Customer Reviews

Jpod

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

You just never know with Coupland, do you? Sometimes it is simply magnificent (Hey Nostradamus! Life after God) or at least sweet and moving (Shampoo Planet); sometimes it is a downright failure (Girlfriend in a Coma; All families are psychotic); and sometimes you get something in between, something that is very clever and entertaining and post-postmodern and selfconsciously self-deprecatory - and yet, the moment you turn the final page ("play again? y/n") you forget all about it (JPod). Maybe the forgettability was intentional in this novel about geeks who work in game development and who are obsessed with futile details and highly transitory, pointless hypes. The plot is way over the top and clearly not meant to be taken seriously, nor are we for a moment expected to believe (I hope) that any of these people might actually exist. We get (**spoilers**) a weed-growing mom who kills and turns lesbian; a sinister Asian man-smuggler who's only interested in 'making people happy'; an autistic teamleader who turns heroine addict and thus finds happiness; a dyke called freedom (no capital f) who turns into a bimbo called Kimberly; Coupland himself as Deus ex machina; and an outing to China thrown in for good measure. Coincidences abound and the point of all the frantic plot twists remains a mystery. Unless the point is the deconstruction of the novel as such.

There are several good laughs in JPod, and you won't be bored. The book however lacks the memorable observations and oneliners found in other, better Coupland works, such as Generation X. JPod is simply too facile - it takes a little more than quoting computerbabble, product packages, and internet-vernacular to be a chronicler of our times. This far-fetched story with its barrage of embedded puzzles rather felt like the (supposedly) intellectual counterpart to The Da Vinci Code. There is also a degree of arrogance I found somewhat off-putting. Coupland doesn't mind making his readers pay for 41 pages (!) covered with decimals of pi. Other pages are filled with chinese characters; the 8,363 prime numbers between 10,000 and 100,000; brand names; listings of product ingredients, and what not. All, of course, printed with the mandatory typograhical quirks that are the bane of novels these days. This book may feel heavy when you pick it up, but rest assured that most of it is fluff.

My advice? Sample before buying. If you are a first-time Coupland reader, there are much better places to start.

I have been a huge Coupland fan since I ran across a copy of Life After God at a Coles close-out sale in 1995. He used to write in a way that touched something deep and personal in me, yet which felt universal at the same time. I didn't mind that he was speaking for my generation (though I'm slightly younger than dictionary-definition "generation x"), because he did it so deftly and accurately. I have gone out of my way to see him read on pretty much every occasion that he's come to Toronto since 1995, and he definitely influenced not just my own writing, art, etc., but my own consciousness; my feelings of awareness and connectedness to my extended peer group.

Since...hmm...well, Miss Wyoming was maybe the beginning of the slide, but *definitely* since All Families are Psychotic, Coupland has basically been performing the literary equivalent of a face-first downhill slide. He's almost completely stopped caring about any of his characters' inner lives. He's stopped bothering to develop his characters' personalities or relationships with each other. The larger themes he used to explore so well - defining and exploring personal responsibility and morality in a postmodern world, lonliness and isolation, searching for meaning as a generation raised without religion - are completely gone.

I'm all for artists' development over time. I think it's great when a band like REM or an artist like Elvis Costello keeps looking inside themselves to see what's next, what's interesting for them to pursue. But I HATE when artists get lazy and start using the bare-bones premises of their style to churn out predictable, empty and vapid copies based on work that once showed sincerity and ingenuity.

I am the age of the characters in jPod AND someone who has been personally influenced by Coupland in my own development, and I have to say that I honestly couldn't relate to ANYTHING about ANY of them. That's partly because they were so 2-D, but also because they were all spoke with the exact same voice, and were completely blase about everything. I don't know anyone like that.

They had no conflicts, they cared about nothing, they were affected by nothing, and, in the end, they were absolutely unchanged in any way. Who writes like this? Who writes a novel that is longer than 400 pages like this?

Their relationships with each other were utterly ridiculous and meaningless.

Coupland re-uses his "pages of random text" schtick, which was Daniel's attempt to give his computer a subconscious in Microserfs and is completely decontextualized here.

And, most nauseating of all, he writes himself into the book as an over-the-top omniscient villain type character. I had to choke back bile each time.

An utterly, completely repulsive novel.

Is it possible that Douglas Coupland fancies himself the next iteration of John Updike? With the release of JPOD, Coupland delivers what could be considered the second book in a series modeled, however loosely, on Updike's renowned Rabbit Angstrom novels. Updike explored the cultural milieu of four decades in his teratology centered on a single character. Coupland's approach is slightly different, but his intention appears similar.

