His fans favourite book. YOU ARE THE FIRST GENERATION RAISED WITHOUT RELIGION What happens if we are raised without religion or beliefs? As we grow older, the beauty and disenchantments of the world temper our souls. We all have spiritual impulses, yet where do these impulses flow in a world of commodities and consumerism? LIFE AFTER GOD is a compellingly innovative collection of stories responding to these themes. Douglas Coupland takes us into worlds we know exist but rarely see, finding rare grace amid our pre-millennium turmoil.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Coupland's Generation X and Shampoo Planet explored the ennui of a generation of young adults, reared on a promiscuous diet of mass culture, who regard politics, sex, the job market, global events and religion with the same degree of ironic apathy. His new collection of stories offers variations on that same theme, a series of loosely connected, escapist adventures in which a 30-year-old narrator flees a middling job and hits the road in quest of authentic spiritual experience, reflecting with mixed nostalgia and despair upon past events, from his insular suburban upbringing to his recently dissolved marriage. In the opening story, "Little Creatures," the narrator, harassed by legal troubles and recriminating phone calls from his ex-wife, accompanies his young daughter on a car trip north from Vancouver into a primeval landscape enveloped in snow. After his car conks out in a desolate stretch of Nevada, the protagonist of "In the Desert" meets a wizened vagrant who feeds him cold fast-food before vanishing without a trace, leaving the narrator to muse about the transcendent value of "small acts of mercy." Like Generation X , the margins of which held snippets of data and other visual aids, Life After God is illustrated with childlike drawings of cute animals, appliances, barren landscapes, road signs and other symbols, a faux naif touch that underscores Coupland's fetish for lost innocence. Although these tales of escape from the taint of middle-class culture and technology occasionally do strike a note of real feeling, they succeed less as an allegory for a postmodern, post-ironic spiritual life than as an amusing travelogue for jaded, pop-culturally literate couch potatoes.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
In his first collection of stories, the author of Generation X (St. Martin's, 1991) and Shampoo Planet ( LJ 8/92) seeks understanding in a world gone mad, a world in which the lack of any spiritual center hastens people's rapid descent into an entropic black hole. Coupland's characters are lost souls, wandering on widely divergent paths, all seeking to fill an aching void. His vivid depictions of life's greatest fears (including chilling vignettes about the bomb going off) remind us that human beings have the ultimate power to destroy but lack the moral fiber to end such a threat altogether. Throughout this striking, sometimes poignant, sometimes horrifying book, Coupland poses thought-provoking and troubling philosophical questions that will challenge readers. In "Gettysburg," a character thinks, "Imagine that I am drowning and I reach within myself to save that one memory which is me--what is it?" Illustrated by the author. Recommended for all libraries. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/93.
- Kevin M. Roddy, Univ. of Hawaii at Hilo Lib.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
- Kevin M. Roddy, Univ. of Hawaii at Hilo Lib.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
40 of 43 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I was only recent introduced to Douglas Coupland by a pal of mine who pestered me for months to try his books. Now I'm glad she did. "Life After God" has a somewhat experimental feel to the narrative, but it's a successful experiment if it is.
Coupland explores the concept: "You are the first generation raised without religion." Or more specifically, how human beings (all of which are born with a drive to believe in something -- religion, politics, art) respond to the material-driven world. Meditations on what separates humans from animals, imagining a nuclear explosion and how it would immediately impact the people who die in it, a philosophical bout with depression, and how people respond to their "lives after God."
Disregard the initially off-putting title of the book, because that title really doesn't reflect what the book is about. At the end of one short story, the narrator concludes, "My secret is that I need God." Not the way religious fanatic Dana does, which is more needy and superficial, but rather in a deep and primal way. And Coupland doesn't go overboard trying to explain it to the readers -- he just writes it and lets it sink in.
It has a slightly odd format; the pages are tiny, and the parts of each short story are more like connected vignettes, some only a few sentences long. And it's sprinkled with cute little drawings, like Coupland doodled on his manuscript. (Rain, boxes, computers, matches, and a parakeet with a key in its beak, among others) As in Coupland's other books, there is a sort of unhappy optimism to these stories, and Coupland's musings about how a lack of emphasized God has affected our ability to love and believe.
"Life After God" is not exactly an ordinary book. But it touches very well on hard-to-write-about topics and its messages lingered for a long time in my mind.
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"Life After God" is a genuinely morose, sad, melancholic collection of stories dealing with loneliness, isolation and unhappiness. Most of its characters are numbly horrified by where they find themselves in life.
The stories here deal with that in-between world of the childishness of youth and the maturity of adulthood -- and how the people existing in that world make the transition. Some simply take the step, while others -- the people here -- can't help but pause and reflect, to question it, to wonder if it's even sensible.
Coupland's premise seems to be that this young generation of the '90s, so deadened by irony, so empty and unfeeling, experience this crushing loneliness because they are without religion (which is something I don't agree with, since I side with Marx and think of religion as nothing more than an opiate).
