In Gary Shteyngart’s bok Super Sad True Love Story the theme of literature in the social online networking era is depicted in many ways. Books are now obsolete; everyone carries around apparats where information is a moment away. Lenny is one of the few people left that actually reads physical books. Many young people think “that books smell”(52). Therefore Lenny uses Pine-Sol on his books to make sure that they do not smell. There seems to be disgust towards books from the new generation. It stands out because I have never thought that a book smells, usually a new book actually smells good. I can see a similarity in today’s youth. Not very many people read for enjoyment anymore. For many of the youth the only books they read are the ones that they have to for school. Lenny has a large collection of books that he cherishes. He wants to make books relevant again someday. Even now books are on the way out, with online texts and eReaders, you can read books without ever turning a page. This passage relates to the theme of the novel as a whole in that the youth are disconnected from the past and find books as disgusting artifacts.
Another passage in SSTLS that relates to literature and literacy is on page 144. Eunice is talking to Precious Pony about the time when she saw Lenny reading a book. She was so surprised that he was reading an actual physical book that she did not even know how to react. So she pretended that she did not even notice. What surprised Eunice a lot was that he was reading every word of the book, not just scanning it for important information. This shows that not only do the youth not read books; they do not even fully read the articles on their apparats. They just scan the words for things that stand out. This reminds me of today, with websites like sparknotes.com that just summarize entire books in a few paragraphs. It allows students today to not have to read a book for a class, and instead just get a summary, which unfortunately is usually enough to get by. Eunice also sees Lenny as being really smart because he is able to read a book. It seems that many people in SSTLS are illiterate and are unable to read at all. So anyone that reads books is very intelligent and somewhat “old-school” in their way of life.
A short thought from Lenny about his friend Noah and the news brings up another idea of literature (159). Lenny reminds Noah that some time ago, reporters actually went out into the field to verify the stories that they were reporting on. Noah acted as if Lenny was an old man from a time long ago. In a world where reporters do not even need to verify a story, what can be trusted as true news? Also in a world of apparats, if a reporter took the time to verify a story by the time he published it, the story would be old and no one would care. In the age of instant information there is no time for stories to be verified, and the people just trust most of the news they get off of apparat streams. It seems that most of the news in SSTLS is in the form of opinionated rants. News today is opinionated, but it is not over the top like many of the streams in SSTLS. This relates to the theme of the entire book in that society has taken a turn for the worst. The news is unverified and it is the best that is there.
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