In this futuristic America, the government is falling apart, the national debt is through the roof, and everyone is obsessed with credit scores and technological devices. However, among all of this mayhem, two very opposite but similar people are falling in love. In the satirical Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart, timing and discovering what truly matters in life are prominent themes.
This book is about the life of Lenny Abramov who is a single 39-year-old male and whose parents are immigrants from Russia. He works as the “Life Lovers Outreach Coordinator of the Post-human Division” at a company that is selling the ability to live forever. He is a middle class citizen with just a high enough credit score to not be considered a LNWI (Low Net Worth Individual) and is considered to be unattractive. Lenny does not fit in with most of society as he still reads books, which are frowned upon, and isn’t completely obsessed with his health, youthfulness and blood pressure levels.
On a trip to Europe he meets Eunice Park and completely falls head over heels. For Lenny it is love at first sight and he even goes on to say that, “he would now like to live forever”. Eunice however, does not feel this immediate connection. She originally sees him as a sad, old, ugly man but she recognizes that he would love unconditionally. Eunice is only 19 years old and comes from a strict home, as her parents are Korean immigrants. It might be her abusive father and complicated home environment that pushes her into Lenny’s safe arms. Eunice is also much more involved in the consumerism culture and is more technologically advanced than Lenny, as she is constantly on her aparat. An aparat is a personal technology that hangs around one’s neck and streams live information and can even scan a room of people and find out all of their information, as well as a rating system based on personality, hotness, and “fuckability”. This device as well as their main social/email system called GlobalTeens is what constructs this overly connected and overly sexual nation, which has lost all privacy and dignity.
As Eunice stays with Lenny in New York City their mutual love begins to take form. This unlikely couple bond over the fact that nothing seems to work out for them and both suffer from very low self-esteem. They are both quite desperate, depressed and heavily rely on each other as a type of companionship and love. It is quite ironic that they are both finding what seems to be some type of stable relationship as their world is literally falling apart. Lenny confirms this tragic irony as he writes in his diary, “for me to fall in love with Eunice Park just as the world fell apart would be a tragedy beyond the Greeks.” It is actually very sad that the nation is crumbling as they are building this relationship, which seems to have taken forever to finally come together as the first half of the book is their separate lives and Lenny constantly imagining what life with Eunice would be like.
It would not be such a tragedy unless the nation wasn’t in such extreme trouble. There are constant riots involving the poorer portion of society (LNWI) and a large number of national guard check points that pose as extremely stressful situations for all of society. America is at war with Venezuela and is currently depending on China’s currency to survive. Lenny’s friends have a conversation about the crisis and say, “zero hour for our economy, zero hour for our military might, zero hour for everything that used to make us proud to be ourselves.” As the tragedy escalades, cities including New York are being threatened and all of a sudden everyone’s aparats stop working and everyone truly believes the world is coming to an end. Both lovers are immediately worried about being able to contact their families and it is clear how much society relied on these technological devices.
Although the situation is less extreme, it is easy to see the connection between the aparat and the smartphone. Everyone is constantly on their phone, has it next to them 24/7 and relies on them to connect to society through messages and apps such as Facebook, which doesn’t exactly rate people the way the aparat does but it is not far off.
Society’s disheveled priorities of what is important in life and the ironic timing of true love in this story get Shteyngart’s message across. It also makes me wonder if the timing was truly off or were they together to simply make it through this crisis. The fact is that Lenny and Eunice are fighting a losing battle, which at the end makes this story sad and meaningful, and what actually makes me overall appreciate the book.