October 26, 2009
Welcome!
Welcome to my blog. I have Chosen to do my ISU on Douglas Couplands "Life After God." The reason I chose this novel is because it seem completely against anything I would enjoy reading, so I wanted to give myself a challenge. To my surprise, I found this novel is the complete opposite to what I initially thought it was. I suppose I proved that you should never judge a book by its cover. The purpose of my blog is to show you my views on Douglas Couplands' Novel. I have made an effort to form a personal connection to "Life After God" because I found it to be the most challenging connection to make, seeing as I grew up in a home with god, and the novel surrounds the idea of god not being present in todays society.
News Ariticle - The Star
Douglas Coupland, Canada's most patriotic cynic
Douglas Coupland is probably this country's best-known cultural multi-tasker: novelist, playwright, actor, TV producer, screenwriter, furniture designer, coiner of zeitgeist-defining terms ("McJob" was his, drawn from his equally lexiconic first novel, Generation X) and – oh, right – artist.
Not that his art career is an afterthought. It is art that brings Coupland to Toronto today for the twofold purpose of opening a show of his work at Clark & Faria (formerly the Monte Clark Gallery), and surveying the colossal installation of public art he's spent the last few years working on amid the Concord Cityplace condo development.
The former is smallish, the latter huge – at eight acres, by some accounts, the largest privately funded public art commission in the country, ever.
Let's start with the small. At Clark & Faria, Coupland's main preoccupation is parsing his relationship with an artist who would appear to be his direct forebear, Andy Warhol. This comes through in ways that are direct – silk-screened copies of Warhol's portrait of Marilyn Monroe, besieged by food labels or skateboard stickers or, in one case, an array of tiny cartoon flowers – and much more subtle and eerie.
The Marilyn series is called "Matricide;" in an equally dark parental reference, a series of gilt-framed wigs – one layer dark, the other Warhol-esque peroxide blond – is called "Patricide." Whether Coupland is defacing or eviscerating Warhol's project in an attempt to break free, or indulging in homage, is for you to decide.
"Warhol is obviously a huge figure in the art world," he wrote via email, "obviously, so much so, that artists often choose not to go near issues like repetition and mass culture ... it's almost a form of self-censorship. I just thought I'd bring it all out into the open with the wigs and Marilyns and Bills."
There's more here, too, all of it glitteringly seductive and candy-colourful – a series of "Talking Sticks," assembled of children's word blocks, spell things like "Quit Your Job," "Define Normal" and "Hot Shit" – but not without a touch of melancholy.
Coupland's dabbling in mass-produced sameness can't help but elicit lament. Coupland calls it a manifestation of "the kind of depressing legislated creativity that arises from big-box craft stores ... how to do something anarchical with flower stickers? That's a real challenge."
Meanwhile, out there, a different, less depressing vision is taking place. In his Souvenir of Canada books, seemingly cynical Coupland surprised many with his achingly earnest assemblage of consumer-culture Canada. From Canada Goose lawn sculptures to stubby beer bottles, the sense was a man who has taken even our most clichéd throwaways to heart.
So what to expect at the massive Concord Cityplace Park? It's mostly speculation at this point, but if you drive along the Gardiner Expressway, you'll get a taste: Way up high, a huge red canoe, beefed up, cartoon-style, made stubby and wide; and over a machine-contoured hillock, a stand of colourfully striped, man-sized spools that Coupland said were fishing bobbers. The park is due to open in September. Encircling it will be a walking path named for another icon of Canadiana and Coupland hero: the Terry Fox Miracle Mile.
At 3 1/2 years from start to finish, it was surely a challenge to the fast-moving Coupland. "I've never done anything with such a long timeline," he wrote. "I also had to learn about things like what sort of lawnmowers Metro parks people use and the thousands of minor issues involved with urban situations. Lighting. Dogs. Noise. Light. It was a learning curve."
Cynically inclined critic of mass-produced culture, or shamelessly earnest nation-booster – can the real Doug Coupland ever please stand up? The thing is, he may well be already – performing the previously-thought-impossible task of standing in two places at once.
Douglas Coupland is probably this country's best-known cultural multi-tasker: novelist, playwright, actor, TV producer, screenwriter, furniture designer, coiner of zeitgeist-defining terms ("McJob" was his, drawn from his equally lexiconic first novel, Generation X) and – oh, right – artist.
Not that his art career is an afterthought. It is art that brings Coupland to Toronto today for the twofold purpose of opening a show of his work at Clark & Faria (formerly the Monte Clark Gallery), and surveying the colossal installation of public art he's spent the last few years working on amid the Concord Cityplace condo development.
The former is smallish, the latter huge – at eight acres, by some accounts, the largest privately funded public art commission in the country, ever.
Let's start with the small. At Clark & Faria, Coupland's main preoccupation is parsing his relationship with an artist who would appear to be his direct forebear, Andy Warhol. This comes through in ways that are direct – silk-screened copies of Warhol's portrait of Marilyn Monroe, besieged by food labels or skateboard stickers or, in one case, an array of tiny cartoon flowers – and much more subtle and eerie.
The Marilyn series is called "Matricide;" in an equally dark parental reference, a series of gilt-framed wigs – one layer dark, the other Warhol-esque peroxide blond – is called "Patricide." Whether Coupland is defacing or eviscerating Warhol's project in an attempt to break free, or indulging in homage, is for you to decide.
"Warhol is obviously a huge figure in the art world," he wrote via email, "obviously, so much so, that artists often choose not to go near issues like repetition and mass culture ... it's almost a form of self-censorship. I just thought I'd bring it all out into the open with the wigs and Marilyns and Bills."
There's more here, too, all of it glitteringly seductive and candy-colourful – a series of "Talking Sticks," assembled of children's word blocks, spell things like "Quit Your Job," "Define Normal" and "Hot Shit" – but not without a touch of melancholy.
Coupland's dabbling in mass-produced sameness can't help but elicit lament. Coupland calls it a manifestation of "the kind of depressing legislated creativity that arises from big-box craft stores ... how to do something anarchical with flower stickers? That's a real challenge."
Meanwhile, out there, a different, less depressing vision is taking place. In his Souvenir of Canada books, seemingly cynical Coupland surprised many with his achingly earnest assemblage of consumer-culture Canada. From Canada Goose lawn sculptures to stubby beer bottles, the sense was a man who has taken even our most clichéd throwaways to heart.
So what to expect at the massive Concord Cityplace Park? It's mostly speculation at this point, but if you drive along the Gardiner Expressway, you'll get a taste: Way up high, a huge red canoe, beefed up, cartoon-style, made stubby and wide; and over a machine-contoured hillock, a stand of colourfully striped, man-sized spools that Coupland said were fishing bobbers. The park is due to open in September. Encircling it will be a walking path named for another icon of Canadiana and Coupland hero: the Terry Fox Miracle Mile.
At 3 1/2 years from start to finish, it was surely a challenge to the fast-moving Coupland. "I've never done anything with such a long timeline," he wrote. "I also had to learn about things like what sort of lawnmowers Metro parks people use and the thousands of minor issues involved with urban situations. Lighting. Dogs. Noise. Light. It was a learning curve."
Cynically inclined critic of mass-produced culture, or shamelessly earnest nation-booster – can the real Doug Coupland ever please stand up? The thing is, he may well be already – performing the previously-thought-impossible task of standing in two places at once.
