― 333333333333 (33333), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 16:15 (seventeen years ago) link
har har
I'm just saying that post David Foster Wallace / Paul Auster / Bret Easton Ellis / Charlie Kaufman and whoever else in modern fiction has written themself in as a character, I consider it a mark on the negative side to fall back on this tactic. it seems overused in modern fiction. not a clever idea to "redeem the eye-rolling parts." that's all ....
I do like Coupland, I read all his stuff up through Polaroids.
― Renard (Renard), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 16:36 (seventeen years ago) link
I gave DC a ticket to the glasgow underground once. He promised to put it in one of his collages. Ahem.
― stet (stet), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 16:38 (seventeen years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 17:27 (seventeen years ago) link
- "even your list is reaching"- "And how much exactly is it a 'trick'"
― nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 17:30 (seventeen years ago) link
― jeffrey (johnson), Tuesday, 13 June 2006 21:34 (seventeen years ago) link
how JPod relates to microserfs is interesting, same characters(?) but no mention of their earlier life / exploits. (um, read a review recently for some other book that did something similar). ha, object re-use applied to literature i guess.
what did they want the safety deposit key for? did they ever use it?
spent a lot of the book confusing d. coupland with w. gibson, especially 'pattern recognition'. coupland's odd in that i've read 75% of his books but don't really care about the other 25%. i guess i only bought this one because i saw it cheap and the microserfs connection.
― koogy wonderland (koogs), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 12:00 (seventeen years ago) link
― suzy (suzy), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 12:19 (seventeen years ago) link
i didn't see anything odd in the autism theories, oddly enough - had thought the same thing to myself for some time (possibly as a result of reading it elsewhere).
didn't he try and explain the parents in terms of being the Greatest Generation or something. or were they just hippy parents 40 years on?
review from the weekend (possibly several weekends ago that i just got around to reading prior to recycling) mentioned John Irving and, whilst dc hiself denies the connection having not read any JI, there is a similarity there, i think. unfortunately i fell asleep before he was talked about on newsnight review.
― koogy wonderland (koogs), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 13:08 (seventeen years ago) link
― suzy (suzy), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 13:11 (seventeen years ago) link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/review/default.stm
it's not very interesting though.
― jed_ (jed), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 13:45 (seventeen years ago) link
they give away the end! 8)
(plus she didn't shoot the biker, it was electrocution.)
― koogy wonderland (koogs), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 14:34 (seventeen years ago) link
reading jpod at the moment. i like it. find it hard to stop reading. a bit too knowing with the clever-cleverness at times but am looking forward to reading the rest of his books.
― mr x, Saturday, 8 December 2007 21:00 (sixteen years ago) link
Also, how is there a TV series of Jpod? It's so weird, like The IT Crowd crossed with Ikea and nothing like the book at all.
― James Mitchell, Friday, 25 January 2008 01:30 (sixteen years ago) link
I actually had a moment of nostalgia and read JPod! It was not good, but all the not-good things about it were like familiar Coupland things that just made me go "aww" instead of "eww." Kind of an "oh, Couplandpaws" thing.
― nabisco, Friday, 25 January 2008 02:00 (sixteen years ago) link
Is anybody bothering with Generation A?
― James Mitchell, Monday, 5 October 2009 07:33 (fourteen years ago) link
Just got it out the library. Not read it yet. Nice yellow cover though (reminds me of those old gollancz sf books).
― my name is ὀνοματοποιία (Ned Trifle II), Monday, 5 October 2009 08:27 (fourteen years ago) link
Publishers sent me a copy in August, first time I've ever been meh-ed out by Coupland (whose cursory observations usually bring me out in hives of love but not this time).
― edward everett horton hears a who (suzy), Monday, 5 October 2009 08:52 (fourteen years ago) link
I take it that the story is to Generation X what Jpod was to Microserfs?
― James Mitchell, Monday, 5 October 2009 08:53 (fourteen years ago) link
i.e. a rewrite with updated references to Facebook and the like.
