Written by Douglas Coupland
How can we be alive and not wonder about the stories we use to knit together this place we call the world?
In 1991, Douglas Coupland wrote his first novel, Generation X: a book that gave an iconic label to an entire generation.
It’s now 2009, and Mr. Coupland has come back for revenge.
Generation A isn’t quite a counter-argument to his first novel, but it definitely has something to say about what has transpired after nearly two decades. He beholds a culture of generic, brand-name, white-washed, plasticized, glory-seeking, un-reality-obsessed entitlement freaks…and he has a field day with every and every vapid archetype.
To say that this is his most cutting novel would be an understatement. The language, the attitudes, the moaning, the self-defeatism…cynical is too mild a word. Outraged and disgusted would be more appropriate labels, with added viciousness as icing. Coupland creates characters enthralled to the excesses of the early 21st century, and puts them side-by-side with characters who are victims of the excesses of the early 21st century. The commentary that results is so biting that one wonders what happened to the nice & geeky guy that gave us such uproarious masterpieces as JPod & Microserfs…or the sentimental, wounded joy found in Elanor Rigby & The Gum Thief.
Forget Miss Wyoming. Don’t waste your time on Girlfriend in a Coma. Immediately trash All Families Are Psychotic. Generation A is the definitive statement of a possible near future…one that has made the author bury his face in his hands, and mutter “oh my god…what am I going to do about it?”
Generation A is the answer. Five sharply-drawn, incredibly believable characters, one mystery within a mystery involving now-extinct bees…starting out as Internet heroes…then, quite unexpectedly, they’re lumped together on Vancouver Island, where they do nothing but make up and share the most astonishing stories with each other!
The second half of the novel becomes a modern-day Decameron: a series of…well, not really inter-connected, but inter-related stories that dip in and out of the selfish, world-bashing situations that each of the protagonists inhabit. It’s all framed in a not-too-distant future that is eminently recognizable, and incredibly elegiac. Who would have guessed that a story involving the death of the world’s pollinating insects could combine with drug-taking and isolation-bred-by-technology in such a poetic manner.
As for the conclusion…well, I’ve already had a conversation with my friend Greg about what the hell might be going on. But the safest thing I can say is that, more than any other open-ended novel I’ve read, Coupland is confidently leaving it up to the readers to make their own guesses. Just like the world we live in, none of us is ever going to respond to the same event with the same reaction. Generation A snidely (and hilariously) blasts its screed against the human race…then leaves it up to the judgement of each and every reader. His trust in his audience is the most hopeful aspect of the novel…and a wonderfully wacky way on which to end the work.
If nothing else, it’s the perfect antidote to Margaret Atwood’s more tragic opus. Believe me, after THAT epic and exhausting trip to a bleaker, sleazier future, you’ll need this dose of cynicism-with-a-smile…