Interveiw with Douglas Coupland
Alexander Laurence
(c) 1994
One of the Baudrillard-like comments by Coupland in his new book explores his new view of memory: "I believe that you've had most of your important memories by the time you're thirty. After that, memory becomes water overflowing into an already full cup." Coupland, as a writer, has always been short on character and psychology, and big on ideas and conceptual things. Many excerpts from his new book, can be seen on MTV. He may be one of the few contemporary writers who is guilty of too much thinking.
Alexander Laurence:
I'd like to start off things by saying how sorry I am to have missed the reading last night at Cody's Bookstore in Berkeley. How did it go?
Douglas Coupland:
It was a mob scene. It was cool. I read one short story, then I read excerpts of the captivity tape recordings of Patty Hearst. Let me wake up here...
AL:
How has the tour been so far?
DC:
Oh great. It's been really enjoyable and the readings have been enjoyable. It's been about a 12-city tour. I don't know if Americans consider Canada to have real cities? New York was the second city that I went to. I read at Barnes & Noble, at 82nd and Broadway, upper west side. There was a snow storm and the troops came out. It was great. There's that scene from Spinal Tap where they're at the record signing. The band is asking "You did advertise this event, didn't you?" It didn't happen this time, but it happened once in Edmonton where they really did forget to advertise. They said that they would atone this time. This will probably be my last tour. I think the airlines are mechanically and institutionally unraveling. If I stop touring, it's because of the airlines, not the bookstores.
AL:
I noticed that you refer to yourself in the second person. You say "you," and not
"I."
DC:
I always talk about myself in the second tense. I mean the second person. What's "the second tense?" That's something that will merit exploration. That's a Canadian thing: speaking about yourself in the second person. I'd rather be Canadian than American. But then, Canadian publishing is a joke. I don't know if Americans really care about Canada.
AL:
What do you think about the Information Superhighway, or more specifically, the SF Net, E-mail, the InterNet, and stuff like that?
DC:
Is the SF Net a Pynchonian secret mail service? Have you ever seen how boring a chatroom is? "Hey, how ya doing?" "Great!" "Bye!" I have American On-line which is a piece of shit. But I'm stuck with it. 2400 watt, O joy! I use it to write letters to Wired basically. Even then, you're not sure if they get through. One thing that I like about E-mail, as opposed to paper mail, is the people who at the moment have E-mail tend to be smarter and funnier and they're written for you. Paper mail is usually someone who wants some money. Paper mail is like Mary Tyler Moore looking at a steak, and the price, and tossing it into a grocery cart. Whereas E-mail, when it's to you, it's to you, and it's funny and it's real. I don't think it's radically transformed the personal web of my own life. At 2400 watt, how can anything transform the world? And American On-line keep lying and saying that they're going to 9600 watt, like that's some big improvement. I'm just so mad at those people. They provide terrible service and I don't know why they get all the press that they do.
AL:
You did some "spoken word" spots for MTV that are now being shown. What do you think about "spoken word" and MTV?
DC:
I don't write poetry. I respect it, but I don't write it. I don't know anything about it. We don't get MTV in Canada. It's literally illegal. The RCP can throw you in jail for down-linking MTV in your house. We have this thing called "Lunch Music" which is like MTV on 1/1000th of the budget. I think that MTV is certainly moving towards the written word. They're experimenting in all sorts of ways. I hope it works. They always try new things. Most networks don't. You don't see NBC or Fox experimenting with new ways in presenting the written word. In some ways, they're reviving it. People are talking about poetry more often now.
AL:
In Generation X and Life After God, you explored the themes of nuclear threat and cold war fears. Why do you think that these themes of panic and paranoia still seem relevant to our everyday lives?
DC:
The nuclear threat has never been more real or more serious than it is right now. You have all these nut cases (and I won't even call them countries because they're just nothings) with ICBM's. Everyone thinks that the problem has gone away. It's not gone away. It's gotten worse. I'm always astounded when people say "How can you worry about nuclear issues when they're so passe," like they were go-go boots or something. There's all these nut cases in charge of ICBM's now. They all hate each other, and they've hated each other for thousands of years. They're just itching to drop them on each other, and they will, next week probably. And that thought of "Everything is fashion" is going to sound ridiculous. It's a reality that we all have to live with. I don't think I'm going to write about it anymore. I think that I've dealt with it in my own head. But I wish people would stop treating the nuclear threat like it was the waif look. People of a certain age: they grew up with nuclear preparatory drills in school. Duck and cover. That kind of stuff. After a while, they gave up on that. Afterwards, there came this whole group of people for whom the bomb was still this enormous, looming, menacing, sexy, deadly presence, and yet there's no mention of it anywhere in the culture. It's not something parents could talk about because they grew up in an era of little bombs. They didn't have the language to discuss these things. Next week, Tamponastan is going to drop a bomb on Armpitastan. And it's going to turn into one big cauldron of venom. It's just a fact of life.
AL:
What sort of religious upbringing did you have? Don't you think that any culture is still reacting towards some religious orthodoxy, and cannot fully escape some form of religious ideology?
DC:
I was raised in a totally secular environment. That germ of Judeo-Christian thinking wasn't there to begin with. You can't imagine it there. It simply wasn't there. You are presuming that I'm some lapsed Christian. I'm not. I'm working from zero.
AL:
Are you talking about Atheism? How is a secular upbringing different from either an atheist denial or a Christian positing of God?
DC:
Atheism is nothing new. That's been going on for thousands of years. What is new, is that for the first time you had parents in the 50s, 60s, and 70s who found that it was liberating to raise kids without any religion. There's a small group, like myself, who were entirely secular. There's a larger group of Christmas Christians and Easter Christians who got those basic instructions about coping with the bigger issues in life, which in other cultures are simply handed to you on a platter when you're born. Then you have people like myself who reach a certain age when adolescence ends. We protract it out to 30 years. But when it ends, you want to look for some sort of brainwork, or foundation, or underpinning to make sense out of your life, which is usually not too positive. If you didn't have those Easter egg hunts or pictures of Jesus when you grew up, or something else to act as a pointer towards something else. So you have nothing. Ex nihilo. You have to construct some sort of empirically based, rational system of making sense of everything. And that is something I started doing two years ago. I haven't had any major, mega-epiphany, or something.
AL:
Since you have turned thirty, what has happened?
DC:
After you turn thirty, people begin to talk behind your back.
AL:
Isn't any involvement with culture a replacement or a resemblance of a ritual like an Easter egg hunt?
DC:
No, I don't think so. It's just a mini-version in a greater ritual in an orthodox system.
AL:
Has the use of "politically correct" language influenced you in any way?
DC:
I remember in the late 1980s when Time and Newsweek both had within two weeks their PC mania issues. "PC: What is it?" What is this thing that has taken over our culture. I read a description of it. I said "Oh, that's what Canada's been like since 1968, at least." Canada has been a working laboratory of PC a lot longer than America. Down here, it's like some newly found thing. Up there, in Canada, it's been fully functioning. Canada has been diverse for 25 years. People have stopped sentimentalizing the mono-culture a long, long time ago.
AL:
Is your writing a tool to make a greater sense out of the world?
DC:
Yes. That's the only reason. This accountant, Wayne, up in Vancouver, asks me "Doug, why can't you write books that people can buy in airports, with car chases and stuff?" I said "Well Wayne, that's not the way I write." It would be lovely if it was magic and I could crank out something in 18 months, and make zillions of dollars. That's not the way it works. That's not the way I work.