Argh, jPod gave me a rash, and since then each new Coupland book has been held in my hands briefly in the bookshop before I think "this will be awful" and put it back.
― ein fisch schwimmt im wasser · fisch im wasser durstig (a passing spacecadet), Monday, 5 October 2009 09:37 (fourteen years ago) link
Bizarre thing about JPod is that the TV series was such an improvement on the book.
― treefell, Monday, 5 October 2009 09:52 (fourteen years ago) link
anybody get the custom-designed dustjacket?
― DAN P3RRY MAD AT GRANDMA (just1n3), Monday, 5 October 2009 15:11 (fourteen years ago) link
Didn't the series have Alan Thicke? I think that was why I was afraid of watching it.
― The ever dapper nicolars (Nicole), Monday, 5 October 2009 15:14 (fourteen years ago) link
He was awesome in Jpod.
― James Mitchell, Monday, 5 October 2009 17:42 (fourteen years ago) link
Generation A left me underwhelmed I have to say. Seemed to start off well and it was a good idea but it just seemed to coast a bit after the first few chapters. Also I wasn't convinced by the characters from different countries, the european guy and the Indian guy were both too stereotypical which irritated me. Fun in places, but overall a bit empty. You know, like life. Ha!
― PC Thug (Ned Trifle II), Wednesday, 28 October 2009 10:36 (fourteen years ago) link
45 thoughts on the next decade:
Stupid people will be in charge, only to be replaced by ever-stupider people. You will live in a world without kings, only princes in whom our faith is shattered.
We will accept the obvious truth that we brought this upon ourselves.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/a-radical-pessimists-guide-to-the-next-10-years/article1750609/page1/
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 10 October 2010 16:51 (thirteen years ago) link
The day Copeland writes a book about the singularity, I'll cry.
― The Ten Things I Hate About Commandments (Abbbottt), Sunday, 10 October 2010 19:59 (thirteen years ago) link
Coming to the ritzier neighbourhoods of Vancouver: Coupland's V-POLES.
Operative word in the headline is "may".
― everything, Wednesday, 23 May 2012 18:40 (eleven years ago) link
I've been getting back into him. (Loved the first four books as a teenager; didn't like Polaroids or Coma and never followed him again.) Read Hey Nostradamus over the summer and just finished Generation A, liked both a lot and actually thought Generation A was great, the way all this stuff that never really added up suddenly came together in a totally unexpected way with the twist. Not a rewrite of X at all.
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Wednesday, 27 September 2017 04:05 (six years ago) link
Been digging back into Microserfs - always thought his stuff was light fluffy reading but this is kind of a slog tbh
― licorice oratorio (baaderonixx), Wednesday, 27 September 2017 10:24 (six years ago) link
the european guy and the Indian guy were both too stereotypical which irritated me
I really liked Harj (who was Sri Lankan, not Indian). I'm not sure in what ways he was stereotypical, really (although I'm not sure "Vetharanayan" is a common last name; "Vethanarayan" sounds more likely to me). I really liked how he was always very conscious of the stereotypical impressions that Westerners, especially Americans, would have of him, and would manipulate or leverage these to achieve his goals. There were two major French characters and I don't really think "self-absorbed WoW addict" or "sarcastic assholish scientific genius" are dominant French stereotypes?
― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Wednesday, 27 September 2017 13:34 (six years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHZJjXph4kA
Most recently updated DC thread, so for those interested, https://westvancouverartmuseum.ca/exhibitions/rabbit-lane-douglas-coupland is winding up this weekend in Vancouver, BC. Photographs inspired by his _Girlfriend in a Coma_. Ordered the show's catalog for $46 incl s&h to the US.
Was happy reading _Binge_, his latest - brief vignettes flitting around various characters, some interconnected, with his usual witty character observations.
― the body of a spider... (scampering alpaca), Thursday, 19 May 2022 14:38 (one year ago) link