“Today I’ve made a major decision: I am never going to die.”

Lenny’s diary pages begin with this strong declaration. Lenny establishes his bias against death, which readers soon discover is societal. He also introduces the central struggle of the book—the struggle to live forever—which resolves only when he gives up the idea of living forever.

“In certain wealthy precincts of trans-Atlantic society, the differences between young and old were steadily eroding, and in other precincts the young were mostly going naked, but what was Eunice Park’s story? Was she trying to be older or richer or whiter? Why do attractive people have to be anything but themselves?”

Eunice’s comparatively conservative dressing style is part of her mystery. The culture of openness, facilitated by technology, makes her modesty surprising: what would she have to hide? Clothing is a technology, like an äppärät, that comes to represent Eunice’s desire to keep her background and struggles private and personal. 

“And so, as my hand began the long journey from my lap into the fear-saturated cabin air, I wanted my parents near me. I wanted my mother’s hand on the back of my neck, the cool touch that always calmed me down as a child. I wanted to hear my parents’ Russian spoken aloud, because I always thought of it as the language of cunning acquiescence.”

In a moment of worry, Lenny reaches for his parents’ language. From the beginning of the text, his regressive lean for an unfashionable language, and for his parents’ resourceful-if-humble background, is an instinct to help him pull through existential worry.