AL:
How was your experience working for Wired?
DC:
Wired was good. A lot of other magazines wanted me to write about Microsoft, but what they actually really wanted was a piece about Bill Gates, like it hasn't already been done. The magazines would say "We're looking forward to your Microsoft article." They really just wanted me to spy on Bill Gates and write about that. I told them "I'm not spying on anyone. You don't want a Microsoft piece, you want a Bill Gates piece, right?" And I said that I wouldn't do it. For a couple of magazines, I had the same experience. Names I won't mention here. They strung me along. I got Wired And John Battelle to write it into the contract that I was to write a piece about Microsoft and not Bill Gates.
AL:
What kind of drugs have you used?
DC:
I quit drinking and smoking five years ago. I've never done coke, acid, or ecstasy. I smoked some pot in high school. Vancouver is one big drug cesspool. Ecstasy must have some evil side effects? Like you lose 3 million brain cells. That's how a Canadian thinks. There can't be any pleasure with A. that you're a part of nature B. that you're a human being and there's a part of you that transcends nature. What is that transcendent thing? Is it that people need our lives to be stories? My favorite quote is by Tennessee Williams. He says "Nature is not created in the image of man's compassion." What is human compassion? It's something that I've been really thinking about. It's all that I think about. Trying to locate th about?
DC:
In cities, there's no nature anywhere. I live next to a park. I go hiking once or twice a week in Vancouver. That's the one granola aspect of my life. I have to be near trees all the time. In cities, I start losing it. That's how I ground myself. In the 1970s, in high school, when I did smoke pot, it always had to be around nature. But that was 70s pot. It was useless. Now, it's half-a-toke-and-you're- dead pot. I get paranoid when I smoke pot. It was all peer pressure.
AL:
Why do you think that you never got involved with the drug culture? Terence McKenna said recently "Going through life without taking LSD, is like going through life without having sex."
DC:
When I was in high school, drugs were common. Only losers did that. I was opposed to all that. Pot was the only OK forbidden substance. Watch those drugs! People do notice.
AL:
I thought that you said "Thought is the only forbidden substance." Maybe you did. So I was interested in your adolescent experiences. How were they different than for most Americans?
DC:
My experience was more unusual than most people in North America. I began kindergarten and finished high school with the exact same group of people. My parents aren't divorced. It was very stable: the community was incredibly intact. Once the kids left, the parents tended to move away, At the time, it was an amazing uniformity of view. It was literally the last suburb. There was a cyclone vent between us and the wilderness, which is the rest of British Columbia. Being from where I am makes you hyper- aware of yourself as an organism and your connection to nature: A. that you're a part of nature B. that you're a human being and there's a part of you that transcends nature. What is that transcendent thing? Is it that people need our lives to be stories? My favorite quote is by Tennessee Williams. He says "Nature is not created in the image of man's compassion." What is human compassion? It's something that I've been really thinking about. It's all that I think about. Trying to locate the better side of ourselves, because we're in this odd period right now where it's like Science Fiction. Machines are making machines, especially in the Silicon Valley, that are making people if not unnecessary, then besides the point.
AL:
There's also some form of information Darwinism taking over.
DC:
As the tree is being shaken, it's causing a lot of cultural fallout. The most important of which, at the moment, is Fifty-Somethings dropping out of the economy at a frightening rate, which I mentioned in the Wired story. Now the Forty-Somethings are starting to fall out of the economy. The 90s are becoming this enormous battle. If there's anything that defines this decade, it is the battle for staying and keeping yourself relevant. Are you relevant? Are you an information have or are you an information have-not? Are you a geek? Like a geek is suddenly the coolest thing you could be, because at least it means you're not losing the race.
AL:
You have machines on the one hand and nature on the other. Do human beings fit into the picture anymore?
DC:
It's not like without human beings, the earth would somehow fall apart. It's quite the opposite. Structurally there's nothing cool about us. There's something different about human beings that allows us to perceive time differently. Futures, pasts, stories, histories: we're so lucky to have it. It's the mystery of life. In the frazzle of modern life, which is getting faster and faster, there's no denying it, the ability to reflect on it is getting lost. The characters in Life After God are middle class people who were leading perfectly normal lives until some form of loss enters the picture. They were literally forced, bumped on the head, to reflect on it, about real fundamental issues.
(c) 1994
One of the Baudrillard-like comments by Coupland in his new book explores his new view of memory: "I believe that you've had most of your important memories by the time you're thirty. After that, memory becomes water overflowing into an already full cup." Coupland, as a writer, has always been short on character and psychology, and big on ideas and conceptual things. Many excerpts from his new book, can be seen on MTV. He may be one of the few contemporary writers who is guilty of too much thinking.
Alexander Laurence:
I'd like to start off things by saying how sorry I am to have missed the reading last night at Cody's Bookstore in Berkeley. How did it go?
Douglas Coupland:
It was a mob scene. It was cool. I read one short story, then I read excerpts of the captivity tape recordings of Patty Hearst. Let me wake up here...
AL:
How has the tour been so far?
DC:
Oh great. It's been really enjoyable and the readings have been enjoyable. It's been about a 12-city tour. I don't know if Americans consider Canada to have real cities? New York was the second city that I went to. I read at Barnes & Noble, at 82nd and Broadway, upper west side. There was a snow storm and the troops came out. It was great. There's that scene from Spinal Tap where they're at the record signing. The band is asking "You did advertise this event, didn't you?" It didn't happen this time, but it happened once in Edmonton where they really did forget to advertise. They said that they would atone this time. This will probably be my last tour. I think the airlines are mechanically and institutionally unraveling. If I stop touring, it's because of the airlines, not the bookstores.
AL:
I noticed that you refer to yourself in the second person. You say "you," and not
"I."
DC:
I always talk about myself in the second tense. I mean the second person. What's "the second tense?" That's something that will merit exploration. That's a Canadian thing: speaking about yourself in the second person. I'd rather be Canadian than American. But then, Canadian publishing is a joke. I don't know if Americans really care about Canada.
AL:
What do you think about the Information Superhighway, or more specifically, the SF Net, E-mail, the InterNet, and stuff like that?
DC:
Is the SF Net a Pynchonian secret mail service? Have you ever seen how boring a chatroom is? "Hey, how ya doing?" "Great!" "Bye!" I have American On-line which is a piece of shit. But I'm stuck with it. 2400 watt, O joy! I use it to write letters to Wired basically. Even then, you're not sure if they get through. One thing that I like about E-mail, as opposed to paper mail, is the people who at the moment have E-mail tend to be smarter and funnier and they're written for you. Paper mail is usually someone who wants some money. Paper mail is like Mary Tyler Moore looking at a steak, and the price, and tossing it into a grocery cart. Whereas E-mail, when it's to you, it's to you, and it's funny and it's real. I don't think it's radically transformed the personal web of my own life. At 2400 watt, how can anything transform the world? And American On-line keep lying and saying that they're going to 9600 watt, like that's some big improvement. I'm just so mad at those people. They provide terrible service and I don't know why they get all the press that they do.
AL:
You did some "spoken word" spots for MTV that are now being shown. What do you think about "spoken word" and MTV?
