I loved the "global teens" just as much at the Gen X before them.

Libro non invecchiato bene o forse scritto male. Chissà. Avrei dovuto leggerlo all'inizio degli anni '90 per un giudizio corretto.
In sintesi si narra di un ragazzo che finito il college (con velleità manageriali) e appena tornato da una lunga vacanza in giro per l'Europa (descritta nei ricordi come solo un provinciale americano poco istruito farebbe) si ritrova nella famiglia composta da madre ex(?) hippie e fratellastri a cercare di delineare il suo futuro in una cittadina in declino per la chiusura di stabilimenti chiave.
Contorno di amici stramboidi ma non stupidi. Nonni falliti ma ancora in affari. Voglia di fuga per iniziare una carriera.
In parte richiama Alex di Casa Keaton ma MJ Fox era di altra pasta (e in piena era Yuppie).
Coupland ha (aveva?) la nomea dopo Generazione X di un autore in grado di descrivere i giovani in modo molto accurato e uno stile-prosa interessante anche quando si addentrava in altri paesaggi.
In questo caso è stato deludente. Sicuro che dimenticherò la trama in meno di un mese

p.s. titolo non del tutto centrato se si pensa che il nome (titolo originale Shampoo Planet) richiama quello di un negozio nel Mall amato da Tyler è nei fatti citato penso una sola volta nel libro e lo stesso dicasi per la passione della cura dei capelli (edonismo?) del protagonista

This has been my year of Coupland, having already enjoyed his novels Generation X and Miss Wyoming thanks to some recommendations and prodding from my good pal Tami. I can't enthusiastically recommend this one though; it was just okay for me. The characters were typically sharp and interesting, and the dialogue crackles like you'd expect. But the story just isn't that interesting; the characters aren't given a great arc. I found the tongue-in-cheek product name drops and ironic little copyright and trademark symbols annoying and silly. The French girl dialogue, though, is brilliant because it is hilarious and a completely accurate transcription of the accented way that my own French girls talk. And there's the priceless Coupland quotes, like these:

"Your inability to achieve solitude makes you settle for substandard relationships."

"I think about how I think I know a person then 'poof!' I discover I only knew a cartoon version. Suddenly there's this fleshy, demanding, noisy creature in front of me, unknowable and just as lost as I am, and equally unable to remember that every soul in the world is hurting, not just themselves."

Did I read this? I'm pretty sure I did.

If I have very little to say about this novel it is because I felt very little while reading it. Although it is technically well-written and the author is capable of painting unique characters, situations, and dialogue, there's very little to love about Shampoo Planet. Tyler is reminiscent of Catcher in the Rye meets American Psycho, but less interesting than either of those two leads, and the plot surrounding him is as stagnant as the small town he comes from. Anna Louise is probably the most likable character, but we don't spend much time with her (trigger warning for disordered eating) and while I personally admire Stephanie's independence and unwillingness to be tied down by a man and live life on her own terms, she's not all that fun for the reader to spend time with (although Coupland tries to convince you she is wild and exciting). I suppose if you haven't been to Europe before, you might find her glamorous.

There are a few nice lines in the book. The letter Tyler's mother writes to him is noted by other readers as an emotional and moral high point of the book, and while I agree that it's as much of a climax as this novel seems to get, I only really cared for a paragraph or two of it. Maybe I have a cold, dead heart but I've read more sentimental writing from a parent to a child elsewhere so this didn't do it for me. I also found there was a lot in between the lines, but we don't really know 100% what the characters are ever driven by or thinking about (which...points for realism, I guess) so the reader doesn't have the mechanism to fill in the gaps. Maybe that's why some people like this letter in particular - they fill in the gaps with their personal wishes of what they wish their parents would be thinking and feeling if they were to write such a letter to them.

I didn't notice the novel was in first person until I was almost 100 pages in, which is a huge compliment since I don't care for first person narratives. The novel is vibe-y and does a good job of evoking the early 90's, even with all the made-up names, places, products, etc. Coupland is a writer of his time and as contemporary as contemporary gets. From what I've read elsewhere, Shampoo Planet is one of his least-liked and least-representative books, so I may try another of his novels sometime on another one of my rare forays into contemporary literature. In the meantime, blah rating for a blah book - 1 star for enjoyment and value added, 2 stars for literary execution.

Enjoyable. Doesn’t really go anywhere. Fun.

Novela de la generación x, perfecta para darse un baño de nostalgia por los 90. Entretenida. 7/10

Not my favorite Coupland but I'm a completist.

Shampoo Planet (1992)

Mi aspettavo qualcosa di diverso, protagonisti più adulti e un ambiente cittadino e moderno, invece il narratore è un 21enne con madre ex hippy in una cittadina provinciale in crisi e, nonostante gli strani prodotti per capelli e i materiali tecnologici, i problemi di fondo sono l'incertezza del futuro e le relazioni sentimentali - niente di nuovo insomma. D'effetto la scena finale; carine le tavole periodiche degli elementi rivisitate.

I tried to read Generation X when I was 13 or so and, frankly, I just didn't get it. I don't think at that age we can truly grasp the bleak future that is a never ending parade of strip malls and McJobs shrouded in a neon disposable culture. Unfortunately another 5 to 10 years make these realities seem all too possible. I'm sure I would get a lot more out of it now, but instead I moved on to Douglas Coupland's sophomore effort Shampoo Planet.

Like all great Canadians, Coupland has a much keener sense of American culture then the average American. I guess it must have something to do with growing up next to a monolithic imperial country like the USA while trying to protect your own emerging national identity. The simultaneous proximity and detachment allows writers like Coupland to infiltrate the BS and get to the heart of the matter.

