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I decided to review these three books at the same time because they all involve older guys lusting after younger foreign girls and all take place around present time. It wasn't my intent to read three straight books with similar characters, it just happened that way.
Super Sad True Love Story - The main character is 39 year old Lenny Abramov. He longs for the 25 year old Korean, Eunice Park.
Sunset Park - Miles Heller is 28 years old and is in love with 17 year old Cuban Pilar Sanchez.
Next - 52 year old Kevin Quinn has a 35 year old girlfriend named Stella but chases an Asian woman named Kelly around Austin, Texas. Kelly is in her mid-twenties.
I couldn't finish Next. In reviews, I read that it was slow going until the end but it just wasn't worth it to me to keep going. The book is supposed to be a satire but I found it sad and desperate. Quinn is in Austin for a job interview and sits next to Kelly on the plane. She reminds him in certain ways of an ex-girlfriend and when he stumbles across her again upon landing, he begins to chase her around town (he's really early for his interview). Along the way, he is reminded of other relationships and for eighty pages (when I finally gave up), we get a glimpse of those relationships, but it's extremely hard to care, he's so creepy.
At the other end of the spectrum, Super Sad True Love Story is a fantastic satire. I'll be posting a top ten books of 2010 list at the end of the week and this will be among them. I read Shteyngart's first book, The Russian Debutante's Handbook earlier in the year. A friend of mine and my pediatrician both read Shteyngart's second book, Absurdistan. Between us, we all felt that Shteyngart was a good, not great novelist. SSTLS may have changed my opinion.
But first, a trailer for the book. Didn't know books had trailers, did you?
The trailer really has nothing to do with the book but I did find it entertaining. I think book trailers have a way to go before they catch movie trailers in being engaging and inspiring.
The story is set primarily in New York in the not too distant future. The fact that it is not too distant is part of what makes the book dark. In Shteyngart's future, everyone is attached to their äppärät, a smartphone type device that broadcasts personal details about the user. Furthermore, people use them constantly to rate others around them on their personality and, ahem, sexworthiness (a different term is used). The most important measure of a person, though, is their credit rating. This is partly because the United States has become completely indebted to other countries. The euro and the yuan have become the world currency standards. As to what people do for a living, the predominant jobs are Media and Retail.
SSTLS alternates between being told by Lenny Abramov, a 39-year old, ugly Russian immigrant (typical of all of Shteyngart's stories) who works for a firm that is pitching immortality to High Net Worth Individuals, and Eunice Park. Lenny actually keeps a diary (people complain to Lenny on a plane about the smell of a book he pulls out on a plane. Print readers of the future are treated much like smokers are nowadays) and the diary makes up the bulk of the book.
Eunice is a smoking hot Korean woman in her early twenties who Lenny falls in love with when he is sent on sales calls in Europe. The feeling isn't exactly mutual but Eunice ends up moving in with Lenny. Her story is told through messages to her GlobalTeens account, an international online communication system which seems similar to Facebook.
All in all, it's quite the satire. The obsession with the electronic devices leads to live personal interaction with people being a novelty. Having a conversation with someone is to "verbal" them. Likewise, the detachment from live interaction has led to sex being rather emotionless. Onionskin jeans are popular clothing for women that are transparent pants, usually worn without underwear, to showcase a woman's body. This, of course, helps that sexworthiness rating.
On the political/financial front, Shteyngart's world is comprised of huge corporations formed by megamergers such as LandO’LakesGMFordCredit Bank. Many countries are owned by these companies. The U.S. has become a military state with the Secretary of State being the primary political official.
Then there is the company for which Lenny works. His boss, a 70 year old man who looks much younger through the processes his firm sells, is well-connected and when the United States collapses at the end of the story, his power (and lust for Eunice) become more apparent.
I don't know how much of a love story this is. It isn't true (yet). Not even sure it's sad. I did think the book was super, though, and definitely worth checking out.
Lastly is Sunset Park. Somehow I've become a big reader of Paul Auster. I think this is the fifth book of his I have read in two years (maybe fourth). Auster loads his fiction with a lot of fact. Sunset Park is a part of Brooklyn and is the primary setting for the story. Miles Heller leaves his father and stepmother in his early twenties after hearing a conversation between them about himself. Miles is racked with guilt because he (accidentally?) caused the death of his stepbrother years before and Miles has never been the same.
Miles wanders the country and ends up in Florida where he runs into Pilar in a park. They are both reading The Great Gatsby and the two begin a relationship. Pilar moves in with Miles but when Miles has a spat with Pilar's oldest sister, Miles returns to New York to evade possible legal difficulties.
Miles moves into an abandoned house in Sunset Park with an old friend of his and two other squatters. The novel jumps around between all the characters and the story is moved ahead with each different perspective.
All in all, there doesn't seem to be much plot. It's definitely more about the characters than any particular story. Auster's attention to factual detail is amazing. He references a movie from the 1940's and the characters in it (everything true that I can determine). He talks about ex-baseball players Herb Score, Mark Fidrych and Lucky Lohrke (all details factually correct (and who writes about Lucky Lohrke?)). It wouldn't surprise me if the house in which Heller and his friends reside actually exists. Also, despite Heller being involved with a minor, there's not the creepiness of Next.
Sunset Park is a good book but definitely not as good as other works of Auster's I've read. But it's definitely closer in quality to SSTLS than Next.
--Jon
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