Oh, dear diary. My youth has passed, but the wisdom of age hardly beckons. Why is it so hard to be a grown-up man in this world?I read Gary Shtyengart's Super Sad Love Story around the time Israel was bombing Gaza with weapons that are probably financed and politically backed by powerful Jews in America. My FB profile bore the flag of Palestine, formed in a ribbon, standing with them.
Shortly after, the umbrella revolution of Hong Kong begins. China, drunk with its self-discovery as global superpower, quells it, apparently by having the triad’s thugs beat up peaceful protesters.
And while people continue to try to occupy, the world is still owned by the 1%
In the meantime, we are now on iphone 6 and IOS 8.2 while Samsung is beating up Apple in sales.
The book is a preview of the bleak future. The cards we have right now, what's happening around us now, is a tell that Styengart delivers elegantly and effectively in a self-deprecating romantic comedy. Simultaneously, it is a satirical culmination of capitalism, a critique on the culture of consumerism. While the US markets collapse, corporate greed (merged or acquired by the Chinese) has taken itself to the point of exploring physical immortality!
China is the world leader and superpower. The dollar is “yuan-pegged” and American is deep in debt, crushed in a financial crisis. People are judged and constantly monitored by literal credit poles and are described as HNWI (High Net Worth Individuals) or LWNI (Low Net Worth Individuals). We go around with “fuckability” ratings. The new fashion is "onion skin" jeans and "total surrenders"or underwear that comes off with a press of a button.
Shtyengart infuses the book with a new language and a culture. This language and culture is a monster, and our generation, already lost to our electronic lives is its baby stage. The iPhone grows up to the “apparat” and we dive deeper into that digital limbo. “Images” is an actual university major and “assertiveness” is a minor. Acronyms has bastardized language and “streaming” and “scanning” as opposed to reading, tarnishing all wisdom.
I read this book in its electronic version, and it’s seemingly intentional how the people of the future despise the smell of books. The protagonist goes,
“You’re my sacred ones.” I told the books. “No one but me still cares about you. But I’m going to keep you with me forever. And one day I’ll make you important again.” I thought about that terrible calumny of the new generation: that books smell.Like many books about the future, this one has a glamorized nostalgia glorifies the present time. New YorkCity is given an eloquent tribute.
Noah told me that there’s a day during the summer when the sun hits the broad avenues at such an angle that you experience the sensation of the whole city being flooded by a melancholy twentieth-century light, even the most prosaic, unloved buildings appearing bright and nuclear the edge of your vision that when this happens you want to both cry for something lost and run out there and welcome the decline of the day.
The trees held fast, but the cityscape was in constant flux. The skyscrapers framing the lower half of the park looked tired of their history, stripped of commerce, the executive upper floors staring down into empty lobbies and concrete plazas where lamb kebabs and hummus spreads once fueled the world’s most storied white-collar workforce. Soon they will be replaced with curt, smart residential units with Arab, Asian and Norse designations.New York, as it is now, is a melting of cultures. It celebrates and hinges upon this blending, as it attacks American Xenophobia. And this is supposed to be a funny story, and I laugh at the racial stereotypes that were presented precisely. The Korean mom goes:
How do you think you have Mommy for? Anyway, you have trouble write to me not only when you need money. When you work lawyer Mommy proud of you and you do not ask her for money. You will be proud because you help Mommy and family. Family is most important, otherwise, why GOD put us on earth? …Revernd Cho say all young people have special path? Please tell me if you know, other wise we look together. And keep Jesu in your heart, it is important! Also there are Korean boys everywhere. Go to Korean church and you will find date.
Perhaps it isn't so precise, or I haven't looked hard enough. I've been trying too look up a reference of this supposed Korean Proverb, to no avail:
Beyond the mountains, according to the old Korean proverb Grace had once told me, were more mountains. We’d only just begun.
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| Gary Shteyngart, with girlfriend Mabel Hwang; photo by Melissa Hom; from New York Magazine |
