It's just SO Media!

I’m about halfway through Super Sad True Love Story, and I think there are a lot of interesting things going on in this “bound, printed, nonstreaming Media artifact” (90).  I really like the way Shteyngart changes POV/Form.  By switching between Lenny’s diary and Eunice’s globalteens emails/instant message conversations, Shteyngart offers both characters’ perspectives on the events that unfold.  Instead of moving along from event to event with a single perspective, we’re given Lenny’s painfully optimistic take on the story, which is followed/undercut by Eunice’s conversations with friends and family.  Getting both perspectives shows what these particular events mean to each character, reveals a lot about each character, and explains the current political/economic situation through their observations and reactions.

There are some interesting moments where technology and media are addressed as well.  Having Lenny maintain a dated appreciation for books is one way to set him against the technological society he inhabits.  Upon returning to his apartment, Lenny talks to his “Wall of Books” (52), telling them “you’re my sacred ones …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” (52).  This says volumes (heh!) about Lenny’s unique appreciation for the printed word.  This really isn’t very far from the borderline-irrelevant status of books today.  When Lenny speaks with his boss, this love for books is described as a problem.  Joshie tells Lenny that “those thoughts, these books, they are the problem …you have to stop thinking and start selling.  That’s why all those young whizzes in the Eternity Lounge want to shove a carb-filled macaroon up your ass …you remind them of death.  You remind them of a different, earlier version of our species” (66-7).  In spite of his expressed desire for immortality, Lenny’s early allegiance to books pegs him as mortal and obsolete.  Lenny lets the desire for immortality win out, and starts to distance himself from his books.  Later on, he writes in his diary.  In one entry, he notes that “I’ve spent an entire week without reading any books or talking about them too loudly.  I’m learning to worship my new äppärät’s screen, the colorful pulsating mosaic of it, the fact that it knows every last stinking detail about the world, whereas my books only know the minds of their authors” (78).  By accepting the limitations of the book, and embracing the newer media form, Lenny appears to be taking the right steps toward the indefinite extension of his life.  I like the treatment of the whole “if you have enough money you don’t have to die” angle of this story.  This desire to attain immortality sounds almost pathological.  Considering the things Lenny has to give up to chase this dream made me think about extension of life in the classic/cliché “quality over quantity” terms.

Since I started the blog for this class with a reference to a musical act/reference I felt would be appropriate, I’ll end my last post with some more music. It would be a nice bookend (hah!) for the posts.  As tangential as it may seem, I kept thinking about a few songs whenever Lenny would talk about immortality.  The band Listener describes themselves as “Talk Music” (think a blend of alt-country and spoken word poetry). The songs “I don’t want to live forever” and “you have never lived because you have never died” just seem appropriate, so: