I would’ve given this 9 out of 5 stars when I read it two decades ago (oh shit, I mean THREE decades ago), but now as my youth has evaporated, I read with slight derision towards the angst filled generation that, like every preceding generation, seems hell bent on casting off the materialism and tradition of our elders in a trite search for meaning in a fog of recreational drugs, flippant attitude and road tripping. I can’t escape the irony that I’ve bookmarked each short chapter with an AARP postcard outlining my benefits of membership. Yes, I will use and enjoy my free gifts of storage zipper bags to hold a myriad of absolute necessities like phone chargers and earbuds which would be unfathomable to the anti heroes of Coupland’s novel, as I reminisce of the good old days of MTV, film cameras, anonymity and boredom.

Maybe I’m just another yuppie wannabe harboring cryptotechnophobia, in desperate need of an emotional ketchup burst in this era of historical overdosing, having already performed my divorce assumption during my mid-twenties breakdown, or I’m simply in now denial, experiencing ultra short nostalgia in an effort to justify me-ism to mask the option paralysis that holds me back from experiencing an authentic life.

Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture is as relevant today as a Kenny G song. It's also as enjoyable as a read. If Brett Easton Ellis hadn't hit the big time with American Psycho, Coupland wouldn't have had anyone to mirror himself as he chased his own zeitgeist. I suppose he was in the right time and the right place, good fortune smiling down on him in the early 90s when the media picked up on his novel as emblematic of a generation. (Slow news day?)

There is no story in Generation X, nothing to hold on to. The characters are white privileged cardboard figures that ring hollow beneath their self-deprecation and unbelievable dialogue. They worry about the bomb, about their McJobs, about their navels. Some of Coupland's trademark trickiness is found at the bottom of the pages, with dictionary definitions of words meant to define this generation; but most of those words mean nothing today, if they ever meant anything.

So what is Generation X about? Three young people are holed up in the desert (New Mexico?) and spend their time telling stories to each other of the lives and people they left behind. Little do they know that the world is glad to see the back of them.

Коли після прочитання книжки одразу хочеться почати знову - для мене це найкраща рекомендація

Another unique one. Even better than life after god

This was a re-read for me for the MA center for the book 2024 reading challenge. 1st month: re-read a book you read a long time ago --> what's your take now?

I expected to find it more dated and less relevant now, but I guess I really am Gen X. So many things about the book and the characters should be irritating, but they just aren't for me. I love the stories that the friends tell each other, feel how being untethered and tethered both feel inevitable and interchangeable.

That this book is 30 years old does kind of freak me out though...

Found this mildly aggravating for a good few pages. I hope my reading tastes haven’t changed in my cynical old days as ‘Girlfriend in a Coma’ was a top ten favourite in my twenties. I sense I’ll have to be brave and reread it now to make sure I still love it.

Perhaps years of reading Ballard have now tainted my taste in consumerist disillusionment?

Спочатку було складно зрозуміти про що книга, ви ніби приєднались посеред розмови, але як це прийнято по ходу розмови ви починаєте розуміти про що йде мова. Ви просто слухач історії життя та побуту молодих людей, які вирішили з різних причин кардинально змінити своє оточення та обставини, але не варто очікувати якихось нереальних метаморфозів. Після прочитання може скластись враження, що ви прожили з тиждень в Палм Спрінгс поруч з Енді, Дегом і Клер та спробували вловити, а може і вловили їх мотиви. Круто, що книга розбавлена "притчами" та знайомими з життя визначеннями на кштал синдрому хворої будівлі та телячих стійл. Тож яку емоцію з земного життя ви заберете з собою?

At the beginning I thought oh great a story about three bored with life, pretentious, twenty somethings who give up their mundane jobs and move to the desert to live authentically. Cue eye-rolling and inner dialogue of "how am I ever going to get through this book". It wasn't until the second or third "story" that I started to get into this book and then even more so as I started to notice common threads and themes emerging that I sometimes experience in my life. Especially so in the definitions scattered throughout the book margins which would make me cringe and chuckle alike. Reading and relating to this book actually made me feel a necessity to curb my sometimes cynical worldview. Having just finished it I'm finding it hard to describe this feeling without some digestion but definitely recommend if only for the affirmation that our thoughts and feelings are not unique to any one generation or time. A somewhat troubling yet also reassuring discovery.

Дуже добре, і дуже затягує.

3.5 — wish i could go back to 1990 and tell douglas coupland that everything will get so much worse

Cheers @ brian

Condescending, right down to the 'glossary' in the margins. Stilted, pseudo-intellectual dialogue. Boo.