Le monde du vieux bandit

First off, I must say I am a big Douglas Coupland fan. I’ve read all his novels, the funny and the tragic, and a few other books. Just to know that he has a new book out makes me salivate (and despair, since they are quite expensive - this time, my lucky star came to the rescue). I must also say that I read JPod in less than 48 hours and that I am very likely to read it again at some point in the not so distant future. So how is the book? Well, for a fourth-time reader of Microserfs, for a Coupland fan, it is simply perfect. I mean between the techies with no life who design a skateboard console game into which they have to insert a campy turtle, the pot-growing, biker-scaring mother, the guy with an edible stapler and the guy who eats bits of Play-Doh… what’s there not to love?
But what did I so adore about it? What I love about most of Coupland’s novels: they feel the way I feel, and live the way I live. I’ve read comments from readers who did not enjoy the pages filled with numbers, the lists of trademarks and other quirks inserted here or there. I loved them - they reflect the way my day goes, from one focused task to the next distraction. Between work, email, downloads, interactions with *gasp* real people, using five (more like eight) pieces of software at once and the inevitable thirst for procrastination, my days do not follow a 1950’s novel linearity. No: they follow JPod’s characters’ lack of focus. They go here and there (my days), come back, lose focus, return, try something else. They have embedded games and pauses.
Another criticism I’ve read was by someone who disliked the novel’s characters discussing… Douglas Coupland, author and Vancouverite. Well on one hand I would say not to despair, since it is building up to something. On the other, I would claim that if movie directors (even those who, like Tarantino, can simply not act and, at the same time, be credible as a human being) can cast themselves, authors have the right to appear or be mentioned in their own novels. And in this case it is fully justified by the fact that the characters are exactly in the demographics of people who have read his novels. there.

Another reviewer (I read three reviews, which were all somewhat negative and quite misguided in my opinion, and then I quit) said, in essence “bad, it’s so two years ago”. Again, I feel the need to argue. Douglas Coupland, as far as I know, is not trying to predict the future. Or even “the now”. He takes slices of life and - and this is what tickles me so - presents them in a format that is adapted to the times, the characters and the story. Hence the games. Hence the kanji symbols. Hence my numerous pauses to laugh myself silly.

The story? Well, does it matter? A team of videogame developers work and live. Hilarity ensues. But it is accompanied also by some form of truth, a snapshot of perhaps not what happens on a daily basis to anyone, but of the essence of our tech times. Yes - that is another point in favour of Coupland: he manages to chronicle the life of those forgotten by History, all the while making it funny and pertinent both in content and form.

*****

Douglas Coupland’s Web site

JPod on Amazon.ca

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 5th, 2006 at 6:39 pm and is filed under Lectures/Reading, Reviews. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.