DC:
I don't write poetry. I respect it, but I don't write it. I don't know anything about it. We don't get MTV in Canada. It's literally illegal. The RCP can throw you in jail for down-linking MTV in your house. We have this thing called "Lunch Music" which is like MTV on 1/1000th of the budget. I think that MTV is certainly moving towards the written word. They're experimenting in all sorts of ways. I hope it works. They always try new things. Most networks don't. You don't see NBC or Fox experimenting with new ways in presenting the written word. In some ways, they're reviving it. People are talking about poetry more often now.
AL:
In Generation X and Life After God, you explored the themes of nuclear threat and cold war fears. Why do you think that these themes of panic and paranoia still seem relevant to our everyday lives?
DC:
The nuclear threat has never been more real or more serious than it is right now. You have all these nut cases (and I won't even call them countries because they're just nothings) with ICBM's. Everyone thinks that the problem has gone away. It's not gone away. It's gotten worse. I'm always astounded when people say "How can you worry about nuclear issues when they're so passe," like they were go-go boots or something. There's all these nut cases in charge of ICBM's now. They all hate each other, and they've hated each other for thousands of years. They're just itching to drop them on each other, and they will, next week probably. And that thought of "Everything is fashion" is going to sound ridiculous. It's a reality that we all have to live with. I don't think I'm going to write about it anymore. I think that I've dealt with it in my own head. But I wish people would stop treating the nuclear threat like it was the waif look. People of a certain age: they grew up with nuclear preparatory drills in school. Duck and cover. That kind of stuff. After a while, they gave up on that. Afterwards, there came this whole group of people for whom the bomb was still this enormous, looming, menacing, sexy, deadly presence, and yet there's no mention of it anywhere in the culture. It's not something parents could talk about because they grew up in an era of little bombs. They didn't have the language to discuss these things. Next week, Tamponastan is going to drop a bomb on Armpitastan. And it's going to turn into one big cauldron of venom. It's just a fact of life.
AL:
What sort of religious upbringing did you have? Don't you think that any culture is still reacting towards some religious orthodoxy, and cannot fully escape some form of religious ideology?
DC:
I was raised in a totally secular environment. That germ of Judeo-Christian thinking wasn't there to begin with. You can't imagine it there. It simply wasn't there. You are presuming that I'm some lapsed Christian. I'm not. I'm working from zero.
AL:
Are you talking about Atheism? How is a secular upbringing different from either an atheist denial or a Christian positing of God?
DC:
Atheism is nothing new. That's been going on for thousands of years. What is new, is that for the first time you had parents in the 50s, 60s, and 70s who found that it was liberating to raise kids without any religion. There's a small group, like myself, who were entirely secular. There's a larger group of Christmas Christians and Easter Christians who got those basic instructions about coping with the bigger issues in life, which in other cultures are simply handed to you on a platter when you're born. Then you have people like myself who reach a certain age when adolescence ends. We protract it out to 30 years. But when it ends, you want to look for some sort of brainwork, or foundation, or underpinning to make sense out of your life, which is usually not too positive. If you didn't have those Easter egg hunts or pictures of Jesus when you grew up, or something else to act as a pointer towards something else. So you have nothing. Ex nihilo. You have to construct some sort of empirically based, rational system of making sense of everything. And that is something I started doing two years ago. I haven't had any major, mega-epiphany, or something.
AL:
Since you have turned thirty, what has happened?
DC:
After you turn thirty, people begin to talk behind your back.
AL:
Isn't any involvement with culture a replacement or a resemblance of a ritual like an Easter egg hunt?
DC:
No, I don't think so. It's just a mini-version in a greater ritual in an orthodox system.
AL:
Has the use of "politically correct" language influenced you in any way?
DC:
I remember in the late 1980s when Time and Newsweek both had within two weeks their PC mania issues. "PC: What is it?" What is this thing that has taken over our culture. I read a description of it. I said "Oh, that's what Canada's been like since 1968, at least." Canada has been a working laboratory of PC a lot longer than America. Down here, it's like some newly found thing. Up there, in Canada, it's been fully functioning. Canada has been diverse for 25 years. People have stopped sentimentalizing the mono-culture a long, long time ago.
AL:
Is your writing a tool to make a greater sense out of the world?
DC:
Yes. That's the only reason. This accountant, Wayne, up in Vancouver, asks me "Doug, why can't you write books that people can buy in airports, with car chases and stuff?" I said "Well Wayne, that's not the way I write." It would be lovely if it was magic and I could crank out something in 18 months, and make zillions of dollars. That's not the way it works. That's not the way I work.
AL:
How was your experience working for Wired?
DC:
Wired was good. A lot of other magazines wanted me to write about Microsoft, but what they actually really wanted was a piece about Bill Gates, like it hasn't already been done. The magazines would say "We're looking forward to your Microsoft article." They really just wanted me to spy on Bill Gates and write about that. I told them "I'm not spying on anyone. You don't want a Microsoft piece, you want a Bill Gates piece, right?" And I said that I wouldn't do it. For a couple of magazines, I had the same experience. Names I won't mention here. They strung me along. I got Wired And John Battelle to write it into the contract that I was to write a piece about Microsoft and not Bill Gates.
AL:
What kind of drugs have you used?
DC:
I quit drinking and smoking five years ago. I've never done coke, acid, or ecstasy. I smoked some pot in high school. Vancouver is one big drug cesspool. Ecstasy must have some evil side effects? Like you lose 3 million brain cells. That's how a Canadian thinks. There can't be any pleasure with A. that you're a part of nature B. that you're a human being and there's a part of you that transcends nature. What is that transcendent thing? Is it that people need our lives to be stories? My favorite quote is by Tennessee Williams. He says "Nature is not created in the image of man's compassion." What is human compassion? It's something that I've been really thinking about. It's all that I think about. Trying to locate th about?
DC:
In cities, there's no nature anywhere. I live next to a park. I go hiking once or twice a week in Vancouver. That's the one granola aspect of my life. I have to be near trees all the time. In cities, I start losing it. That's how I ground myself. In the 1970s, in high school, when I did smoke pot, it always had to be around nature. But that was 70s pot. It was useless. Now, it's half-a-toke-and-you're- dead pot. I get paranoid when I smoke pot. It was all peer pressure.
AL:
Why do you think that you never got involved with the drug culture? Terence McKenna said recently "Going through life without taking LSD, is like going through life without having sex."
DC:
When I was in high school, drugs were common. Only losers did that. I was opposed to all that. Pot was the only OK forbidden substance. Watch those drugs! People do notice.
AL:
I thought that you said "Thought is the only forbidden substance." Maybe you did. So I was interested in your adolescent experiences. How were they different than for most Americans?
DC:
My experience was more unusual than most people in North America. I began kindergarten and finished high school with the exact same group of people. My parents aren't divorced. It was very stable: the community was incredibly intact. Once the kids left, the parents tended to move away, At the time, it was an amazing uniformity of view. It was literally the last suburb. There was a cyclone vent between us and the wilderness, which is the rest of British Columbia. Being from where I am makes you hyper- aware of yourself as an organism and your connection to nature: A. that you're a part of nature B. that you're a human being and there's a part of you that transcends nature. What is that transcendent thing? Is it that people need our lives to be stories? My favorite quote is by Tennessee Williams. He says "Nature is not created in the image of man's compassion." What is human compassion? It's something that I've been really thinking about. It's all that I think about. Trying to locate the better side of ourselves, because we're in this odd period right now where it's like Science Fiction. Machines are making machines, especially in the Silicon Valley, that are making people if not unnecessary, then besides the point.