A look at the cover of JPOD, which features six Lego people, immediately calls to mind Coupland's 1996 novel MICROSERFS, which also sported a Lego figure on the cover. Both novels explore the lives of computer coders searching for meaning, and each does so in the very time-specific context of its moment. Indeed, the characters in JPOD explicitly sneer at many of the cultural cues that formed the backdrop of MICROSERFS.

Sneering might well be an apt description of the tone of JPOD, and that's a change from the more earnest feel of the earlier book. Coupland's latest is black comedy to be sure, but its heavily satiric style results in something of a backlash aimed at the very generation the author named with 1991's GENERATION X. Neither Coupland the author nor Coupland the character --- and he is a key and evil character in JPOD --- seems very fond of Xers.

In fact, the novel's narrator, Ethan Jarlewski, finds himself in a particularly combative relationship with Coupland, though that's hardly Ethan's only problem. He and the other jPodders, so named because all the members of this game design team have last names beginning with "j," spend their days trying to thwart the stupidity of their company's higher-ups. Ethan must also deal with his pot-growing mother, hapless would-be actor father, and people-smuggling brother, among various other broadly drawn characters.

None of these characters, including the jPodders, are particularly likable with the possible exception of Kaitlin, the newest member of the team and Ethan's love interest. All the characters are funny, however, and it must be said that JPOD's thin plot is held together by Coupland's ability to create preposterous yet humorous set pieces for his characters. The book's plot is often put on hold for a variety of asides that ultimately feel rather self-indulgent on Coupland's part. Ranging from a page filled with the words "ramen noodles" to pages upon pages devoted to pi --- with one wrong digit supposedly hidden among the tens of thousands presented --- these passages eventually become wearying.

Does JPOD capture the current zeitgeist with the same keen-eyed accuracy of Coupland's earlier novels? Perhaps. But Coupland's forecast for the future seems changed. Despite a quasi-happy ending, JPOD is more bleak than hopeful. It will be interesting to see what the little Lego figures presage if Coupland returns to them ten years hence.

--- Reviewed by Rob Cline (rob__cline@hotmail.com)

I liked this book very much, not as good as some of Coupland's others but entertaining none the less. Explored important and interesting themes, the desensitization of people through the onslaught of media and media options, materialism, violence etc.

JPod was a very funny and easy read and is difficult to put down. The only real problem I had with the book is that it is utterly forgetable. The novel leaves you the moment you close the book. Fun, but not core shattering.

In JPod, Douglas Coupland merely reformats his earlier novel, Microserfs, in order to produce a literary product that is sloppy, overwrought with cheap cynicism, and is a clear signal that he is no longer interested in writing. The book, as most readers will notice after about 100 pages, is the EXACT same structure as Microserfs, albeit twisted by taking what was normal in Microserfs, and making a sort of "hyper-reality" that is neither entertaining, nor enjoyable to read. It is as if Coupland were like the Hippy Generation, who after the blow-out in 1968 gave birth to movements like The Weather Underground, and psychotics like Charles Manson.

When the events in the book begin to become repetitive, Coupland merely inserts another set of textual jargon, numerical "geek games", or a clever turn-of-phrase, in order to keep the reader from losing interest. While novel in Microserfs, this technique comes off as lazy in JPod (though I found it helped me get through the book faster as I did not have to read it to keep up with the plot and could thus turn the pages faster). To make matters worse, Coupland inserts himself into the story, which may have seemed like a good idea during a heavy night of drinking, but should've been nixed by his editorial staff. It comes off as cheap and vain, and only adds to the reader's misery.

Readers should read this book, but only after it comes out in paperback...and can be bought by the boxful at the local Salvation Army for a dollar. Perhaps by doing this, the book will finally find its proper place in literary history- as kindling.

To end this review on a kind note, I recommend readers check out Microserfs, Generation X, and especially Polaroids From the Dead.
These texts were written when Coupland was in his prime and will fortify the reader prior to their decent into hell with JPod.

I read Microserfs & loved it. I picked up this book with high expectations, but I am returning it to the library only half-finished. I am so glad I checked this out of the library instead of buying it. Coupland's character's are weak and unlikable. The crazy situations they get in are dark, unfunny, and so fantastical that they're painful to read. Coupland inserted himself into the novel several times, which I find pretentious. The non-traditional fiction pages are interesting, modern, and have potential, but overall seem like a giant inside joke between Coupland and someone else...anyone else but his readers.

