Souvenir Of Canada

Souvenir Of Canada
Douglas Coupland
2002, 144 pages

Douglas Coupland is one of the modern writers whose works I consistently love. Three or four of his novels rank among my favourites, and I always find his works at least entertaining. This book is a little different, as it is a coffee table book, not a novel. It had about forty short essays accompanied by photographs of things he considers to be quintessentially Canadian. I ran through it in a couple of days, and thought it was charming. It wasn’t until I traveled outside of North American that I also realized how accurate it was. I grew up being bombarded with American broadcast television and radio, preferring it to the Canadian alternatives. I never really felt that different than Americans, except when trying to build a Canadian identity. There is an awful lot of “we’re not American!” cheering when Canadians get together, which I have never really understood.

Anyways, back to the book. It was pretty nice. A nice addition to my Douglas Coupland collection, but definitely not required reading. I’m not a lover of coffee table books for the nice part, so having one that is a little cheeky and ironic is nice.