Gary Shteyngart is getting plenty of good attention this spring for his new novel, "Lake Success." But remember this one, from 2010, "Super Sad True Love Story?" 

This novel was a comedic take on an alternate near-future world, in which people eschew face-to-face interaction in favor of communicating on personal electronic devices (apparats, with umlauts over all three as, if you please). People become "media" stars, making their living by broadcasting themselves doing pretty much anything online. The United States' economy is collapsing, and society is at the mercy of money or resource-holding countries such as Norway and China. 

Here's one detail that didn't strike me as so prescient when I first read the novel but now is screaming out at me: The U.S., in this novel, has a broken government and is losing an ill-advised, unpopular war in -- wait for it -- Venezuela. 

Let's not go there.

-cg

An old article "Has plot driven out other kinds of story?" http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jul/14/plot-driven-out-other-kinds-story has asked this question. 

As readers we all worry that the biggest money making for book writer is to have their books sold as potential movies. And if the book really turned into movies that did not suck, it would in turn drive sales of their books.

For very literary work, this might not translate as well onto screen.  There might not be any plot that drive the story.

For me, it is more difficult to read work that is not plot driven, but that's probably where the skill of writing that turned into art form, for appreciation of the beauty of words joined together instead of having likable central characters and things that happen to them.

In order to support these form of literature, the publishing has to think not only of sales and markets, but on the values of books as a form of art. 

Witzig geschrieben, aber gleichzeitig macht Super Sad True Love Story (SSTLS) ziemlich Angst. Wie Edmund White über das Buch von Gary Shteyngart sagte, machte ihm seinerzeit (wie mir auch) 1984 nicht so sehr viel Angst, weil es teilweise unglaubwürdig war, nicht zur eigenen Situation passte.

Die Welt, die Shteyngart in SSTLS zeichnet, ist da viel authentischer: 39jährige Vertriebler einer Unsterblichkeits-Behandlung, die ihres Alters wegen aussortiert werden. Teenager, die mit Akronymen um sich werfen, aber massive Schwierigkeiten mit dem Ausdruck leidlich komplexer Sachverhalte in ihrer Muttersprache haben. Ein Amerika, das nichts mehr herstellt und nur noch auf Kredit lebt - was dazu führt, dass der Kredit-Score jedes einzelnen überall angezeigt wird und nicht genug kreditwürdige (Neu-)Amerikaner des Landes verwiesen werden. Amerika als Weltpolizist gescheitert und völlig isoliert. Ein Jugendwahn, der überschlägt und sich in nippelfreien BHs ebenso manifestiert wie in jungen, schlanken Mädchen, die knapp 40kg wiegen und sich selbst als fett bezeichnen. 

Und das alles ganz behutsam fein gezeichnet. Shteyngart ist mal wieder so ein Autor, der abschreckend wirkt, weil er mir jeden Mut nimmt, überhaupt mal selber was zu schreiben.

Aber als reiner Leser muss ich sagen: Super Sad True Book!

This book was one of my first purchases and has sat on my Kindle for the best part of 18 months waiting for me to get around to reading it. These days, I probably wouldn't have bought it, partly due to having 54 books in my "Purchased to Read" folder, but mainly because of the uninspiring blurb, and that would be a shame because I actually rather enjoyed it. It's intelligent, it's fun, it's cynical, it's self-aware (giving the criticisms I was going to make of it a smug kicking), and I liked it.

Here is a tale celebrating the white chauvinist male once again! Lenny, a 39-year-old manchild with an Asian fetish, gets by in life by being "a nice guy". He's decently smart. He has a good job. He's not particularly attractive, but what he lacks in looks he makes up for in sugary sweetness. He's a nice guy! He sort of gets the girl! He's the only one with a "moral" compass in the entire book! Definitely a character worth celebrating.

God. Perhaps it's best to look at this book as an entire critique on all things American. perhaps Gary Shteyngart isn't actually promoting a sexist manchild as the hero of his story. Regardless, Lenny is probably one of my least favorite main characters. I don't find any redeeming qualities about him, and I thoroughly distrust a portrayal of "a nice guy" character. 

The sexual politics of this book are disturbing, which is perhaps the intent. There is not one female character that isn't entirely flat. Lenny idealizes his women - Eunice, his mother, and Grace, the "perfect" woman he can't have. None of these women feel at all real - they are completely characterizations. 

When considering that this is written as a dystopian novel, I think that the characterizations do feel apt. The book demonstrates what the author sees as the destruction of America - the country literally falls apart when China decides to collect on America's debt. It shows zero progression in terms of equality - women are still objects (and now they wear see-through pants), rich white people still rule the world, thinness is still ideal to a ridiculous point (Eunice calling herself fat, for example), etc. This indeed is a future I believe we all hope to avoid. 

I think it is correct to feel so disgusted by a book showing a dystopian future where the patriarchy is still alive and kicking and still subjecting women to complete bullshit. I think it's correct to feel disgusted by a character who is the very representation of this patriarchy and the unfair power structures in the book and who doesn't even realize his privilege or do anything to challenge it. I think it is correct to reject this book and the future it seems to forecast - to take it's fears and problems and consider them - and to make a better, more equal future for ourselves.