he is aware of being a Jewish child who

should honor his mother and father by dignity and morality; and above all, not contradict his/her

words, or opposing them in a dispute. In spiritual aspects of parenthood, in accordance with

Biblical Talmud, “There are three partners in a person–the Holy One of Blessing, one’s father,

and one’s mother. The Holy One of Blessing said [to the ones who honor their parents], ‘I rest

over them as if I dwelled among them and they honored me.’” In the online article Jewish

Parent/Child Relationships, written that: “Parents are seen as partners in God’s creation of each

human being; therefore, to honor one’s parents is to honor God. Similarly, to display disregard,

disrespect, or violence toward one’s parents is to do so to God”

Our protagonist constantly bears in his mind plentiful suspicions about his parents’ life

and behavior which can be responsible for who he is today. On the other side, he is trying his

best to conquer his dream of becoming a writer, in reverse to pursue the vocational opportunity

that his parents envisioned. He considers his youth “as a kind of tuning fork for my parents’

fears, disappointments, and alienation,” and because he was expected as a boy to succeed quickly

and wildly in “a country we thought of as magical, but whose population did not strike us as
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being especially clever.” He questions himself why they put a lot of pressure on him, why their

expectation is so dominant. Is it because the immigrants' desire for their children to receive a

good Jewish education, maybe better than the parents had before? Or is any secret hanging

around here for Shteyngart to discover in his journey of humanistic crystallization:

And within that silence, time itself has stopped. Within that silence, the words

hand the air, fluttering in Cyrillic, not entirely painless but without the power to

bring back the small, unquestioning child at their mercy.

Don’t get any vaccines. They’ll give you autism. Don’t write like a self-hating

Jew. Don’t be a mudak. Soon you will be forgotten. How can I not hear the pain in

that? His pain? Her pain? How can I not publicize that pain?

And how can I not travel, across eight time zones, to its sources? (321-322)

Little Shteyngart would discover the reason why their parent’s behavior or treatment was

like. It is because his father has lived an uncomplete life due to his parent’s marriage failure. He

had been into mental breakdown when his best friend passed away. His voice and his wife’s

voice were destroyed when they went to musical school in Leningrad. He wouldn’t want to let

his son step on his nightmare trace. That is because of psychological reaction towards the

adolescence of parents in general, and Jewish parents specifically. He was craving for the

integration to find a job, join the Orthodox Jewish Community, try to make money with Kach

and Rabbi Kahane. Everything he has ever done is just to sacrifice his the family and for

Shteyngart. His endless love for his son shines so bright in the sky and reveals his inner thoughts:

“I burn with a black envy towards you. I should have been an artist as well” (42). And lastly, his

father would at least praise him: “The French Internet says your book is one of the best of the
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year!” or “they love you in France!” (42). His mother may give him a lesson of learning how to

save money when every single cent matters and counts. She told him her story when she got 5.

My father bought me a balalaika that cost forty rubles. This was the last money

we had and it was supposed to be used for food. My mother [Grandmother Galya]

took the balalaika and smashed it against the wall of our apartment. I started to

cry. My mother comforted me by saying, ‘I know you’re not crying not because I

smashed the balalaika but because you can see how upset I am. You’re very

sensitive.’ ” (335)

Little steps are never superfluous for him. So many questions and doubts were leaving

unanswered until the last chapter of book which has the same name with the first one: “The

Church and the Helicopter”. The Shteyngarts experienced a family reunion in the capital of

Russia in sunny summer 2011. They had a very good time with each other. His parents didn’t

call him Little Failure but with a lovely way Little Son. The moment they were visiting the grave

of Shteyngart’s grandfather in a sun-shining day with small narrations indicates that the love for

parents, for ancestors is also the way of honoring God when they spoke their religious language.

They were bound to each other by confessions. “Lord, who should sojourn in thy tabernacle?...

Who shall dwell upon thy holy mountain? He that walketh uprightly and walketh righteously and

speaks with truth in his heart… He that does those things shall be never moved.” (438). And it

may come down to the last lesson that Shteyngart could learn is to honor his parents with love

and respect in return, the lesson of being grateful for his ancestors and origins, the lesson of

being proud of his identity and patriotism. In their research, the Simons revealed:

For more than half of the respondents "being Jewish is very important"; if they

could be born over again, 90 percent would want to be born Jewish, and for 43
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percent "Jewish" is the term they believe describes them very well. These

responses characterize the strongest aspects of the Soviet immigrant Jewish

identity. Religious observances and participation in Jewish organizations do not

reflect strong attachments. Less than ten per cent belong to, or are active in Jewish

fraternal or community organizations and the larger majority do not observe

traditional religious practices. (289)

Shteyngart’s literary style in Little Failure is accessible, effortless laughter but profound

contemplation. He barely tells his story for the world not because he wants to advertise himself-

he is so much famous already; it is because he wants to spread the message of motivation,

inspiration and unceasing striving for the dream, for the betterment. He is fearless to expose his

private experience to remind readers how much significant education on younger generation is.

