Speaking Volumes

I recently finished reading Gary Shteyngart’s latest novel Super Sad True Love Story. Here’s a shortened version of the description from the book jacket:
 
“In a very near future, a functionally illiterate America is about to collapse. But don’t tell that to poor Lenny Abramov, the middle aged son of an angry Russian immigrant janitor, proud author of what may well be the world’s last diary. Despite his job at an outfit called Post-Human Services, which attempts to provide immortality for its super-rich clientele, death is clearly stalking this cholesterol-rich morsel of a man. Lenny’s from a different century—he totally loves books (or “printed, bound media artifacts,” as they’re now known), even though most of his peers find them smelly and annoying. But even more than books, Lenny loves Eunice Park, an impossibly cute and impossibly cruel twenty-four-year-old Korean American woman who just graduated from Elderbird College with a major in Images and a minor in Assertiveness. As the country is crushed by a credit crisis, riots break out in New York’s Central Park, the city’s streets are lined with National Guard tanks on every corner, the dollar is so over, and our patient Chinese creditors may just be ready to foreclose on the whole mess.”
 
Basically as the city and the country fall apart around them, the mismatched Lenny and Eunice are left to figure out if their odd relationship can survive. I really liked this book, it was entertaining and thought provoking (I found myself thinking about Lenny, Eunice, and futuristic America as I went about my errands last weekend). But, as Su pointed out in her blog post last week, this type of fiction IS scary, because the dire future it depicts seems so possible.
 
For instance, in Super Sad, everyone carries around these mini cell phone/computers called äppärät that stream news, messages, and advertisements, and they scan the people around you rating everything from their credit scores to their hotness. Plus, you can find out anything about anyone by way of their globalteen accounts. In short, the äppärät is basically an upgraded iPhone and globalteen is a bigger, less private facebook. People are materialistic and shallow, the US is financially failing and in debt to China, and companies are merging into all powerful corporations (ex: UnitedContinentalDeltaAmerican). In this not so distant future books are, and I quote from the jacket, “smelly and annoying,” and people only 'scan text' on their äppäräts.
 
Sound familiar anyone? If this too-close-to-home futuristic description hasn’t scared you off yet, then I actually recommend Super Sad True Love Story.  Despite the fact that some of it was super sad, it was often hilarious and is definitely an entertaining read.
 
Check out the website for the book at:
http://supersadtruelovestory.com/press/