AL:
There's also some form of information Darwinism taking over.
DC:
As the tree is being shaken, it's causing a lot of cultural fallout. The most important of which, at the moment, is Fifty-Somethings dropping out of the economy at a frightening rate, which I mentioned in the Wired story. Now the Forty-Somethings are starting to fall out of the economy. The 90s are becoming this enormous battle. If there's anything that defines this decade, it is the battle for staying and keeping yourself relevant. Are you relevant? Are you an information have or are you an information have-not? Are you a geek? Like a geek is suddenly the coolest thing you could be, because at least it means you're not losing the race.
AL:
You have machines on the one hand and nature on the other. Do human beings fit into the picture anymore?
DC:
It's not like without human beings, the earth would somehow fall apart. It's quite the opposite. Structurally there's nothing cool about us. There's something different about human beings that allows us to perceive time differently. Futures, pasts, stories, histories: we're so lucky to have it. It's the mystery of life. In the frazzle of modern life, which is getting faster and faster, there's no denying it, the ability to reflect on it is getting lost. The characters in Life After God are middle class people who were leading perfectly normal lives until some form of loss enters the picture. They were literally forced, bumped on the head, to reflect on it, about real fundamental issues.
Links
http://www.coupland.com/category/bio/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_After_God
http://bookreviewsandmore.ca/2007/01/life-after-god-by-douglas-coupland.html
http://www.zverina.com/bestbooks/990125.html
http://www.amazon.ca/Life-After-God-Douglas-Coupland/dp/0671874349
http://www.geocities.com/soho/gallery/5560/
http://www.altx.com/int2/douglas.coupland.html
http://www.librarything.com/work/32008
http://networks.silicon.com/webwatch/0,39024667,39507457,00.html
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/652561
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_After_God
http://bookreviewsandmore.ca/2007/01/life-after-god-by-douglas-coupland.html
http://www.zverina.com/bestbooks/990125.html
http://www.amazon.ca/Life-After-God-Douglas-Coupland/dp/0671874349
http://www.geocities.com/soho/gallery/5560/
http://www.altx.com/int2/douglas.coupland.html
http://www.librarything.com/work/32008
http://networks.silicon.com/webwatch/0,39024667,39507457,00.html
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/652561
Historical and Inspirational
Historical Context
While researching the Irish potato famine, Coupland crafted multiple short stories, complete with images drawn by the author. He then took these short stories, and bound them into individual small books at a copy center. Coupland then gave them out as presents to friends. They were not initially meant to form a complete novel. "I had no idea they'd become a book-book until near the end" (USA Today, 1994).
The original book jacket for the hard cover carried the message “You are the first generation to be raised without religion.” It also carried the message “Please remove cover jacket flap before reading”. This is because Coupland found the original cover to be a distraction from the text itself: "So the book won't be judged by its cover, and so readers will be aware that they are holding this oddly retro little zero-tech paper-and-word object called a book." (USA Today, 1994). As well, the story, "In the Desert" is dedicated to Michael Stipe from R.E.M.
The book was initially met with very mixed reviews. Most critics compared the book to Generation X and Shampoo Planet and found that it was not in the same vein; Coupland’s first two novels defined generations, while Life After God was much more introspective. This left critics wanting. Others saw the text the departure from the earlier work a virtue, and praised the text for being “sincere” instead of purely “ironic”. Generally, the text was received by critics very negatively.
Throughout the life of the book however, the popularity of the text has dramatically increased in both respectability and popularity. In reviews for texts such as Hey Nostradamus! and Eleanor Rigby, the text has been referenced as one of the best of Coupland’s career. The book has also had an effect in other creative fields. The Ataris have recorded a song based upon “My Hotel Year” with lyrics directly from the story. The anime Ergo Proxy has also named the 18th episode after the title of the text. The book also enjoys a life in the academic world. It has been taught at major universities, such as Simon Fraser University. It has also been written upon in the academic study of Coupland’s work, "Contemporary American and Canadian Novelists: Douglas Coupland" by Andrew Tate from Manchester University.
Inspiration
After Shampoo Planet, Coupland began to look for a low tech topic for his next novel. He began to study the Irish potato famine of 1845-1847. While researching this, short stories “started popping out of [him]”. Coupland’s religious life as a child was non-existent. He was raised as a blank slate, with no religious influence from his parents. He didn’t celebrate religious holidays such as Christmas or Easter.
"For me there was nothing - not even the seed of a religious experience to grow from - and I found that I had to build (and continue to) try and build some sort of faith for myself using the components taken from disposable West Coast suburban culture. Malls and nature and fast-food places."
—Coupland, USA Today, 1994.
Life after God is one expression of this pursuit.
While researching the Irish potato famine, Coupland crafted multiple short stories, complete with images drawn by the author. He then took these short stories, and bound them into individual small books at a copy center. Coupland then gave them out as presents to friends. They were not initially meant to form a complete novel. "I had no idea they'd become a book-book until near the end" (USA Today, 1994).
The original book jacket for the hard cover carried the message “You are the first generation to be raised without religion.” It also carried the message “Please remove cover jacket flap before reading”. This is because Coupland found the original cover to be a distraction from the text itself: "So the book won't be judged by its cover, and so readers will be aware that they are holding this oddly retro little zero-tech paper-and-word object called a book." (USA Today, 1994). As well, the story, "In the Desert" is dedicated to Michael Stipe from R.E.M.
The book was initially met with very mixed reviews. Most critics compared the book to Generation X and Shampoo Planet and found that it was not in the same vein; Coupland’s first two novels defined generations, while Life After God was much more introspective. This left critics wanting. Others saw the text the departure from the earlier work a virtue, and praised the text for being “sincere” instead of purely “ironic”. Generally, the text was received by critics very negatively.
Throughout the life of the book however, the popularity of the text has dramatically increased in both respectability and popularity. In reviews for texts such as Hey Nostradamus! and Eleanor Rigby, the text has been referenced as one of the best of Coupland’s career. The book has also had an effect in other creative fields. The Ataris have recorded a song based upon “My Hotel Year” with lyrics directly from the story. The anime Ergo Proxy has also named the 18th episode after the title of the text. The book also enjoys a life in the academic world. It has been taught at major universities, such as Simon Fraser University. It has also been written upon in the academic study of Coupland’s work, "Contemporary American and Canadian Novelists: Douglas Coupland" by Andrew Tate from Manchester University.
Inspiration
After Shampoo Planet, Coupland began to look for a low tech topic for his next novel. He began to study the Irish potato famine of 1845-1847. While researching this, short stories “started popping out of [him]”. Coupland’s religious life as a child was non-existent. He was raised as a blank slate, with no religious influence from his parents. He didn’t celebrate religious holidays such as Christmas or Easter.
"For me there was nothing - not even the seed of a religious experience to grow from - and I found that I had to build (and continue to) try and build some sort of faith for myself using the components taken from disposable West Coast suburban culture. Malls and nature and fast-food places."
—Coupland, USA Today, 1994.
Life after God is one expression of this pursuit.
b) book reveiws
Negative Review
Life After God – by robert zverina
God is not the answer.
And neither is this book. Instead of offering answers, Life After God contents itself with voicing fears most of us are happy to ignore in a prose that is as economical yet evocative as the simple line drawings which head each very short chapter. The text and pictures exist in separate but equal worlds, like people, but, like people, they benefit from the presence of one another.
