Generation X
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| Abacus |
Douglas Coupland
1991
“When someone tells you they’ve just bought a house, they might as well tell you they no longer have a personality. You can immediately assume so many things: that they’re locked into jobs they hate; that they’re broke; that they spend every night watching videos; that they’re fifteen pounds overweight; that they no longer listen to new ideas. It’s profoundly depressing.”
After a brief burst of creativity by my standards, where I wrote a whopping two posts that weren't actually book reviews, it's time to get back to normal. Okay, one of those posts was a single paragraph link to another site, but I think you people should stop judging me and pay attention to my ultra-serious book reviews. Last time I was here properly I slagged off a classic work of philosophy in Søren Kiekergaard's Fear and Trembling, and now I'm back to somewhat slag off an important work of late twentieth-century Western literature in Douglas Coupland's generation-defining Generation X.
Set at around the time of its release, Generation X follows the exploits of three twenty-something year old characters living in Southern California. Claire, Dag and Andy have quit their everyday meaningless jobs to move near the Mojave desert, where they live in hope of some sort of meaningful satisfaction and personal achievement. The resulting short novel became very well known as an iconic representation of a literal Generation X; young adults who grew up during the eighties and are living with the consequences. Now in the real world we can look back at that time period and see that all this really led to was the rise and rise of internationally-powerful superbrands, but I digress.
While the story follows the lives of these characters, switching through their viewpoints, the book gained its fame and notoriety for Coupland's cynical portrayal of then-modern society. Much of this is centralized on the state of California, but I think a lot of that went over my head, probably diluting my interest greatly as I read on. Other parts were very clear, particularly Coupland's page-footing definitions of terms he invented (such as the self-explanatory 'McJob'), all achieving the dubious feat of managing to be both depressing and amusing. It made me think a lot of Nineteen Eighty-Four, not just through the creation of now common phrases, but as a thinly-veiled fantasy version of the real world.
But I didn't enjoy it. The problems were simple, and perhaps totally subjective, but frankly I didn't care about the characters and found the authors style in frequently entertaining. I'm not sure if I was expecting some sort of Brave New World written by Hunter S. Thompson or something, but I had gotten my hopes up before reading. The setting was there but the drama and intrigue was not. It didn't make me stop to think, nor leave me contemplating it much upon conclusion. I'm sure there are many people that would be quick to try and explain what's so good about this book, but they probably don't read my blog, so I'm just going to give up now.
Set at around the time of its release, Generation X follows the exploits of three twenty-something year old characters living in Southern California. Claire, Dag and Andy have quit their everyday meaningless jobs to move near the Mojave desert, where they live in hope of some sort of meaningful satisfaction and personal achievement. The resulting short novel became very well known as an iconic representation of a literal Generation X; young adults who grew up during the eighties and are living with the consequences. Now in the real world we can look back at that time period and see that all this really led to was the rise and rise of internationally-powerful superbrands, but I digress.
While the story follows the lives of these characters, switching through their viewpoints, the book gained its fame and notoriety for Coupland's cynical portrayal of then-modern society. Much of this is centralized on the state of California, but I think a lot of that went over my head, probably diluting my interest greatly as I read on. Other parts were very clear, particularly Coupland's page-footing definitions of terms he invented (such as the self-explanatory 'McJob'), all achieving the dubious feat of managing to be both depressing and amusing. It made me think a lot of Nineteen Eighty-Four, not just through the creation of now common phrases, but as a thinly-veiled fantasy version of the real world.
But I didn't enjoy it. The problems were simple, and perhaps totally subjective, but frankly I didn't care about the characters and found the authors style in frequently entertaining. I'm not sure if I was expecting some sort of Brave New World written by Hunter S. Thompson or something, but I had gotten my hopes up before reading. The setting was there but the drama and intrigue was not. It didn't make me stop to think, nor leave me contemplating it much upon conclusion. I'm sure there are many people that would be quick to try and explain what's so good about this book, but they probably don't read my blog, so I'm just going to give up now.
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