erincampbell87's review
5.0
I read Super Sad Super True Love Story in the last days of summer, in a frantic week before I started my new AmeriCorps placement and before my brother left for Russia. I have had some trouble with reading in these winter months simply because every book I read cannot be this book. After every book I’ve read since this end of summer respite, I’ve finished it only to realize how much I wish to read Super Sad Super True Love Story over and over and over and have the experience be new each time.
If I may state an opinion that is of course necessarily humble, there’s a gap in the satires being written about the farce that has become our daily life. Gary Shteyngart is a relief. He writes with the tenderness and sentimentality of Russian authors before him, but he combines these gifts with the piercing perception, witty observation, and nostalgia for a lost era of Evelyn Waugh. Shteyngart positions the melancholy, mismatched relationship doomed to fail in the center of a pre-apocalyptic society on the brink of collapse. Through the frenetic pace of an impersonal, paperless, emotionless society, Shteyngart displays the urgency the lovers exercise as they fumble through their relationship. He expertly captures many of my fears about the future, mainly my acute fear of the desperation of living in a society that no longer relies on the salvation of the written world without a companion to share my longing. In short, why isn’t every book this book? Why can’t every book make you feel so confusingly bad and good and relieved and scared, all at the same time?
Please don’t confuse this with a book review; it’s not a book review by any means. It’s more like a love letter.
This is my favorite book.
If I may state an opinion that is of course necessarily humble, there’s a gap in the satires being written about the farce that has become our daily life. Gary Shteyngart is a relief. He writes with the tenderness and sentimentality of Russian authors before him, but he combines these gifts with the piercing perception, witty observation, and nostalgia for a lost era of Evelyn Waugh. Shteyngart positions the melancholy, mismatched relationship doomed to fail in the center of a pre-apocalyptic society on the brink of collapse. Through the frenetic pace of an impersonal, paperless, emotionless society, Shteyngart displays the urgency the lovers exercise as they fumble through their relationship. He expertly captures many of my fears about the future, mainly my acute fear of the desperation of living in a society that no longer relies on the salvation of the written world without a companion to share my longing. In short, why isn’t every book this book? Why can’t every book make you feel so confusingly bad and good and relieved and scared, all at the same time?
Please don’t confuse this with a book review; it’s not a book review by any means. It’s more like a love letter.
This is my favorite book.
anndouglas's review
5.0
Super Sad True Love Story is a satirical novel that describes a dystopian future which doesn't seem that far removed from present-day realities. Shteyngart describes a world in which personal data collecting and data sharing eclipse personal relationships, democracy has given way to one-party rule, news media has yielded to lifestyle media, and young women are immersed in porn culture.
The book would be depressing -- even devastating -- if it were written by someone who lacked Shteyngart's skills as a satirist. The characters he creates and the situations that he puts them in are so extreme that you are immediately tipped off to the fact that the novel isn't intended to be taken at face value. It's designed to make you think -- and to leave you thinking long after you've finished reading.
Highly recommended.
The book would be depressing -- even devastating -- if it were written by someone who lacked Shteyngart's skills as a satirist. The characters he creates and the situations that he puts them in are so extreme that you are immediately tipped off to the fact that the novel isn't intended to be taken at face value. It's designed to make you think -- and to leave you thinking long after you've finished reading.
Highly recommended.
lieslindi's review
3.0
If typing makes your wrists fat (hence unattractive), why do Pony and Panda write to each other? Since the characters are syntactically unreliable in their speech and do not read but only skim, how do they write sentences that are grammatically okay, spelled mostly correctly (exceptions show the author's cleverosity), and not in txt?
I started this thinking it was going to be okay, that Shteyngart was trying for a near-future extrapolation from today. He did try, but he didn't succeed.
I started this thinking it was going to be okay, that Shteyngart was trying for a near-future extrapolation from today. He did try, but he didn't succeed.
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