In a series of more or less related first-person narratives, we witness harrowing remembrances of victims' final moments after the Bomb hits, bittersweet recollections of love that faded like paint, and disturbing descriptions of consciousness blunted by prescription medicine --all part of a litany of worries and tribulations with which Coupland's too-hip-for-their-own-health characters struggle to cope without the benefit of faith. (The "God" of the title signifies the missing palliative for human sorrow and might be replaced by "Meaning," "Community," or "College," depending on the experience and needs of the reader.)
It's strange that a book about spiritual destitution at the end of the millenium should be such a pleasure to read. It's the same pleasure one derives from picking scabs, touching what shouldn't be touched. It hurts a bit but also feels pretty good. Oddly, despite their morbid acuity, the tales do not unsettle so much as they reassure, giving shape to the nebulous fears we keep submerged--the scabs we do our best to ignore.
As in Tales from Generation X, it is the telling which redeems, which offers hope: "These hands--the hands that care, the hands that mold; the hands that touch the lips, the lips that speak the words--the words that tell us we are whole." These too are the hands which pick scabs, the hands that tug at old wounds to, in Nathanael West's words, hurt the pain. But once peeled away the scabs reveal smooth new skin underneath and the promise of regeneration.
Despite nuclear paranoia, despite the dissolution of families, despite the disruption of communities, despite the death of God (with a capital G, no less!), despite the absence of meaningful work, it is our human ability to share experience in words which bridges the abysses between us and fills the voids within, which is why this book offers temporary solace to anyone who thinks they're alone in fearing the world is on its last legs.
Good Review
Every time I pick up this book, I get something more out of it. Sometimes I read it from beginning to end, and then at other times I just pick it up and read at random. This book deals with many of the big questions all of us will have to deal with in our lives. Questions like: How do we deal with Loneliness? Anxiety? Failed relationships? How can we find quiet in our lives? It also deals with the question of being raised without a religion or belief system and how, as we age, we end up struggling with spiritual questions.
If you can track down the first edition hardcover it is worth it. It is in a different format and shape. With the dust jacket off, it looks like a prayer book or bible. If you read it without the jacket in public places people will often ask you what you are reading. This was intentional and the shape and design of this book are part of the art of the book, and part of the complexity Coupland has woven into it. The front cover of the hardback also has an outline of a hand, like a tracing of a childs hand. As we are all reaching out beyond ourselves in search of some greater meaning in life, we are reaching out like a child in search of a parent.
My hat is off to Coupland and this amazing work of art - on all the levels that it is art of the deepest level. Coupland has created a masterpiece that will become a classic, which will survive through the ages.
Life After God – by robert zverina
God is not the answer.
And neither is this book. Instead of offering answers, Life After God contents itself with voicing fears most of us are happy to ignore in a prose that is as economical yet evocative as the simple line drawings which head each very short chapter. The text and pictures exist in separate but equal worlds, like people, but, like people, they benefit from the presence of one another.
In a series of more or less related first-person narratives, we witness harrowing remembrances of victims' final moments after the Bomb hits, bittersweet recollections of love that faded like paint, and disturbing descriptions of consciousness blunted by prescription medicine --all part of a litany of worries and tribulations with which Coupland's too-hip-for-their-own-health characters struggle to cope without the benefit of faith. (The "God" of the title signifies the missing palliative for human sorrow and might be replaced by "Meaning," "Community," or "College," depending on the experience and needs of the reader.)
It's strange that a book about spiritual destitution at the end of the millenium should be such a pleasure to read. It's the same pleasure one derives from picking scabs, touching what shouldn't be touched. It hurts a bit but also feels pretty good. Oddly, despite their morbid acuity, the tales do not unsettle so much as they reassure, giving shape to the nebulous fears we keep submerged--the scabs we do our best to ignore.
As in Tales from Generation X, it is the telling which redeems, which offers hope: "These hands--the hands that care, the hands that mold; the hands that touch the lips, the lips that speak the words--the words that tell us we are whole." These too are the hands which pick scabs, the hands that tug at old wounds to, in Nathanael West's words, hurt the pain. But once peeled away the scabs reveal smooth new skin underneath and the promise of regeneration.
Despite nuclear paranoia, despite the dissolution of families, despite the disruption of communities, despite the death of God (with a capital G, no less!), despite the absence of meaningful work, it is our human ability to share experience in words which bridges the abysses between us and fills the voids within, which is why this book offers temporary solace to anyone who thinks they're alone in fearing the world is on its last legs.
Good Review
Every time I pick up this book, I get something more out of it. Sometimes I read it from beginning to end, and then at other times I just pick it up and read at random. This book deals with many of the big questions all of us will have to deal with in our lives. Questions like: How do we deal with Loneliness? Anxiety? Failed relationships? How can we find quiet in our lives? It also deals with the question of being raised without a religion or belief system and how, as we age, we end up struggling with spiritual questions.
If you can track down the first edition hardcover it is worth it. It is in a different format and shape. With the dust jacket off, it looks like a prayer book or bible. If you read it without the jacket in public places people will often ask you what you are reading. This was intentional and the shape and design of this book are part of the art of the book, and part of the complexity Coupland has woven into it. The front cover of the hardback also has an outline of a hand, like a tracing of a childs hand. As we are all reaching out beyond ourselves in search of some greater meaning in life, we are reaching out like a child in search of a parent.
My hat is off to Coupland and this amazing work of art - on all the levels that it is art of the deepest level. Coupland has created a masterpiece that will become a classic, which will survive through the ages.
Biography
Douglas Coupland’s career has been, contrary to initial glance, consistent and methodical. His consistent focus has been on sculpture, writing, typography and technology.
Douglas Coupland is Canadian, born on a Canadian Air Force base near Baden-Baden, Germany, on December 30, 1961. In 1965 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 March of 1991. Since then he has published ten novels and several non-fiction books in 35 languages and most countries on earth. 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 spaces 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. In 2007 Coupland’s novel, jPod, was adapted into a series of thirteen one-hour episodes with Canada’s CBC.
His next novel, Generation A, will be published in the UK, Canada and US in fall of 2009.
Douglas Coupland is Canadian, born on a Canadian Air Force base near Baden-Baden, Germany, on December 30, 1961. In 1965 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 March of 1991. Since then he has published ten novels and several non-fiction books in 35 languages and most countries on earth. 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 spaces 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. In 2007 Coupland’s novel, jPod, was adapted into a series of thirteen one-hour episodes with Canada’s CBC.
His next novel, Generation A, will be published in the UK, Canada and US in fall of 2009.
October 14, 2009
Comments about the Responses
You are making strong personal connections to the text, Paige. This is good. You could develop these more fully by exploring the content in more detail. So, when you come across terms like "existential", investigate the meaning and add the requisite details in your response. In other words, try to synthesize your knowledge with what you're reading to make a strong connection. Good start. You just need to increase the level of complexity.
October 05, 2009
Biblography
Coupland, Douglas. Life After God. Toronto: Simon & Schuster Inc, 2005. Print.
Geddles, Dan. "A Case of Style Over Substance." Review. America's Most Critical Journal 1999. Web. 04 Oct. 2009..
Solinas, E. A. "Lingerings." Review. 23 Feb. 2003. 23 Feb. 2003. Web. 04 Oct. 2009..
