author: Gary Shteyngart

name: Steev

average rating: 3.44

book published: 2010

rating: 5

read at: 2011/07/30

date added: 2011/07/31

shelves: after-the-fall, fun, novels, wishlist

review:
This is a brilliant and fun novel with the mid-life crisis and romantic misadventures of a schlubby russian-american guy in the foreground, set against a background that is a satiric but realistic depiction of the end of the American nation caused by economic disaster. The exact parameters of this disaster, and of the other disturbing social, political, and cultural trends described in the story, will vary from what will really happen, but the basic trajectory of the changes Shteyngart describes will most likely take place, I'm convinced - not this week when the silly political theater around the debt ceiling in DC concludes, but surely within the next 4 to 10 years.



What are these disturbing trends in this black comedy? Here are a few:

1. The U.S. is run by the "Bipartisan Party", headed by the Secretary of Defense (not the president, who is never named.)

2. Troops are everywhere and military checkpoints are a part of daily life. Many of the soldiers are actually employed, secretly, by a private security firm.

3. Everyone has a smartphone-like device called an "aparat" which of course everyone is glued to all the time, chatting, messaging, streaming their live personal net shows, shopping, etc. when you get to one of the afforementioned checkpoints, you hand over your aparat and the cops download your personal data about where you've been and what you've been doing. if you don't have your aparat you're hussled off and never seen again.

4. Fashion takes a predictable downward turn: women's styles are even more degrading and sexualized than now, with brandnames like JuicyPussy and AssLuxury, a type of underwear called Total Surrender that features an instant-removal button, and transparent jeans called Onionskins.

5. The regular dollar is almost worthless, though some dollars are pegged to the yuan.

6. Most colleges and even some cities are cobranded with the name of some corporation.

7. Rich folks are signing up for "dechronification treatments" featuring some kind of nanotechnology "smart blood" to make them look younger and live longer.

8. The U.S. is at war with Venezuela and is getting its ass kicked.



You get the idea. It's dark days, funny in some cases but also creepily realistic.



Superimposed on all this is a touching personal story of the main character, Lenny, son of Russian Jewish immigrants, living in Manhattan, who falls in love with a much younger woman Eunice, daughter of Korean immigrants. It's a story about love (and lust) and family and relationships and friendship and the struggle to preserve and protect these things in the face of serious social disruption. It's a book that has everything: sweetness and wisdom on the universal truths of the human condition, and specific biting social commentary on the troubling world we're moving toward.