Category: Responses

The Myth of Technology and Literature

By Ujala Sehgal A response to a public conversation with Gary Shteyngart on November 10, 2011.  Gary Shteyngart, raised in the Soviet Union, took up Judaism when he immigrated to America at the age of nine much the same way he became a devotee of Ronald Reagan and surfing attire. All three of…

Category: Responses

Gary Shteyngart’s Bookish Religion

By Sephora Markson Hartz A response to a public talk with Gary Shteyngart on November 10, 2011.  Super Sad True Love Story, Gary Shteyngart’s third and most recent novel, is a dystopia of the not-too-distant future, a world governed by the military-industrial complex, overrun with pornography, technology, and consumerism.  The book’s protagonist,…

Category: Responses

A Book is a Vehicle for Transcendence

By Julia Jackson A response to a public conversation with Gary Shteyngart on November 10, 2011.  Gary Shteyngart, a self-described “standard kind of agnostic,” said that the most soulful activity he engages in is reading a book. It is one of the few ways in which a person can really “live in…

Category: Responses