"Life after God." Wikipeda. 06 Apr. 05. Web. 5 Oct. 2009..
Geddles, Dan. "A Case of Style Over Substance." Review. America's Most Critical Journal 1999. Web. 04 Oct. 2009.
Solinas, E. A. "Lingerings." Review. 23 Feb. 2003. 23 Feb. 2003. Web. 04 Oct. 2009.
"Life after God." Wikipeda. 06 Apr. 05. Web. 5 Oct. 2009.
Blog #4
Life After God - Douglas Coupland
pages 271- 360
1,000 Years (Life After God)
1,000 Years is the tale of a group of childhood friends. It is the longest story in the book. It is narrated by a character named Scout. The story illustrates where each character's life takes them, and their individual searches for meaning, and for God. Scout moves away from society, and into the wilderness, in the wake of an existential crisis, he is taking prescription drugs for some unnamed malady. He is searching for meaning, beauty in the world, what god is right for him, or is there any sort of connection to God. I found this section to be a tad out of the ordinary but in touches well on a very hard-to-write about topic that is written in a sensible manner. I found it so shocking how the teenagers started off so normal, and happy (as happy as teenagers can be). Then the drastic changes that happened fifteen years later: one is an alcoholic, another a drug-addict, another a drug-addict turned Christian, another is HIV-positive. The march of time has left scars, yet the narrator leaves us with his secret in the end which i find the most moving part of the entire novel...
"Now -- here is my secret:
I tell it to you with an openness of heart I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God - that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem capable of giving; to help me to be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond able to love." p.359
In Summation...
As i had stated earlier i assumed that this book has was totally against god in today's materialist society. At the end of one short story, the narrator concludes, "My secret is that I need God." Not the way religious fanatic or superficial way, 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.
pages 271- 360
1,000 Years (Life After God)
1,000 Years is the tale of a group of childhood friends. It is the longest story in the book. It is narrated by a character named Scout. The story illustrates where each character's life takes them, and their individual searches for meaning, and for God. Scout moves away from society, and into the wilderness, in the wake of an existential crisis, he is taking prescription drugs for some unnamed malady. He is searching for meaning, beauty in the world, what god is right for him, or is there any sort of connection to God. I found this section to be a tad out of the ordinary but in touches well on a very hard-to-write about topic that is written in a sensible manner. I found it so shocking how the teenagers started off so normal, and happy (as happy as teenagers can be). Then the drastic changes that happened fifteen years later: one is an alcoholic, another a drug-addict, another a drug-addict turned Christian, another is HIV-positive. The march of time has left scars, yet the narrator leaves us with his secret in the end which i find the most moving part of the entire novel...
"Now -- here is my secret:
I tell it to you with an openness of heart I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God - that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem capable of giving; to help me to be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond able to love." p.359
In Summation...
As i had stated earlier i assumed that this book has was totally against god in today's materialist society. At the end of one short story, the narrator concludes, "My secret is that I need God." Not the way religious fanatic or superficial way, 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.
Blog #3
Life After God - Douglas Coupland
Pages 167 - 267
In The Desert
Dedicated to Michael Stipe from R.E.M., this is the story of the narrator's trip through the desert. He is alone, but not lonely, even on his birthday. The narrator has experienced the deepest depth of loneliness. He stole syringes and steroids, to deliver to a celebrity trainer. The story is a road story, told as the character travels down Interstate 15, and the journey does not quite go as planned. He has an encounter with a man one his journey that changes his outlook on life completely. I found this story to be one of the most compelling and heart-wrenching. I found it pathetic how low this man has fallen behind in life. I found it to be a very positive and moving experience to read how he changes his life around for the better. He realizes that he is never alone in the presents of god. I find that to be one of the most important messages the author shares in the novel. I often wonder if the man he has the encounter with is actually god in disguise, but i guess that is up the the readers interpretation.
Patty Hearst
The female narrator of this story wonders about her life and the sequence of events that make it up. She first tells a story of a dog that died of a broken heart after its owner's death. I found this to be really depressing and wondered if its possible for anyone -let alone a dog - to die from a broken heart? Near the end of the story itself follows the narrator's trip to possibly find her sister, Laurie, who ran away from home while the main narrator was still young. Laurie had become a drug addict. She explores the feeling of loneliness throughout the tales. I found this story to be one of the most realistic ones. Many people suffer from addiction, i happen to have dealt with family members who have had to cope with addiction and still do to this day. I know how hard it can be to see someone destroy themselves with no regard for themselves or others, or even the long term consequences. Many people turn to god while suffering for addiction, so the story fit in perfectly with them theme of the book. I really enjoyed this story, not only could i relate to what the female narrator was going thought, but i'm sure many others could as well.
Pages 167 - 267
In The Desert
Dedicated to Michael Stipe from R.E.M., this is the story of the narrator's trip through the desert. He is alone, but not lonely, even on his birthday. The narrator has experienced the deepest depth of loneliness. He stole syringes and steroids, to deliver to a celebrity trainer. The story is a road story, told as the character travels down Interstate 15, and the journey does not quite go as planned. He has an encounter with a man one his journey that changes his outlook on life completely. I found this story to be one of the most compelling and heart-wrenching. I found it pathetic how low this man has fallen behind in life. I found it to be a very positive and moving experience to read how he changes his life around for the better. He realizes that he is never alone in the presents of god. I find that to be one of the most important messages the author shares in the novel. I often wonder if the man he has the encounter with is actually god in disguise, but i guess that is up the the readers interpretation.
Patty Hearst
The female narrator of this story wonders about her life and the sequence of events that make it up. She first tells a story of a dog that died of a broken heart after its owner's death. I found this to be really depressing and wondered if its possible for anyone -let alone a dog - to die from a broken heart? Near the end of the story itself follows the narrator's trip to possibly find her sister, Laurie, who ran away from home while the main narrator was still young. Laurie had become a drug addict. She explores the feeling of loneliness throughout the tales. I found this story to be one of the most realistic ones. Many people suffer from addiction, i happen to have dealt with family members who have had to cope with addiction and still do to this day. I know how hard it can be to see someone destroy themselves with no regard for themselves or others, or even the long term consequences. Many people turn to god while suffering for addiction, so the story fit in perfectly with them theme of the book. I really enjoyed this story, not only could i relate to what the female narrator was going thought, but i'm sure many others could as well.
Blog #2
Pages 95-158
Douglas Coupland - Life after God
The Wrong Sun
This was my least favorite section of the book, though interesting i found it to be a little less meaningful than the rest of the novel. Although i thought the concept of the world coming to end fit in perfectly with the theme of the novel. This section is also told in two parts, and was the only section in fiction.
Thinking of the Sun
This portion of the story is apocalyptic. Nuclear episodes and war cause a cataclysm that ends the world. Flashes of light replace the sun, and those who are alive to see it are reminded of their delicate existence. As i read this section i began to see the authors meaning behind his novel. He seems to think that a life without god is meaningless. I think the hidden meaning behind this section is the symbolism for the end of the world. Most people believe that light flashes before your eyes, along with the rest of your memories and loved ones. Coupland believes that the question of weather or not a god exists also comes to mind. I believe Couplands point is valid when stating that when your life comes to an end, who will you pray too? Though we are the first generation to be "raised with out god." Religious impulses still remain in the back of our minds. Society seems to be content in believing they are fine without a higher being, but how will they cope with loneliness or anxiety? Or even more drastic circumstances, the end of the world? Coupland made a valid point in stating that we as humans tend to search for god or a higher being when in the lowest of circumstances.