Let me start by saying Microserfs is one of my all-time favorite novels, and I was thrilled to find he was revisiting that world. Did I like the book? Yes and no. I am going to re-read M-Serfs soon for time 6 or 7 so I can compare. I don't think there's going to be much competition, though. M-Serfs will continue to be one of my favorite novels of all time, and jPod will just be an amusing book I read. That's my initial thought. I'll have to let it marinate for awhile. Some thoughts:

1. This book does not make one want to be a programmer the way the first one did, though it sounds like an amusing lifestyle. What it does do, though, is make one want to Blog. May have to start something again just to practice rambling online.

2. The narrator seems disliked by many of those around him. That wasn't the case with M-serfs. I can't point to much, although a couple of events are harsh, but there seems to be a general tone of derision when they talk about him. Maybe DC was trying to touch on the general self-centered paranoia felt by all of us? Tough to say. But the "things work out well in the end" last few pages don't go with the tone of the rest of the book; it's almost as if DC even felt that the tone was too harsh and tried to fix it. Of course, he makes a joke about the irony of ending the story on a happy note.

3. The story's strength comes from its characters, who are wonderfully bizarre, though often cardboard. It also comes from the humorous lines throughout.

4. I would say that DC wasn't going for a major life lesson, either, except perhaps about accepting yourself and being who you are. There're several characters that experience major lifestyle changes for the better when their personality shifts. Refreshingly unpreachy compared to everything from Girlfriend in a Coma forward.

5. The pages of numbers and random words made me feel cheated.

6. Coupland's self-references did not strike me as ironic. They did not feel ultra-post-modern. They weren't even clever or funny. Just doggone annoying!

I'd give it 2.5 stars if I could.

I've been a fan of Coupland's since "Microserfs" so when I saw that this book was coming out, I was so excited that I reserved a copy - in hardback mind you - so that the instant it came out I'd get it.

What a total disappointment.

This book has been pushed as an "updated" or "re-envisioned" "Microserfs" and I suppose that's nominally true. It's as if Coupland decided that what he really wanted to do was to write "Microserfs" all over again - only with less interesting or engaging characters and a much less interesting or believeable storyline. He even recycles dialogue and concepts from "Microserfs" almost word for word.

But for his major literary crime...

oh the horror....

...he starts inserting egregious "conversations" about Douglas Coupland into his character's dialogue. About Douglas Coupland the author, about the novels of Douglas Coupland, about concepts from Gen X and Microserfs. About how "Melrose Place" ripped off Gen X. This happens not once, not even once in awhile - but a LOT.

I stopped counting at 10 times.

And as if this weren't bad enough, at a key point in the book he writes himself, literally, into the book as a major character. "It's Douglas Coupland!" in a cameo role as - "Douglas Coupland!"

Awful. Awful. Awful. Unmitigatedly awful. The story just ends abruptly and without tying up several minor characters' plotlines. It's as if Coupland just pushed himself away from the computer and went "Ok, that's it. I'm done." Additionally there are, by my count 137 pages of random text, iterations of Pi, extra big text etc. 137 pages in a 448 page novel. It was functional and relevant to "Microserfs" but it's annoying and repetitive in "JPod".

Someone needs to tell Coupland that most of us caught on to the "I'm going to use a really big font and adjust my margins to fulfill my page count" trick a long time ago.

If I could give it less than one star, I would. Nothing makes me madder than when I feel like an author is taking his fans (and I was one) for a ride. It's disrespectful and lazy.

On the upside, the hardcover edition makes a very satisfying "Thunk!" when you pitch it against the nearest wall.

I'm a big fan of Douglas Coupland and haven't read any of his books for several years. I loved this book. His cameo in this novel was very witty and made me laugh aloud. I love all of the insight into working in the tech world. I worked for AOL for a while and a lot of his observations are spot on. If you like Coupland's other novels, you will like this one.

This was disappointing to say the least. I was very excited at the concept of a microserfs "sequel" and jumped in with both feet. However, right there on page one, a reference by the characters that they're in a Douglas Coupland novel. That was the biggest sticking point for me, that he had to bother putting himself into the novel, or some alter-ego. I've read them all (I think). and this one just seems quite easily the weakest of them. Bottom of the Coupland stack, glad I got it out of the library. Disjointed story even for Coupland, shallow characters, and too many pages of non-text with no decent context. Microserfs has been read and passed around, this will simply be returned to the library, maybe even late to keep people from having to suffer it.