Customer Reviews

Generica

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I laughed out loud reading this book. The writing style & timing is absolutely hilarious. The premise is a bit unbelievable, but it's supposed to be. It's a fictional "what if" and it's told, as it should be, from the viewpoint of a cynical editor. The idea that a Charles Mansonesque brainwashing con artist could change the world is laughable, but makes you wonder...could it happen? I'd recommend this book to anyone who craves a unique storyline and escape to a world that could be.

`Generica' was much what I expected it would be - biting, `gen-x' satire, with snide inside jokes at the popular culture of North America. It was also very much not what I expected - very funny, very insightful, and the author made it very clear he was well aware of the irony of the satire. It's also interesting that he neatly falls into the angry, urban male category he outlined for Canadian fiction in "How to Be a Canadian". A long time fan of Mr. Ferguson, I grudgingly admitted that I was entertained, and impressed, when finished. As a side note, I find it fascinating that the book had to be remarketed (is that even a word?) under the European title "Happiness" to increase its North American appeal, while it has been a huge success overseas. Another sad example of Canadian apathy. Keep it comin', Will.

Generica (also known as Happiness TM) is vicious, clever, and insightful. The ending lagged a bit, but barely detracted from the pleasure of reading this book. I laughed out loud, and often.

On the up side, the concept is very very clever  What if a self-help book could really lead every reader to happiness? What would happen to the world?

On the down side, most of the answers are depressingly obvious, or they seem so after every irony (some of them wonderful!) has been belabored a dozen different ways.

I loved, for example, that the hero on which our author of ultimate-self-help actually models himself is the hell-raising actor Oliver Reed. But my amusement at the first round of reasons palled as the biographical details kept on coming  relevant but redundant.

Worse, our experience of a world transformed is filtered exclusively through the experiences of publishing-world cynics who do not change. Trenchant points are made (and remade), but idealism shows up only to be mocked.

How lucky for her fame and fortune that Ayn Rand, who wrote similarly melodramatic parables about social values, did not aspire to comedy! Social criticism is present in Generica, but it would take a gifted editor to carve a lean satire out of this flabby epic of humorishness.