Archive for November 2011
‘Super Sad True Love Story’ is kind of sad.
Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story delivered on its title’s name, but more so in the “sad” department. Admittedly, I am in the process of finishing the last half of the novel; however, from what I have read, I can attest as a reader that the novel evokes sympathy, second-hand embarrassment and sadness. Numerous characters and passages pulled on my heartstrings, and honestly, not much so far has hinted that there will be redeemable human actions or moments of joy towards the end of the novel. Such issues that lead me to this belief include the abusive family life Eunice is a product of, the overwhelmingly shallow society that berates those who are not youth-obsessed and flawless, the value of money and material over human life, and the sheer disregard and reluctance for human emotion and feeling. Eunice’s mother’s GlobalTeen messages were one of the saddest parts of the novel for me thus far – you can sense she wants to say something more, to express how much she is hurting to her daughter, but she quickly catches herself and talks about mundane or lighthearted things. “Eunhee, Today I wake up sad. But no problem! It will be OK!” (72). “Daddy promise that if he not feel well FIRST we pray together to GOD for guide us THEN he hit…I just learn how to make happy sign. Do you like it? Haha” (47). I think Eunice’s mother is an interesting character in that her personality and seemingly erratic nature can be attributed to the abuse she has sustained as a wife, the helplessness she must feel as a mother of abused daughters, and also the societal context in which she lives – a world where displaying emotions is foreign and not encouraged.
Another part of the novel which induced empathy and second-hand embarrassment from me revolved around the extremely shallow world Lenny inhabits – the Cervix bar/Form A Community (FAC) scene. While I’m not so naïve to say people do not judge others, especially in bars where many are looking for “fuckable” partners, I will argue that not everyone is so inherently shallow that there is no possibility for conversation or actual kindness to occur between people. In Lenny’s experience at the bar, however, he is labeled the ugliest male there and is fully aware of this collective female decision – and yet he stays (the horror!). I felt so uncomfortable for him and so sad that the passage was almost unbearable to read. I recalled feeling that out of place and insecure in grade school – the boys in my 7th grade class would rank the girls in our grade and essentially they decided only the 8th grade possessed attractive girls. It also made me assess the bullying situation in our country now – only accelerated by technology – and the consequences of FAC existing in a world where children are already vulnerable enough.
The final example I think is worth noting, which qualifies categorically (for me) as the value of money and material over human life, comes in the form of Aziz Tompkins – the displaced bus driver living in a shack on a hill. (Winstanley, anyone?) The handmade sign alone broke my heart: “A sunflower had been painted on it along with the words ‘my name aziz jamie tompkins I worked bus driver kicked out of home two days ago this is my space dont shoot’” (105). Aziz became displaced due to a visit from the Chinese Central Banker – such poor people could not be seen by these wealthy and powerful figures and thus are discarded as easily as carbohydrates and books. The first half of Super Sad True Love Story exhibits quite a heavy dose of sadness which – if it could get any sadder – is not so far fetched for the world’s future.
2 comments November 20, 2011
Frustrations and Awakenings with ‘Facde’
I played Andrew Stern and Michael Mateas’s Façade before reading the excerpt on the game from Wardrip-Fruin’s Expressive Processing – I think if I had read the piece on Façade before playing it, I may have had more appreciation or patience for the game. Initially, I decided I would act/enter text exactly as I would if I were a real guest in this particular situation. I closed the door politely, avoided eye contact from the side of the room where Grace and Trip were arguing when he went to get her and answered graciously when spoken to. This did not last, however, because I soon realized a) I would never be friends with people like this and b) Trip and Grace are ignorant, uptight psychopaths. They would force you to choose sides and then, later, in some dramatic fashion, one would rehash what you allegedly agreed to with the other one. The music was extremely dramatic and the facial expressions made by Trip and Grace started to terrify me. I was so scared of them during the one game, I restricted myself from saying hardly anything – they didn’t seem to mind my silence and it resulted in Grace confessing she slept with an art major, Victor, the night before Trip proposed, thus jinxing their fabulous marriage.
I played Façade with serious intentions about four or five times. I was kicked out during one game because I kissed Trip and told him his wife sucks – this seemed like a good idea at the time because Grace was down the hallway pouting – and Trip didn’t mind the first few times, but his guilty conscious must have caught up with him. The other three or four times, Grace walked out and Trip stood there shoulda-coulda-woulda-ing before the curtain fell. I tried everything to get them to reconcile – suggesting therapy (this was met with defensive responses), suggesting Grace was sad (“you’re saying I’m depressed?”/psycho face), suggesting they divorce (horrified faces/defensive responses) – I also said they should kill themselves because I lost all patience with them at one point. Whoops. There were numerous times my interjections were ignored and responded to with a “Let’s talk about our relationship” which also was frustrating to me but now makes a bit more sense after reading the article; Wardrip-Fruin explains that not playing into the topic that Grace and Trip are on can result in Façade mixing in a JDB that deflects the player’s action. Thus, “Let’s talk about our relationship/Let’s talk about Grace.”
Wardrip-Fruin’s point that no computer program can understand arbitrary human language made me reflect back on my frustrations with Façade and acknowledge it was not a flaw in the game that Trip and Grace could not fully interact with me when I spoke. Instead, as the excerpt on Façade states, the game’s statements are limited to “discourse acts” – agreement, thanking, referring to a topic and so on. Clearly, Trip and Grace categorized my statements by such discourse acts – when I said something polite to what they said, they reacted warmly (only at the very beginning of the game) and would acknowledge if I said something about a topic they were familiar with – drinks, art, romance. Overall, as the excerpt on Façade acknowledges, agency could be obtained in the game through accuracy in natural language understanding, however, such agency is limited due to computer programs lacking the ability to understand arbitrary human language which makes up daily interactions in people’s lives.
2 comments November 6, 2011
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