Helpful Score: 1
The first part was hard to get into, but the last part really got me thinking about life. The book has a melancholy tone and can feel like a downer.
From Library Journal
In his first collection of stories, the author of Generation X (St. Martin's, 1991) and Shampoo Planet ( LJ 8/92) seeks understanding in a world gone mad, a world in which the lack of any spiritual center hastens people's rapid descent into an entropic black hole. Coupland's characters are lost souls, wandering on widely divergent paths, all seeking to fill an aching void. His vivid depictions of life's greatest fears (including chilling vignettes about the bomb going off) remind us that human beings have the ultimate power to destroy but lack the moral fiber to end such a threat altogether. Throughout this striking, sometimes poignant, sometimes horrifying book, Coupland poses thought-provoking and troubling philosophical questions that will challenge readers. In "Gettysburg," a character thinks, "Imagine that I am drowning and I reach within myself to save that one memory which is me--what is it?" Illustrated by the author. Recommended for all libraries. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/93.
In his first collection of stories, the author of Generation X (St. Martin's, 1991) and Shampoo Planet ( LJ 8/92) seeks understanding in a world gone mad, a world in which the lack of any spiritual center hastens people's rapid descent into an entropic black hole. Coupland's characters are lost souls, wandering on widely divergent paths, all seeking to fill an aching void. His vivid depictions of life's greatest fears (including chilling vignettes about the bomb going off) remind us that human beings have the ultimate power to destroy but lack the moral fiber to end such a threat altogether. Throughout this striking, sometimes poignant, sometimes horrifying book, Coupland poses thought-provoking and troubling philosophical questions that will challenge readers. In "Gettysburg," a character thinks, "Imagine that I am drowning and I reach within myself to save that one memory which is me--what is it?" Illustrated by the author. Recommended for all libraries. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/93.
I liked his "All Families are Psychotic" but this is a collection of essays, not a novel. But the writing is still strong.
Well, I like reading about things I've done, and Coupland and I have some connections, like staying at a flophouse on Granville Street, to a live-changing drive to Prince George (I live near Palm Springs, but that's another book.) However, I don't think he had much to say after Generation X, at least as of 1994. Everything in this book seemed rather shallow (which may be another thing I have in common with him).
I read the first third, I didn't find his insights particularly profound. I will say, I seem to have done many of the same things the author did, but I think I had a more interesting car trip from Vancouver to Prince George in 1986 than he did (I listened to Donna Summer most of the way), and I didn't get depressed as he did staying at a downtown Vancouver flophouse.
