Super Sad True Love Story

Currently underway with my Masters dissertation, my brain is addled with thoughts of publishing houses, imprints and the demon that is Amazon. More a demon because I seem to be writing endlessly about its success and strategic cleverness, but less demonic in the sense that one can buy books at those prices! (Which totally contradicts my ambition to be a publisher).

Anyway enough about me. I do have a few quotes to highlight from Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story. A good read, but I did have to work with it to get the job done. Having said that, I did love the imagery and Shteyngart's clever wording:

Quote #1:

p.19 'Fabrizia. Her body conquered by small armies of hair, her curves fixed by carbohydrates, nothing but the Old World and its dying nonelectronic corporeality.'

I would love nothing more than to see a man approach a woman in a bar and use the line 'you are so beautiful, with your long flowing hair and your curves, fixed by complex carbohydrates.'

Throw a bit of Lipase in her drink, get the old Lipolysis going, and we could have that ass broken down in no time! (I have a tendency to associate words with chemical reactions, not sure why that is, but it keeps things interesting. Either that, or it says a lot about me).

Quote #2:

p.242 'A sickening Caucasian fear, mowed grass and temperate sex mixed with a surprising shot of third-world perspiration, crowded the borough's most elegant street.'

'a surprising shot of third-world perspiration' - genius.

Quote #3:

p. 302 '"Blustery." Just one word, a word meaning no more than "a period of time characterised by strong winds," but it caught me unaware, it reminded me of how language was once used, its precision and simplicity, its capacity for recall.'

From the perspective of a jargon-fueled global discourse of texts, tweets and technology, I hope that this will not ring true one day. Innit.