Posted on 08/09/2010 11:00:39 PM PDT by thecodont
"There has to be a compelling reason these days for someone to decide to pick up a smelly book," says satirist Gary Shteyngart, the 38-year-old author whose novel "Super Sad True Love Story," a dystopian romance, has earned critical raves.
By "smelly," Shteyngart is referring to the running gag of the plot — that books stink of dirty feet. Set in the near future — "oh, next Tuesday," Shteyngart jokes in a recent interview — the story details the development and collapse of a society that ridicules "printed bound media artifacts" and, in fact, anything that requires deep thinking. Instead, people view the world through a device called the äppärät, an iPhone-like multi-purpose gadget that monitors one's health, ranks each passerby's "hotness" and offers access to the World Wide Web. More important, it has replaced books.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
When he began the project in 2006, Shteyngart planned to write a science-fiction story set at the time of the collapse of the United States. But as he penned fictional disaster scenarios, many of them actually happened. He discovered that "we live in such a fast-paced society that the moment you want to write about something, that instant is gone. The only way to capture the present is to write about the future."
Author Gary Shteyngart's "super sad true" quest (August 9, 2010)
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I’ve been staring at this post for about 10 minutes.
I was going to comment, but I think I’ll just wait for the bear to grow up and eat him.
That’ll be a better thread.
FWIW. Read his first two books. Brilliant writing skills.
Just finished the book. Not my usual style, but there was truth in his dystopian view. Beauty as the new intellegence.
I found it more sad than funny.
Just finished the book. Not my usual style, but there was truth in his dystopian view. Beauty as the new intellegence.
I found it more sad than funny.
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