Coupland does understand his characters, though, and as someone who's just a bit younger, I identified with them (even when I found them pretentious and dramatic). There are times when I felt like Coupland was stealing my thoughts. Showing me conversations I've had about the worries and insecurities in my life.
The greatest thing about "Life After God" are the staggering and utterly true thoughts Coupland drops here and there, which are so perfectly accurate, they leave you gut-punched.
I probably enjoyed the final two stories the least, and "In The Desert" the most, but "Life After God" is an excellent story collection that displays Coupland's considerable talent.
The stories here deal with that in-between world of the childishness of youth and the maturity of adulthood -- and how the people existing in that world make the transition. Some simply take the step, while others -- the people here -- can't help but pause and reflect, to question it, to wonder if it's even sensible.
Coupland's premise seems to be that this young generation of the '90s, so deadened by irony, so empty and unfeeling, experience this crushing loneliness because they are without religion (which is something I don't agree with, since I side with Marx and think of religion as nothing more than an opiate).
Coupland does understand his characters, though, and as someone who's just a bit younger, I identified with them (even when I found them pretentious and dramatic). There are times when I felt like Coupland was stealing my thoughts. Showing me conversations I've had about the worries and insecurities in my life.
The greatest thing about "Life After God" are the staggering and utterly true thoughts Coupland drops here and there, which are so perfectly accurate, they leave you gut-punched.
I probably enjoyed the final two stories the least, and "In The Desert" the most, but "Life After God" is an excellent story collection that displays Coupland's considerable talent.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This splendidly written book captivates the reader with compassion for the main character as he stumbles through the mistakes and beauty he has created in his life. The book follows the journey of a person who is trying to discover who he is in the midst of a fallen world, void spirituality and broken dreams. I'm a huge fan of the author, Douglas Coupland, and I feel that this is by far his best work. It will make you laugh, cry and ponder this crazy thing we call existence.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Retrospectively accurate
I read this book 15 years ago, when I was 15. I loaned it to a friend who liked the cover art and internal pictures. She never gave it back. Read more
Published 14 days ago by Rachel Zimmerman
Fantastic book!
What an amazing book! I had to read this for a class and it blew my mind. I can't wait to read more of this author!
Published 23 days ago by Student
Coupland's Finest
I stumbled across Life After God in a used bookstore years ago and found the cover (the prior edition) and the title interesting enough to spend the $3.00 on it. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Chuck Silo
Great!
I received this book last Sunday and I read it in just 3 days. It's great, it has become one of my favourite books.
Published 2 months ago by Engel
Atheists will probably disagree with the conclusion
SPOILER ALERT
I've read quite a few other Coupland books and have found the last couple of be a bit of a chore to get through compared to his earlier work. Read more
I've read quite a few other Coupland books and have found the last couple of be a bit of a chore to get through compared to his earlier work. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Simon Waddington
Still On My Mind
Here's what I like about Coupland's fiction work. He writes characters that I can relate to. Not all of them but most. Read more
Published 17 months ago by iamseamus
Life, eh? What a let down...
This is the 8th book of Coupland's I've read and I wouldn't have read this many if I didn't think he was a great writer doing wonderful things with the novel. Read more
Published on May 18, 2010 by Sam Quixote
4.5 Stars - I'll be thinking of this for a long time
"Life After God" is a collection of short works, some of which are obviously fictional and some it is hard to tell. Read more
Published on September 29, 2009 by M. J. Keel
Excellent
"Beyond a certain age, sincerity ceases to feel pornographic."
This is an excellent book. Read more
This is an excellent book. Read more
Published on February 23, 2008 by Adam Loghry
Oddly Interesting
I enjoyed this book. My first Coupland read but certainly not my last. Seems quite different than other Coupland I've read. Read more
Published on September 16, 2007 by machinetwelve
Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
I was driving you up to Prince George to the home of your grandfather, the golf wino. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
British Columbia, Las Vegas, Palm Springs, Patty Hearst, Vancouver Island, Pacific Ocean, West Vancouver, Burger King, North Shore New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
I was driving you up to Prince George to the home of your grandfather, the golf wino. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
British Columbia, Las Vegas, Palm Springs, Patty Hearst, Vancouver Island, Pacific Ocean, West Vancouver, Burger King, North Shore New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 4
books:
75
books
cite this book:
See all 75 books citing this book
- Shampoo Planet by Douglas Coupland in Front Matter (1), and Front Matter (2)
- The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss on page 20
- San Bernardino County by Automobile Club of Southern California on page 165
- Riverside County by Automobile Club of Southern California on page 165
- Inside the Soul of a New Generation by Tim Celek on 4 pages
- New Way to Be Human: A Provocative Look at What It Means to Follow Jesus by Charlie Peacock-Ashworth on 4 pages
- Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message by Ravi Zacharias on page 94, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Emerging Hope: A Strategy for Reaching Postmodern Generations by Jimmy Long on page 52, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Engaging the Soul of Youth Culture: Bridging Teen Worldviews and Christian Truth by Walt Mueller on page 224, page 225, and Back Matter
See all 75 books citing this book
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