Book

Vera, or faith

Gary Shteyngart

4/5

Refreshing sarcasm and satire

This charmingly funny novel represents the viewpoint of Vera Bradford-Shmulkin, a precocious 10-year-old on the spectrum, half-Russian-Jewish half-Korean, intellectually smarter than most adults, but struggling to understand emotional nuance and social context. When she grows up she wants to be ‘a woman in STEM’, an adult expression she has made her own. The way Vera explains what’s going on in her family and school is factual to a fault, often resulting in deadpan reports, literal misunderstandings or accidental accuracies, all a good source of humour. Children narrators are often used to this effect to subvert the ridiculousness of the adult world with their commonsense thinking unencumbered by social conditioning. But in Vera, or faith, the humour and insight are highlighted by the multicultural and marginal nature of Vera’s household and background, and by the glimpses of the political landscape which would be highly concerning were they not voiced by Vera’s childlike emotional indifference and eclipsed in their importance by other comparatively innocent family and school events.

Vera has a characterful Russian Jewish father Igor (alter ego of the author), a comparatively prim WASP stepmother Anne and an annoying younger stepbrother Dylan. Igor is the main source of amusement with his unfailing sarcasm. Their family is ‘merely rich’ he likes to say, which sounds like a euphemism for ‘barely managing’. Vera worships her father and does not understand that his sarcasm can at times be inappropriate, although that is refreshing too. This is how she accidentally eloquently sums up her father’s political position:

‘Daddy was supposed to be so far left that it was hard to “even imagine it”. Vera tried anyway. In her mind, she walked down the block, then turned left, then turned left again, and then turned left again, and then once again, but she ended up where she had started, back home. She told Daddy her metaphor, and he laughed. “Yeah,“ he said, “but it’s even worse in the other direction.” That might have been Daddy’s “famous sarcasm”, but she wasn’t sure.’

Igor’s parents are slightly unhinged paranoid Russian Jews who were never vaccinated against covid – a stereotype embodied. Great hilarity is derived from Vera’s earnest interpretation of the grownup conversations she overhears, such as on the way back from visiting the grandparents:

‘Anne Mom had always said that Daddy’s parents have “done a number” on Daddy. Okay, Vera thought, but which number? A prime one? An imaginary one? Maybe a transcendental number like pi, given Daddy’s complexity?’

We are in the USA in the near future, when smart machines like self-driving cars are the norm, but politically things are the same if not much worse. We glean that the Five-Three constitutional amendment will most likely be adopted, a variation on the Three-Fifths Compromise from 1787, which lasted for almost 80 years, decreeing that only three-fifths of the enslaved population would be counted towards the seat allocation in the US House of Representatives. Meanwhile in the reactionary present, under the Five-Three amendment anyone whose ancestors have arrived in America by the 18^th century (and were not slaves) would get an ‘enhanced vote’ counting for five-thirds of a regular vote. Amusingly Five-Three has also become a new epithet for ‘super-white’, or those who look like they would be privileged under the new racist amendment.

With a sense of irony and good educational instincts Vera’s teacher Ms Tedeschi gives Vera the task of debating in favour of the Five-Three amendment together with Yumi, another smart outsider, daughter of Japanese diplomats, while electing the mediocre rich and ‘super white’ student Stephen to represent the other side, with another immigrant pupil with poor English. One expects fireworks of conflict and contrariness from this combination, but in fact Vera and Yumi win by incorporating solid debating techniques into their act and earnestly fulfilling the tasks without spending a minute thinking they should represent the other side. Stephen on the other hand gives in early admitting that Five-Three amendment is unredeemably unfair. Quite aside from the situational humour engineered by Ms Tedeschi, the debate represents a microcosm of politicians’ behaviour today, the left wing always playing fair and square even if is it to their detriment, digging their own hole earnestly, while the moral score often remains in the hands of the right wing, their prerogative to magnanimously if hypocritically grant that which they have earlier taken away.

Vera wants to grow up as quickly as possible the way most intelligent children do, but more than anything she wants to have a friend, just a single friend. The Five-Three debate gives Vera her first friend Yumi. And she works very hard to keep this friendship which is touching and pleasing.

Artificial intelligence, or more correctly machines that ape humans, are another source of mirth with their hit and miss advice – from the family’s self-driving car Stella channelling the expressions of the parents, to Vera’s AI chess player Kaspie, made in Korea, who disturbingly voices Korean nationalism which is no different from contemporary American ‘patriotism’.

In a final lesson of Eastern European proportions, it is the predictable stepmother Anne who proves to be the most reliable parent, as Igor in his desperation sells out his principles for money, leaving the family to live in Budapest, now the capital of the Commonwealth of Illiberal States.

Shteyngart excels at peppering his sympathetic narrative of Vera’s search for adulthood, happiness, success and identity with light social satire, disarming self-mockery included, which is no less biting for being nimble. By misplacing pessimism and outrage that some of the events rightly deserve, Shteyngart promotes living with disasters armed with energy distilled into sarcasm and satire. It is certainly not a bad choice in view of the future that is looming.