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 know only the minds of their authors.
*äppärät: a device worn around the neck, like a smartphone on steroids. It streams information about you to other äppärät users, and gathers information streams from retailers, news sources, and fellow users; includes information on how other people view your personality, attractiveness, and financial stability (based on your credit score).
There's something about this novel that is both fantastical and true to life. If you haven't texted someone sitting right next to you, you've seen it happen. Maybe you laughed, and maybe you barely noticed. The industrial age is far behind; the information age is now, and the äppärät is the logical extension of information technologies, social media, and virtual experiences becoming the predominant mode of interacting with each other.
The passage makes books sound so limited in scope: they can only demonstrate the point of view of the author. However, books also reveal the mind of the reader as the reader interprets the book through whatever lens makes sense at the time.
The point, however, is that books themselves are dumb. The book cannot know more than the mind of its author, whereas the äppärät is constantly acquiring and disseminating new information. (The Texas Board of Education apparently wants that to be the limit of education, but I will continue to encourage critical thinking, I promise.) This omniscience of the äppärät is precisely why we understand why Lenny, the novel's ersatz hero, is "learning to worship" the teardrop of technology that hangs close to his heart. As the novel reveals more and more the dystopia that America has become, the äppärät becomes the most solid feature of Lenny's life, second only, and only maybe second, to his love for his young love, Eunice.
Shteyngart, Gary. Super Sad True Love Story. New York: Random House, 2010.
Shteyngart, Gary. Super Sad True Love Story. New York: Random House, 2010.
