Day 704, Quasi-Quarantine: "Our Country Friends" Explores Love And Culture In The Time Of COVID

" ... Thought of the raft of mystery that floats between two partners, even contented ones, as they turn in for the night. He wished he could fall in love with someone as his wife evidently had done. He had chased after beauty for such a long part of his life, until he had caught up with it and found it, like everything else, worthy of no more than a chapter or two of heightened prose."

This novel was the first purely pandemic-driven literary vehicle I've encountered, and the results are entrancing.

"Our Country Friends" is intensely personal to Gary Shteyngart's experiences, and the hilarity and melancholy seep through every page. From love triangles to technological enslavement, racism to classism, culture to self-possession, the book touches on massive themes in a very accessible way.

"'I don't care if I live or die,' Lara said, which in Russian was equivalent to 'I'm doing fine, thank you so much for asking.'"

"It occurred to her now what the driver of the pickup had seen, an Asian woman walking with an Asian child, both of them wearing masks, at a time when people who put up black-and-blue flags honoring the police were inclined to despise such people."

The ending can be a bit hard to follow as the lines between reality and unreality blur, but the author assures that is by design, echoing his own challenges in the course of writing. "Our Country Friends" blends the call for deep thought with the appreciation of high comedy, creating a singular book for our times.

"It wasn't about history in the end, his novel, it was about them clinging to each other as the tidal wave of time rushed in and then slowly let out. It was about the elegant seething of the wave against the sand as it retreated back to where it came from."