The Dead Speak
The Dead Speak, is a collective letter from those who died in this nuclear war. It gives revelations of their last moments on earth. It also relays the message that the living should move on, as the dead are in a new place and have changed souls. I found this section somewhat morbid because every letter from the dead - ended in "then i was dead." It just seemed to depressing, until i read the last page that was a collective letter from all of those who had passed away. "The birds are here with us now - this is where they went." This section last part shed a lot of light on the last section. I found this to be very serial in the sense that, this seems almost to similar to what would ACUTALLY happen if the world were to end.
Gettysburg
I found this section really touching, yet sad. This section was a letter from a father to a daughter about his love for his daughter and why her mother fell out of life with him. The father also goes into the details of honeymoon, her conception, and his contemplates on the major life changes taking place in his life. Its underlined theme is a story of love with a strong religious stance. My favorite quote from the book is, "And my mother says to me, "Honey God is what keeps us together after the love is gone." I thought it was a really insight (yet sad) way to end this section of the book.
Douglas Coupland - Life after God
The Wrong Sun
This was my least favorite section of the book, though interesting i found it to be a little less meaningful than the rest of the novel. Although i thought the concept of the world coming to end fit in perfectly with the theme of the novel. This section is also told in two parts, and was the only section in fiction.
Thinking of the Sun
This portion of the story is apocalyptic. Nuclear episodes and war cause a cataclysm that ends the world. Flashes of light replace the sun, and those who are alive to see it are reminded of their delicate existence. As i read this section i began to see the authors meaning behind his novel. He seems to think that a life without god is meaningless. I think the hidden meaning behind this section is the symbolism for the end of the world. Most people believe that light flashes before your eyes, along with the rest of your memories and loved ones. Coupland believes that the question of weather or not a god exists also comes to mind. I believe Couplands point is valid when stating that when your life comes to an end, who will you pray too? Though we are the first generation to be "raised with out god." Religious impulses still remain in the back of our minds. Society seems to be content in believing they are fine without a higher being, but how will they cope with loneliness or anxiety? Or even more drastic circumstances, the end of the world? Coupland made a valid point in stating that we as humans tend to search for god or a higher being when in the lowest of circumstances.
The Dead Speak
The Dead Speak, is a collective letter from those who died in this nuclear war. It gives revelations of their last moments on earth. It also relays the message that the living should move on, as the dead are in a new place and have changed souls. I found this section somewhat morbid because every letter from the dead - ended in "then i was dead." It just seemed to depressing, until i read the last page that was a collective letter from all of those who had passed away. "The birds are here with us now - this is where they went." This section last part shed a lot of light on the last section. I found this to be very serial in the sense that, this seems almost to similar to what would ACUTALLY happen if the world were to end.
Gettysburg
I found this section really touching, yet sad. This section was a letter from a father to a daughter about his love for his daughter and why her mother fell out of life with him. The father also goes into the details of honeymoon, her conception, and his contemplates on the major life changes taking place in his life. Its underlined theme is a story of love with a strong religious stance. My favorite quote from the book is, "And my mother says to me, "Honey God is what keeps us together after the love is gone." I thought it was a really insight (yet sad) way to end this section of the book.
October 04, 2009
Blog #1
Pages 1 - 89
LIfe without God - by Douglas Coupland
First of all, i would like to begin with pointing out that this book is basically set around the theme that we are the first generation to be raised without god. I found this somewhat amusing seeing as i was raised in a very religious household, and my family still continues to instill the religious moral and ethics in me, and my siblings. The main thoughts that crossed my mind were - are we really better off in a life with out god? Obviously, i believe we arne't - so it was a stretch to read this book with an open mind.
This book is a combination of short stories that all seem to have the same theme - being lonely, and without hope. The three short stories that are in the first section of "Life After God" are Little Creatures, My Hotel Year, Things That Fly ( which is also my short story for my essay).
Little Creatures & My Hotel Year
These short stories didn't have much of an effect one me, i found it to easy to interpret what the meanings were. Little Creatures is just a letter from a father to a child about his trip. He is separated from his wife, and tries to amuse his daughter with animal stories, but is too distracted to complete them. I found he often ponders "What is human behavior?" and is baffled because only "smoking, body-building, and writing" seem to differentiate humans from the animal kingdom. It also signifies moving on and seeing your children growing up, while looking back on found memories from the past, while all discovering what it means to be a human being.
My Hotel Year seemed an awful lot like a symbolism for being alone without god. It seems as though the two desperate lives of a head-banging couple and a male prostitute, who are all too alienated to connect with people. The one man, Donny has no real self worth and doesn't seemed to care about his well being, yet still values being alive. I found the symbolism of his homelessness as being compared to being without god. It leaves with without a home, just how a life without god leaves you with little hope in your life.
Things that Fly
I found this story the most interesting, i found the symbolism for Superman dying was actually a metaphor for how god is no longer a strong symbol in todays society. God/Jesus were (are) considered the most perfect beings (or were) in most western cultures. When he hears that Superman was going to die that day, he began to fall deeper into depression. To him, Superman was the one honest and good person left in the world, and he was going to die. He began to think that living in a world without superman was hopeless, and useless. I found this to be so powerful and moving because in todays society, the majority of humankind think they can live without god (or a higher power).
LIfe without God - by Douglas Coupland
First of all, i would like to begin with pointing out that this book is basically set around the theme that we are the first generation to be raised without god. I found this somewhat amusing seeing as i was raised in a very religious household, and my family still continues to instill the religious moral and ethics in me, and my siblings. The main thoughts that crossed my mind were - are we really better off in a life with out god? Obviously, i believe we arne't - so it was a stretch to read this book with an open mind.
This book is a combination of short stories that all seem to have the same theme - being lonely, and without hope. The three short stories that are in the first section of "Life After God" are Little Creatures, My Hotel Year, Things That Fly ( which is also my short story for my essay).
Little Creatures & My Hotel Year
These short stories didn't have much of an effect one me, i found it to easy to interpret what the meanings were. Little Creatures is just a letter from a father to a child about his trip. He is separated from his wife, and tries to amuse his daughter with animal stories, but is too distracted to complete them. I found he often ponders "What is human behavior?" and is baffled because only "smoking, body-building, and writing" seem to differentiate humans from the animal kingdom. It also signifies moving on and seeing your children growing up, while looking back on found memories from the past, while all discovering what it means to be a human being.
My Hotel Year seemed an awful lot like a symbolism for being alone without god. It seems as though the two desperate lives of a head-banging couple and a male prostitute, who are all too alienated to connect with people. The one man, Donny has no real self worth and doesn't seemed to care about his well being, yet still values being alive. I found the symbolism of his homelessness as being compared to being without god. It leaves with without a home, just how a life without god leaves you with little hope in your life.
Things that Fly
I found this story the most interesting, i found the symbolism for Superman dying was actually a metaphor for how god is no longer a strong symbol in todays society. God/Jesus were (are) considered the most perfect beings (or were) in most western cultures. When he hears that Superman was going to die that day, he began to fall deeper into depression. To him, Superman was the one honest and good person left in the world, and he was going to die. He began to think that living in a world without superman was hopeless, and useless. I found this to be so powerful and moving because in todays society, the majority of humankind think they can live without god (or a higher power).
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