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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Douglas Coupland strikes again

16:26 / 22.05.06

I just picked up the new Coupland book, jPod, at a local soulless book chain and started reading it on the way home. So far, it feels like a true follow up to Microserfs - structure and style are mirrored so much that it feels like Coupland is plagerizing his own work.

However, I'm going to avoid any final judgements until I finish the book. Anyone else started on this one yet?

I'm keeping the faith for coupland — so far, his work has often been amazing with a few dips (in my opinion: all families are psychotic, eleanor rigby) and a few ones that were over my head as far as relate-able pop culture goes (polaroids from the dead).

17:33 / 22.05.06

Fancy that. I just bought this yesterday at a soulless chain where I got not only thirty percent off the "new" hardcovers, but I got a mall discount, thus making a forty dollar book less than twenty!

I'm about 160 pages into it and I'm not liking it nearly as much as I liked All Families Are Psychotic or Eleanor Rigby (which I read in record time, a personal best).

jPod seems to be going nowhere at a breakneck pace, filled with so many pop-culture references, it's like reading a book version of Shrek. It makes him very relevant and dated all at once. If I read this book in twenty years, will I remember who the hell Elizabeth Smart is? Coupland designs his novels for future historians; they are a perfect time capsule of that year. Even now, Microserfs is funny, but horribly dated in its references.

I'm looking forward to the metafiction that occurs later in the book, with the introduction of Coupland himself.

I once saw him give a reading and he named me "Google" because when he couldn't remember the name of something, I shouted the answer. (For example, I knew the name of the Scorsese film starring Ray Liotta.) I even have three books signed by the man in which he writes, "To that Google guy." (FYI he's really old-looking in person and that makes me feel old)

17:48 / 22.05.06

Okay, that has me a bit worried... I made it to page 92 this morning, so we'll see what happens.

There was something about Nostradamus that blew me away...late in the book. I wasn't feeling it, and since it came out after Families I was starting to lose the faith. But then, and Lord knows what it was, something clicked and I started considering Nostradamus to be one of his best books.

Familes and Rigby...Idunno. Didn't do that much for me, but I finished and re-read both nonetheless. Then again, I might be a "not-fan", since I'm also not that big on Gen X and think Microserfs is the greater masterpiece of his first two books.

Regrettable Juvenilia

20:35 / 22.05.06

To what does the title refer?

21:15 / 22.05.06

jPod is an area of a video-game designing firm in which by some clerical error, six people, with the letter "J" at the beginning of all of their last names, end up together. I suppose it's also some sort of ironic reference to the Apple product.

Only read this novel if you're already a fan of Coupland. Otherwise, Flybs, I'd avoid.

04:37 / 23.05.06

Is 'Hey Nostradamus' worth reading? The premise sort of put me off from it, but I just read 'Eleanor Rigby' and really enjoyed it in a strange sort of way...

What the basic idea/plot of jpod?

04:44 / 23.05.06

I didn't like Hey Nostradamus. At all. I found it tiresome, meandering and meaningless. I didn't think it had any emotional weight or importance. I didn't think it was funny. At all. I just didn't like it. It felt too much like Coupland trying to write something "serious". Like an after-school special.

The plot of jPod, it seems, is the increasingly radnom and unproductive work life of these game designers, mostly the odd happenings of the main character, Ethan. His mother is a marijuana farmer, his dad is an unsuccessful actor, his brother is involved in Chinese-people-smuggling. His love interest is a failed Subway diet practitioner. His friend Cowboy is a cough-medicine junkie. His doppelganger, Mark, is arbitrarily defined as the "evil" version. His co-worker John Doe aspires to be statistically average in absolutely everything.

As I understand it, the narrative breaks down as the novel progresses. It begins as a self-conscious Douglas Coupland novel and ends as... I don't know. I'm not there yet. Will return with thoughts.

16:07 / 23.05.06

I'm going to reread Nostradamus and figure out why the hell I like it so much. I must've had a good reason.

00:24 / 25.05.06

A vote here for thinking that 'Hey Nostradamus' is superb; a 'must' read.
The prose within it is spatian and clean, more Hemingway than than the Tom Robbins-esque cultural/idea/word juggling that seems to be his later 'style'. It read more like a trio of well crafted blogger journals, each with their own style and language, and each full of their own inner truths...
The characters were realistic in it (ie. no grandmothers with aids/astronauts with thalidomid) as they were 'seriously' trying to resolve the tragedy, and try to understand their sorrow instead of the more flippant responses some of his other characters portray.
I just found it the most elegant book I can recall.

00:26 / 25.05.06

...I am so looking forward to this book, hope there is a Dan and Karla romance like Microserfs aswell.

18:27 / 25.05.06

I hope this doesn't count as a spoiler... but yeah, there is a Dan and Karla relationship. In fact, it starts off with the two sporting a dislike...or lack of understanding... for eachother, simular to Microserfs.

I finished JPod last night and I think this one ranks lowest on the Coupland meter for me. The parallels between Microserfs and JPod were awkward - not direct, but still there. None of the characters grew like the cast of Microserfs (my favorite was Bug Barbeque, though aside from the Fitness Family, I think all characters from M'serfs got close to equal screen time).

To anyone wanting to try something by Coupland, there are better places to start.

19:57 / 26.05.06

Just finished this about an hour ago and... meh. It was meandering, long, pointless, and as subtle as two planets smashing together. Coupland's entrance into the novel was far too YOU SEE? DO YOU SEE?????!?!111? and

SPOILER

the final image, of the hole in Kam's yard where the biker's corpse is buried, is a little too... DO YOU SEE?

END SPOILER

I would say this definitely ranks as the worst Coupland novel. Not funny, and far too interested in itself to be interesting.

