Gary Shteyngart Warned Us | The Ezra Klein Show

A hypervisual, looks-obsessed, wellness-crazed, postliterate society where we’re constantly staring at screens and evaluating one another based on metrics, as the country around us feels like it’s falling apart: That sounds like the world we live in. It’s also the world Gary Shteyngart created in his 2010 novel, “Super Sad True Love Story.” I’ve been thinking about the book a lot recently, especially with the rise of the “looksmaxxing” influencer Clavicular and the longevity guru Bryan Johnson, and this feeling that people are upset and agitated but grabbing at the wrong things to fix it. It feels uncannily like the experience of living inside Shteyngart’s novel. But Shteyngart isn’t just a dystopian prophet, he’s also an expert at living well amid the world’s darkness. His forthcoming book, “The Sensualist: Adventures in Pure Pleasure,” is an essay collection about his efforts to do exactly that. So I wanted to have Shteyngart on the show to understand how he predicted so many of the grimmer aspects of our present, but also how we might delight in the world’s “endless buffet of pleasure” in spite of them. 0:00 Intro 1:56 “Ask Me Anything” 2:08 “Super Sad True Love Story” 7:56 Longevity without pleasure 19:04 Looksmaxxing 36:51 Low birth rates 42:42 Sensualism 52:57 Happiness in America and other countries 1:00:19 Seeking beauty 1:05:10 Craft As A Virtue 1:12:35 Where To Start Seeking Beauty 1:14:20 Book Recommendations Read the full transcript here: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/19/op... Watch more on ‪@EzraKleinShow‬ Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-...