"Для меня познакомиться с Анной-Луизой было все равно как поднять в магазине с пола оброненный кем-то сп��сок продуктов и вдруг осознать, что есть, оказывается, другие, куда более завлекательные диеты, чем та, которой ты придерживаешься. Впервые в жизни я почувствовал, что мне самого себя недостаточно.

Как-то раз в конце весны я тайком пошел за Анной-Луизой, когда она прогуливалась по центру, пытаясь увидеть ее как бы глазами постороннего прохожего - юные ноги, такие нежные под короткой, в складку, юбочкой, да и погода выдалась что надо, - как вдруг, шагая под безоблачным синим небом, она вытянула вперед руку, словно на нее только что упала капля дождя. Представляете?

А вот что представляю я: я сажаю в землю аккуратно срезанные волоски Анны-Луизы, как какие-нибудь тоненькие стебельки высушенных цветов, и наблюдаю как из них вырастают подсолнухи. Или: я зарываю в землю карманный калькулятор, набрав на жидкокристаллическом экране ее имя, а потом смотрю, как из земли бьют стрелы молний. "А слабо нам с тобой открыть ресторанчик "с морепродуктами?" - говорит Анна-Луиза, когда ей охота меня помучить. И это любовь. "

So, I'd heard of Coupland for years, of course. In fact, this book may have made my reading list way back when I was working in the downtown Oakland Waldenbooks around the time the book originally came out. Some things take longer than others to get to.

Coupland, the disaffected young writer who was supposed to be a voice for my generation. Or, well, for people slightly older than me. Or maybe I came in on the edge of Generation X (which will be another topic for another time). Coupland, who introduced the ironic age we live in now, or so the media would have us believe...Oh, wait. No. THOSE people, the ones who drip irony from their too-tight jeans as they walk down the street, are actually younger than me. They're even younger than Generation Y, the group of people represented in this novel, folks who want it all and get nothing.

I belong in no one group. This is, naturally, why there's something in Coupland's work which resonates with me.

I know, I know: everyone should start with Generation X. I didn't. I started here, and I actually like this novel better (even though Wikipedia says Coupland himself finds it contrived). In a rather strange way, it's mostly forgettable--but it's forgettable without exactly being forgettable, if you know what I mean. Of course you do. And you don't.

The book is populated with what I gather are the typical Coupland young adults--those who are working jobs well below their abilities and possibly their training; who are too introspective and smart and insightful for their own good; who used to have dreams and goals that were socially acceptable, but who have dropped these as unattainable empty promises and embraced smaller, more symbolic achievements. These are American children who are left to find a new way to rebel after their parents fought the culture wars of the 60s and 70s--the culture wars no one is quite sure who won. And, of course, Coupland wrote these characters in the wake of the plasticine 1980s, which means there is the lingering obsession with that old American Dream of wealth and status even as the realization dawns that such an obsession is mostly based on lies.

This sounds a little bleak, and it is. But it's a soft and possibly uniquely American kind of bleak, where repression is still lit with privilege and a small bit of whimsy. A lot has been made of how Coupland's youths are aimless, but I think in this novel in articular the main character is actually searching for quite a lot. The sensation of being lost comes naturally when a person must name for themselves what it is they're ultimately looking for, beyond any cultural mythos which has been handed down to them, beyond the goals other adults set for them early in their lives. The main character here, Tyler, has dreams of working for the defense corporation Bechtel, but he watches as this goal slips further and further away. The symbolism is obvious. Furthermore, he's the son of an ex-hippie, and the grandson of a wealthy couple who live in an RV and travel the American roads.

So here's this kid: traditionally ambitious, but unable to ever really move forward. He's sold to living within the framework of the American Dream, but is insightful enough to almost understand that it's a hollow goal for people of his time. And the most resonant part of the book for me--the part that is perfectly pitched and perhaps a little contrived and the moment of clarity which puts all of Tyler's longings and disappointments into perspective, the scene which I find oddly missing from other reviews I've read of the book--is this: after many personal and professional missteps, Tyler finally has the chance to take his girlfriend on the road trip he's been dreaming of for years. They drive and drive, revisit the commune of Tyler's very early childhood, and head for a forest he remembers visiting when he was younger, this place which rests in Tyler's childhood memory like some Sylvan Eden. When they arrive, there is nothing left but a clear cut ruin.

Maybe it's because I live in the land of clear cutting. Maybe it's because I'm fascinated by the debate over whether the American Dream is still attainable, or even still exists. Maybe it's because I've taken a summer job as a retail cashier in a business where three out of every four people I meet has a graduate degree, and I'm pretty certain no one makes a real living wage. But whatever the reason, that devastating image stays with me, and I fully understand why Tyler fell apart on the roadside upon seeing that wide swath of ragged stumps.

I would have a lot more to say on the subject, but it's time to go get ready for work.

Not one of his best works.

Starts like ketchup out of a glass bottle, but it's pretty good stuff and almost adorably quaint. As you continue to read you find parts you hate, parts you love, and parts that transport you. None of the characters are in themselves that interesting, nor many of the situations, but taken all-in-all and mixed together there's certainly something going on. Fever dream consumerism and alternative lifestyles, the two obsessions of the era, figure heavily in the bildungsromanesque plot.

If you were aware and alive in the 90s this book will take you back. The protagonist is a bastard through and through who kind of redeems himself, but only after a huge FrenchBabe® adventure. The resulting self-immolation of this ex-girlfriend from GeniuneWoman® into 90sFitnessHardbody® is written in quickly like an astoundingly incisive afterthought. There's glimmers like that throughout the book and some groan-worthy, über-savvy, multisyllabic hipness—this book came out just shortly before the rise of grunge. You can almost see the fluorescent teal windbreakers again. There's a real sense of nostalgia, and not just for the Gen-X-kid audience (I was attending kindergarten when this book was released).

Real DougCoupFic®, I guess, though it's the first of his books I've ever read since they were fully out of fashion when I was studying literature and from an era I rarely choose from. If anything this was reminiscent of that much-beloved Brett Easton Ellis classic everyone hates now, but far milder, the satire cut out (?), and without the transgression.