08:35 / 02.06.06

I'm currently about halfway through and saw Douglas Coupland on Wednesday in London. Free action figure was a nice touch.

17:01 / 02.06.06

I saw Coupland at a book reading in Torontof for this book. The reading was really good, so I thought i'd pick the book up. I haven't read anything else by him before. I've enjoyed the book so far (I'm about half way through it). It is very random, but I'd say enjoyable for the most part. Hopefully it doesn't let me down by the end.

19:53 / 02.06.06

...action figure?

14:50 / 05.06.06

Slate loves jPod because it's so self-conscious and self-referential and tongue-in-cheek and "Couplandized".

02:54 / 06.06.06

So I finally finished the book. It does get more and more meandering as it approaches the end. It was an enjoyable enough read, but I wouldn't call it a good book. The second half seems quite forced actually. And Coupland's use of himself in the book seems a bit weak. You don't really get a real feeling for any of the characters. I think the fact they are all so shallow and flippant about everything might make it harder to relate to them.

Haus of Mystery

14:16 / 21.06.06

Didn't even know this was out! i'm a big fan, but only the first section of'Hey Nostradamus!' and bits 'Eleanor Rigby' have particularly excited me in his recent work. 'Girlfreind..' was the last one that blew me away, but I'd just finished Uni and for some reason I found it really resonant. I know many dislike the magical realism of the end of that book, but y'know, fuck 'em.
Coupland has a beatiful turn of phrase, and I love his continual attempts to find poetry in the absolutely modern, but sometimes his books are so glib and sloppily structured. Increasingly (perhaps since 'Girlfriend..') they have tended towards bizarre fantastical plot twists in the final third, and an incredibly accellerated pace. It's almost as though he can't wait to get to the end, and start his next book.
For me earlier works, like 'Microserfs' and in particular 'Life after God' are brilliant for their jewel-like perfect structures, and their concise but beautiful language. Later works haven't had that IMO, although as I say I find the first part of 'Nostradamus' very moving.
I guess I'll probably get this though. Whatever his faults, Couplands always immensely readable.

05:20 / 23.06.06

I just started a job that uses "pod" language and vernacular. The man in the adjacent pod to mine looks like Coupland. He's also sort of a Coupland character, in that he has a Master's Degree in Philosophy. The man in the other pod worked IT for IBM for 23 years.

Everyday I want to say aloud, "I feel like I'm in a Coupland novel".

Happy Dave Has Left

10:53 / 20.12.06

I just picked this up for cheep in Waterstones. I absolutely love, love, love Microserfs, and it's kinda the reason I turned into such a big web geek, and why I work in computers now. But this, so far, just ain't doing it for me. It seems so self-consciously whacked out and deliberatly fragmentary that it's beginning to bug me. Whereas in Microserfs there was a definite narrative journey to the thing, and also a very well-handled diary/subconscious structure that really evoked the time and place for me, this just seems like a load of tech jargon and mid-2005 buzzwords smooshed together with castoff characters who didn't make it into Microserfs.

I mean, Microserfs made my cry,

SPOILERS

at the end when Dan's mum has a stroke and then regains control enough to speak to them through a keyboard

END SPOILERS

and also spoke to me throughout in its fantastic character definition - the whole book is about a generation of clever kids finding their place in the world and with each other.

This, so far, just isn't comparing. We'll see.

13:00 / 20.12.06

I got this from the library and ploughed through half in one evening. I wasn't really enjoying it, but for some reason just kept going. Finally after the 3rd Coupland reference I threw it away in disgust. Idiotic plot, no characters, dull.

I read Gen X again before this, and that was a lot better. I've previously enjoyed a few others of his, but Jpod was like he was telling all of his readers to fuck off for liking his style.

15:45 / 21.12.06

yeah, jpod is definitly the worst coupland book. I've read everything by him except miss wyoming and girlfriend in a coma. I have to say everything recent shows him becoming more and more mediocre. None of his stuff is bad, really. I read Jpod the whole way through, and usually if i don't like a book i'll stop at the first chance I get. It was just mediocre. Thats all I can really say.

But i do have good memories of mr. coupland. He did a book reading/signing tour a few years back. He opened up with Simpsons trivia, giving out assorted boxes of little debbie snack cakes as prizes. I won a box, even though i said the wrong answer. He had been drinking throughout the reading. I got him to sign it. It says "You're a winner, Allen!" in a speech bubble coming from little debbie. I love that man.

22:35 / 21.12.06

Girlfriend in a Coma and Ms.Wyoming are actually the better of the books he's put out since his change of outlook/style/etc. (i.e. Since the god-awful Poloroids from the Dead)

There's something about his first 4 books that seemed so good, and it really does seem to be lacking in his later ones, although Girlfriend in a Coma is still pretty good in comparison. I fear it could just be reading Generation X and company when I was a teenager and Mr.Coupland growing old...

13:24 / 04.10.07

New one coming out, preview copies floating on Amazon... anyone? buehler? do I want to grab it in the first week or sit it out?

03:03 / 05.10.07

New one's The Gum Thief, I got an advance copy and devoured it on smoke breaks over the course of a week. I missed Rigby and jPod, but I liked this one. Staples employees leave notes to each other and you get the gist of what's going on in their neverending, miserably mundane lives, and they drop a little wisdom. Several story lines meander around each other and step on each others toes. You'll laugh, you'll cringe. You'll hate your job.

I liked Ms Wyoming and Girlfriend In a Coma a lot, but The Gum Thief isn't much like either of those. It's the sort of book that makes me recoil in horror at the world around me. I'm not sure whether I'm glad that Coupland captures that so well.

(speaking of Canadians with new books, Spook Country was fucking great but I was stuck lurking when I had read that before all the rest of you)