"Generation X: tales for an accelerated culture"
by Douglas Coupland
St. Martin’s | March 1991 | ISBN 031205436X
Recommended by Jessica Reed: In many ways Douglas Coupland is like Andy Warhol. His art may not be mind-blowing at first glance, but contextualisation is everything: he captures the essence of a generation. Generation X is the post-modern Bible for hordes of self-defined slackers and alternative kids who feel they do not 'fit in' and demand more out of life than consumerism and pop-culture junk.
Coupland's novel, his first, is just that: a glimpse in to the lives of three 20-something year-olds leading an eerie existence where nothing seems to happen. Too bored and deluded to enjoy their privileged-but-messed up North American lives, they decide to live as cultural outcasts, spending their time fabricating stories to fight monotony. These three character's tales, exchanged at night time, with glasses of alcohol in hand, permit them to flee, but also to succumb to, the great wave of apathy that was the 1990s. If sarcasm is inherent in their speech, it is offset by a strong dimension of despair when they realise cynicism and irony are their only ways to communicate.
Coupland's forte is satire, his gift is to capture the iconic details which embody the way of life for the uncool-cool kids (in ways similar to how Warhol objectifies the soup can). He uses his prose like photography: Coupland’s writing, like snapshots, illustrates what it feels like to be a troubled 20-something living in the 1990s. Everything is overwhelmingly confusing and nobody is to be trusted - especially the Baby-boomer parents who 'failed them'.
Many of my friends and peers (myself included) are sceptical of the vague categories we are often pushed in – the 'MTV generation', the 'E-generation' – often created by the media to simplify complex sociological trends. But this book genuinely gives a voice that was previously silenced by deafening music videos and endless television advertising. Generation X has not dated, fifteen years after it was published, it still sets the example for those who want to overcome the craze of mass-consumerism and hysteric consumption, for those who suspect there's more to life than Nike trainers and Wendy's all-you-can-eat-meals. It's the voice of the underdog, the punk crowd and the angry-without-motive youth all at once. And it's why 20-something youngsters like myself find a resonance in Coupland's work: he hits a difficult but truthful chord. Cynicism is too often a reaction to crushed idealism, but realising we're not the only ones feeling this way makes our godless post-modern life less unbearable.
In this respect, Coupland's art is a contemplative effort disguised as superficial 'fast art': every page of his novel may be escalating into a name dropping extravaganza, but the result hits deeper than many Cultural Studies' essays.
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About the author: Douglas Coupland is Canadian, born on a Canadian Air Force base near Baden-Baden, Germany, in 1961. Four years later his family moved to Vancouver, Canada, where he continues to live and work. Coupland has studied art and design in Vancouver, Canada, Milan, Italy and Sapporo, Japan. His first novel, Generation X, was published in 1991, and since then he has published nine novels and several non-fiction books. He has written and performed for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, England, and in 2001 resumed his practice as a visual artist, with exhibitions in North America, Europe and Asia. 2006 marks the premiere of the feature film Everything's Gone Green, his first story written specifically for the screen and not adapted from any previous work.
Source: www.coupland.com
