Douglas Coupland

[ions]

Figured this author deserved his own thread in our forum of Author discussion.

There's already this thread but nothing on all his works.

I just finished Microserfs which surprised me in many ways. At the end of the year when I reflect on which books I enjoyed most this book will be on the pointy end of the top ten.

For a fiction book with technology as a theme it was tremendously accurate. Rare. It even eerily predicted a few trends that occured a couple of years later and keep occuring. Over ten years later it's still relevent! Coupland wrote it in a way that didn't leave specs to date the work but he was still specific enough so you knew what he was talking about.

Beyond the technology is a story about a group of introverted friends who stumble over each other's idiosyncrasies to find lives with each other. It's an easy read with interesting characters and a unique style. Microserfs has one of the best endings I've ever read.

I get to meet Coupland in a week (May 24th) at a promo event for J-pod which is why I finally picked up one of his works. I chose Microserfs because I'm a former ITer myself. Still a nerd. Looking forward to his other works including the new one. Anyone read Coupland enough to make a recommendation which path to take through his works? I'm inclined to read All Families Are Psychotic next.

 

[pink shadow]

I've only read Hey Nostradamus!, but I thought it was really great and I certainly recommend it. I read it in one sitting because I couldn't put it down. I've also been considering All families... so if anyone has read that, I'd like to know more!

 

[ions]

I spoke to a co-worker today that recommended reading All Families after Microserfs.

 

[Shade]

I've read about half of Coupland's output. There's a difficulty in making recommendations because it's all so very different. For example the early stuff (up to Microserfs) which is quite quippy and full of neat one-liners, I don't like as much - which is to say that I loved the first half of Microserfs, but felt it went on for far too long, particularly bearing in mind that nothing actually happens (unless you count someone's dad losing his job).

For me the finest Coupland - and one, incidentally, that has united everyone I know who has read it - is Hey Nostradamus!, so I agree with Pink Shadow. It really is extraordinary, constantly tippytoeing on the balancing line between sensitivity and sentimentality without ever falling over. It's like drinking a brightly coloured, flavoursome drink that you just can't get enough of. I adored it.

I've also read Girlfriend in a Coma - which I thought overall very good, a second to Hey Nostradamus! probably - and Miss Wyoming, which was enjoyable but a bit over-quirky and forced.

Interesting that a colleague should recommend All Families are Psychotic. I haven't read it but Coupland aficionados that I know felt it was one of his weakest. As I say though, with Coupland it's almost impossible to recommend with certainty.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and Eleanor Rigby, which I thought a poor follow-up to Hey Nostradamus! It just didn't have the same spark or flare (or flair).

 

[ions]

Interesting that a colleague should recommend All Families are Psychotic. I haven't read it but Coupland aficionados that I know felt it was one of his weakest. As I say though, with Coupland it's almost impossible to recommend with certainty.

Well the converstion went more like this:

Me: I finished Microserfs
Her: What did you think?
Me: I thought it was great! I'm thinking of doing All Families Are Psychotic next. One of the characters in Microserfs, Karla, won't call her parents because her "family is pyschotic". I'm curious to see if there's a tie in.
Her: Yeah, read that next. It will tie J-pod and Microserfs together really well.

It's been a while since she had read either Microserfs or All Families Are Psychotic so she was trying to remember details. Perhaps her memory filled in what wasn't there.

Why is Coupland hard to recommend with certainty? Are the differences of style that powerful? That's intriguing.

 

[Shade]

Perhaps it's not so much differences in style, as they tend to have distinct eccentricities which, in each case, you will either love or hate. For example, Hey Nostradamus! has a dead narrator (among others). In Girlfriend in a Coma, the world ends (that's not a spoiler, it tells you so on page 2). Now some people just hate that. I didn't. On the other hand, some people - like you - love the protracted portrayal of geeklife in Microserfs, whereas I had had more than enough of it by halfway through. I gather, by the way, that Jpod is more akin to Microserfs than any of his other novels.

Eleanor Rigby, on the other hand, I felt was a poor, lightly thrown together thing, straining for emotional effect but not really getting there, and damaged by unlikely comic episodes. Yet others love it.

If you're really interested you can see my more detailed thoughts on the Couplands I've read here.

 

[Anamnesis]

The only Douglas Coupland book I read was Miss Wyoming. I liked it well enough, but I haven't been inspired to purchase another book from him.

 

[ions]

Just got back from a Douglas Coupland industry event in Toronto at the Random House office. He was funny and tremendously gracious. I left with three hardcover copies of JPod signed and he signed the copies of Hey Nostradamus! and Microserfs that I brought. I thanked him for Microserfs telling him that I felt like I worked with all those charactors during my stint in IT during the dot com era. We talked tech briefly, he said "Linux will win in a couple years" which made me quite happy; the nerd that I am.

Not sure when I am going to get around to reading JPod or Hey Nostradamus!. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Oh, Random House was a good host providing wines, cheeses and crackers.

 

[direstraits]

Your experience, ions, is something I'm terribly envious of. No author of note will ever come to my neck of the woods, and therefore robbing me of an opportunity to tell them what I think of their work. Damn it must be nice to actually meet the person whose work you sank so much of your time into, and actually enjoyed.

I have Microserfs in my TBR, and actually I've stolen a glance at a couple of pages before. I don't live in a rented house filled with geeks, but being an IT guy, I can relate to what Coupland was portraying.

Before, I've always known him as the Microserfs guy, and though he was playing in the same field as people like Stephenson, Sterling, Gibson. I remember being perplexed at seeing his name tacked to a book with a title like Eleanor Bigby.

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