Generation A - Douglas Coupland
Douglas Coupland
2009, 297 pages
Set in the near future, Generation A tells the story of a world post-pollination, a world where bees are extinct, and peak oil has turned gasoline into a luxury item, along with fruits such as apples and oranges. One day, a young man combining a penis into an Iowa corn field is stung by a bee, sparking worldwide notoriety. Four more individuals are also stung around the world. These individuals are kidnapped by scientists and put into sterile rooms with all the labels removed, studied, and eventually released and then brought together to a remote coastal island, where they spend their days with the mysterious scientist, Serge, telling stories around the fire and bonding.
Coupland’s future is entirely wired. People are constantly blogging, and vlogging, and broadcasting things live as they occur. Solon, a new wonder drug, has taken over the lives of most of the people in the world, making them yearn for solitude and withdraw from the world. The book is written in a series of first-person chapters from each of the bee sting victims: Zack, Samanatha, Harj, Julien and Diana. In part, this book is a celebration of story telling and of reading. Coupland describes the feeling of curling up with a good book and escaping into another world, comparing that with the feeling of being on the new wonder-drug, Solon.
Overall, I loved Generation A. It was stylistically very similar to a lot of Coupland’s writing, where he jumps from perspective to perspective. The style really works, because his books are less about the external events that occur and more about people’s reactions and interpretations of their worlds. I think my favourite character was Harj, a Sri Lankan tsunami survivor, whose take on American culture comes from watching The Simpsons and Family Guy, and working for an Ambercrombie & Fitch call centre.
Where does this book fit in my Douglas Coupland list? Well, I think it goes like this:
- Girlfriend In A Coma
- All Families Are Psychotic
- Generation A
- Hey Nostradamus!
- Microserfs
- Miss Wyoming
- Generation X
- Eleanor Rigby
- Shampoo Planet
- The Gum Thief
- JPod
I haven’t read Generation X for a long time, probably about five or six years. I think I should give it another read.
