Emerging Technology: Blurring the Lines between Future and Present

            Sometimes, when reading Super Sad True Love Story, the thing I struggle with most is remembering that this novel is futuristic; an äppärät has not actually been invented yet, nor do I yet have the ability to see the favorite sex position of a random employee I meet at a retail store (Shteyngart 210). And yet, when I sit here reading about these characters who don’t even know how to read, I can’t help but imagine that this future is much more present than most of us would like to believe. That is, at least for the group of first-world technological junkies of which I can’t even try to pretend I’m not a part. Sure, I remember how to read, but I can’t remember the last time I read an actual print newspaper rather than the handy MSNBC and BBC apps on my iPhone. We all (referring again to us first-world inhabitants) are in the rapidly emergent world of technological development, and I can’t deny that I would not be at all surprised to see an äppärät within the next 10 years. Heck, with the rate at which technology moves, make that 2 years.

            Indeed, it is increasingly difficult for me to keep in mind that the world Gary Shteynhart creates in the novel is futuristic when I then read his article about the world of Google Glass. Does Google Glass really exist today? Does an äppärät definitely not? How are they even different? They seem extraordinarily alike in my eyes, and thus I can’t imagine that any of the technology in Super Sad True Love Story is all that far off. Shteynhart describes the rapid rate of technological advancement well in his article “OK., Glass”: “To write a book set in the present, circa 2013, is to write about the distant past” (“OK., Glass). No matter how engrossed I feel I am in technology, I still can’t keep up with the rate at which it’s moving.  

            The only really startling part about the most recent reading, however, is a question that was brought up in Wednesday’s class to which I’m not sure we had a definitive answer. That is, does “verballing” mean that the characters in the novel don’t usually speak? I’m beginning to think the answer is yes, seeing as when Lenny meets Eunice’s parents he actually praises her for being “a great speaker of sentences” (Shteynhart 192). Now this thought actually scares me. As easy as it is for me to believe that future characters might forget how to read, the idea of losing speech is just frightening. And yet, the more I think it over, this too doesn’t seem all that far-fetched. If we spend the majority of our time messaging through facebook or texting on our iPhones, won’t we one day forget how to hold actual conversations?

            Overall, Shteynhart’s portrayal of technology in SSTLS makes it a perfect model of 21^st century American fiction; but perhaps it won’t be fiction for much longer.