What is the heart of the matter you ask? Thanks to a culture based on mass marketing targeted at our every insecurity, we now live on a Shampoo Planet. Our hair care products have become both the manifestation of our psychological instability and the key to our spiritual salvation. Every new product allows us one more chance at enlightenment, moving us towards our ultimate goal: the perfect hair day.

The main character of the novel, Tyler, is a fascinating study of a young American male in modern times. The son of aging hippies, he has rejected their "homespun" ways to embrace the security of modernity and mass consumerism (He insists on only buying brand-name products). Facing an uncertain future in a dead-end town, he drifts through University while dreaming of a high powered position at the Bechtol corporation (Coupland's version of Haliburton one would assume). The book follows Tyler's life as it slowly unravels in large part do to his amoral approach to the world around him.


Shampoo Planet is a very quick and engaging read. It raises a lot issues about modern society and even offers a few solutions. Tyler's letter to the CEO of Bechtol about HistoryWorld is a classic and could easily be the platform of any progressive politician wishing to remain in perpetual obscurity.

bisschen belanglos, plot ähnlich (fast austauschbar) zu anderen coupland-büchern, sinnsuchender 20-jähriger mit welterklärunglust, ganz witzig sind die sinnsprüche die tyler auf geldscheine schreibt, vielleicht lag es an der übersetzung aber manche dialoge oder beschreibungen wirken schon sehr ausgedacht und holprig, so redet doch niemand ernsthaft

I recently became interested in Douglas Copeland and his GenX themed works as over the past year I’ve been reading several novels set in the era, most are newer novels but in some cases I am revisiting books I read back then and occaisonally I discover books from the era that I missed. This book and the author I somehow completely missed, possibly because I was in college at the time and busy reading classics and such. Yet in the late 90s, post college when I went back to more broad fiction reading I still missed seeing this and later Copeland books in the bookstores where I spent so much time looking for this exact type of thing. Similarly strange that no one ever recommended Copeland nor were there any book reviews on his works that I noticed. Better late than never.

As with his debut novel Generation X which I read just prior to this, I found it interesting how the GenX protaganist Tyler sounds so much like the stereotype of young people today. Frustration with lack of affordable housing, stress over paying tuition, the anger of society at corporations, annoyance with his grandparents and their perceived wealth and refusal to share that with he and his generation (he’s angry at his “Greatest Generation” grandparents individually for their wealth and blames them for all of society’s ills, like destroying the planet, yet has no anger at his boomer parents who have squandered everything they were given and who provided him nothing in return; much like todays young people are so angry at boomers yet are silent about their GenX parents), comentary on the urban decay as industries collapse leading to lack of good jobs, credit card companies preying on youth, etc… things really never change, one wonders if we’ve made any progress as a society. When this was originally released and I read other books like this I probably felt the same at the time, the Greatest Generation weren’t thought of as that as much, they were just the haves, the old fashioned out of touch types whose time had passed but they wouldn’t let go or get out of our way, they kept clinging to power. The Bushes and Doles who wouldn’t make way for the Clintons, and in a way, us. I have to cringe a little looking back but I guess that’s how it always is.

The story is enjoyable but its of the “stuff that happens” type when it comes to the plot. That doesn’t mean there is nothing to it, there is character arc (eventually) and the story is entertaining. There is a theme; its Copeland’s specialty apparently, a GenX outlook on life up to and including the present moment (the book was published in 1992). But the story isn’t of the type where the protaganist is facing a crisis or something big he/she needs to overcome. We simply follow Tyler, the narrator, who is a perfect GenX representative whom we see through a period of his life at twenty. The angst and introspection are there but he mostly keeps it to himself, just sharing it with us. With other characters Tyler is fairly practical and straightforward showing only a little of all that. This somehow makes him much more likable than most characters who are by design representative of GenX because while we get to see and hear his wit and sarcastic observations, that he doesn’t inflict this diatribe on other characters, for the most part, saved him from becoming insufferable pretentious creep as can happen in these types of novels. Pretty cool trick by the author.

The rest of the characters are well done and interesting, even though they mostly felt like charicatures by virtue of our not being able too see past their cliche descriptions as we don’t get their inner thoughts as with Tyler. In Part 3 some of the characters suprisingly got more depth, bringing some actual arc to them and to Tyler’s journey. This was unexpected. The settings are also very well done and enjoyable, from his hometown of Lancaster, WA, a fictional Eastern WA town in the desert/plains, to the other places Tyler visits, espcially LA. The author does a great job and visually sets those scenes early.

In particular I enjoyed the authentic early nineties timeline. I mention this because I have read several newer novels published recently but set in the 80s and 90s and they have a different feel. Some its noticable because they seem to be missing topics or even avoid words and phrases which would be offensive or problematic today; its hard to pin down but the new stuff just feels like the author is being so careful to include certain things (eg, pop culture references to “set” the story) or exclude others (non PC stuff that might get the book “cancelled” by the online rage mob) and it feels contrived. Here that is not an issue, Tyler fits in to the world and it feels real, whereas modern novels set in this era it just feels more campy, and they gloss over many of the issues of the day and instead focus on the cool things everyone remembers from the era, the big events. They name drop top 40 songs, films, or the more well known hot button issues of the day in an attempt at creating authenticity but otften fail. It too often feels surface level as if the authors didn’t actually live it and got all these details from research, or if they did actually live it they are so far removed from living it all they remember and include are the big picture points. Because this was written in its time, every llittle thing, every detail is of the era and the authenticity is there.

The prose, well, Copeland can write. Its not just that there is a lot of subtext or purple prose, and he’s not just telling a story. The characters are telling and showing us everything. His style and story is unique. And it all flows so easy, this was such a fast and easy read, even though I had a lot going on it was easy to pick it up and get right back into the story. No wasted words or lines, he is a talented writer.

This book stands the test of time. Its a fun and easy read, highly recomend.