He doesn’t want to force people to be like his story, but at least, he leaves something unfold for

readers, especially parents and mature children to choose the way of parenting and

communication. He abstractly confides:

I went back and reread the three novels I've written, an exercise that left me

shocked by the overlaps between fiction and reality I found on those pages, by

how blithely I've used the facts of my own life, as if I've been having a fire sale all

along everything about me must go! On so many occasions in my novels, I have

approached a certain truth only to turn away from it, only to point my finger and

laugh at it and then scurry back to safety. In this book, I promised myself I would

not point the finger. My laughter would be intermittent. There would be no safety.

(317)
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A journey by helicopter back and forth with plentiful emotional tones depicts sufficiently

remembrances during our narrator entire life. Pilot Shteyngart excitingly roars his readers in the

very first page and perfectly land in the ground at the very last chapter. We, the readers, together

with him on clouds experience the laughter, anger, agony, happiness…and silently congratulate

him on his final approach to the unforgettable revelation. At the end, the sarcastic tone has ceded

its throne to the sentimental tone because our narrator has crowned his innermost emotion.

Throughout 25 chapters full of satiric prone, people may laugh out loud but realize how much

meaningful and sacred the parent-adolescent love would be. The breathtaking exposure at the last

of the book would bring the readers to tears not only because he has finally figured out the

question which has been treasured for years, but also the boundless love and ceaseless affection

have been pervasively blossomed between mature Shteyngart and his beloved parents. I would

consider the last chapter as an awakening of love after having been buried for a long time.

Closing the last paper-scented page opens our imagination of the appealing scene of light, colors,

sounds, flavors being interwoven amongst one another where our protagonist is highlighted,

where readers can find ourselves childhood remembrance with parents and family, memorably

innocent days of nourishing the adolescent dreams, the bright-shined dreams are keeping us

awake…at night.

---
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Works Cited

Aciman, André. Call me by your name, Atlantic Books London, 2007. Print.

Lennon, J. Robert. “Little Failure by Gary Shteyngart- Review” The Guardian, theguardian.com,

21 Feb. 2014. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/21/gary-shteyngart-little-

failure-memoir-review. Accessed 2 Mar. 2018.

Rosenberg, Victor (2015). “Refugee Status for Soviet Jewish Immigrants to the United States,”

Touro Law Review, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 419-450.

Shapiro, Howard M. “Perceived Family Structure as an Explanation of Jewish Intellectuality.”

The Sociological Quarterly, vol. 18, no. 4, 1977, pp. 448–463.

Shteyngart, Gary. Little Failure, Random House, 2014. Print.

Simon, Rita J., and Julian L. Simon. “The Jewish Dimension among Recent Soviet Immigrants

to the United States.” Jewish Social Studies, vol. 44, no. 3/4, 1982, pp. 283–290.

Yakhnich, Liat. “Immigrant Parents in the Educational System: The Case of Former Soviet

Union Immigrants in Israel” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, vol. 46, no.3, 2015,

pp. 387-405
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Critical comments on 3 sources:

#1: Aciman, André. Call me by your name, Atlantic Books London, 2007. Print. (novel)
The story happens between Elio, a Jewish 17-year-old-boy, and his father’s PhD student in
summer 1983. They vigorously fall in love with each other like 2 human beings. The book
inspires people about love and the role of the family education impacting on the development of
children by gives children more chance, freedom, reliability and confidence to openly talk. The
psychological conversation between Elio and his father touches my heart and becomes a good
example to be sourced for my term paper. A romantic relationship blossoms between Elio and
Oliver, the parent-child boundless love blooms between Elio and his parents.
#2: Shapiro, Howard M. “Perceived Family Structure as an Explanation of Jewish
Intellectuality.” The Sociological Quarterly, vol. 18, no. 4, 1977, pp. 448–463. (article)
The research focuses on the perceived structure of parent-adolescent relations for its effect on
intellectuality in young adulthood. In addition, position in the wider societal structure and
integration into a supposed intellectually oriented subculture are considered for their effects on
this personality characteristic. The research categorizes four typologies of parent-child
interaction patterns: Laisser-faire family, Protective family, Pluralistic family, Consensual family
#3: Simon, Rita J., and Julian L. Simon. “The Jewish Dimension among Recent Soviet
Immigrants to the United States.” Jewish Social Studies, vol. 44, no. 3/4, 1982, pp. 283–
290. (article)
This article is part of a larger study of the social and economic adjustment of r cent Soviet Jewish
immigrants to the United States. The study had two major purposes: to find out about the
immigrants' socioeconomic adjustment to their new country, and to describe the nature and
strength of their Jewish identity. After the research, they found out that high percentage of Jews
wish to be born into Jews, especially Soviet Jews for the next time. It shows the pride of identity
and patriotism .