Life After God by douglas coupland

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

Early Coupland is actually pretty decent, and this was real early. The part about living in a cheap hotel for a year, with its portraits of the other residents, really stands dramatically out. Less so the more overtly spiritualized parts.

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Yas-

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

I honestly do not remember what this book is about, but I do remember that I really liked it. I had just graduated and nothing was making sense when a good friend lent this book to me. I would recommend it -- especially if you're feeling a little lost or confused.

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vash_the_bash

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that has polarized different aspects of my self as much as this one has, my first Douglas Coupland book. I experienced a wide variety of reactions from across the spectrum. There were times where I just wanted to give up reading it. There were times where I was pulled into trance at its beauty. All in all, reading it ended up being quite a memorable experience, and made my lunch breaks during this, the last week of the new month of the new decade, significantly more interesting.

The majority of the stories here revolve around a 30 something narrator from the Vancouver area who may or may not be the same person across all the stories. It is through his eyes that we explore the emptiness of the “Gen X-ers” via a series of loosely connected tales. Some of these stories really don’t feel like stories at all, but random philosophical thoughts encased in fragile skeletons of narrative. These stories, which appeared primarily in the first half of the book, were forgettable and I kept thinking to myself that I would rather have had Coupland just write a collection of essays. There’s a story in here about an apocalypse that was almost unbearable. But then, a story called “Gettysburg” rolls around, and everything changes.

“Gettysburg” is easily the high point of the book. It’s a poignant, sad, and very real tale. The story that follows, “The Desert”, is almost as good as “Gettysburg”. The character of the desert drifter, with his “microwavable plastic container of Beefaroni and a cold Baked Apple Pie from McDonalds” has seared himself in my memory. I kept asking myself how the book could have gone from such a horrid point A to such a luminous point B? But like I mentioned before, this book was one of extremes, and the same goes for Coupland’s rants and ruminations. There are moments where what he has to say is insightful, heartfelt, and even brilliant. And there are times when he sounds like a typical whiney upper-middle class college kid. The reason I’m giving this book three stars rather than two, is because despite whether the story is working or not, there is no doubt that Douglas Coupland is a talented writer. He’s great at capturing the sense of shock that a person can feel when being thrust into the “real world”, ripped from the innocence and awe of youth. His characters long to recapture that awe, that time where real feeling was as common as breathing, but find that they can’t do so in their self-created societal prisons. Some of them break free, and some of them can’t. There were a lot of really good quotes in this book, and I can see that many other reviewers have posted some of them, so I’ll refrain from doing so. While “Life After God” is a mixed bag, Coupland is definitely an author I want to investigate further.

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Weebrefer

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

“For there was once a time when we expected the worst. But then the worst happened, did it not? And so we will never be surprised ever again.”

Early Coupland short stories that even if I didn't look at the date of publication seem to be sister pieces from his wonderful debut, Generation X. There's a deep sense of melancholy written in to the meandering thoughts of his disconnected characters and on every page you find a thought or a phrase so powerful it can take your breath away, make you infinitely sad and still give you room to laugh, smile, smirk, or snigger a moment later. Still further, he shows you that even though you have no faith in anything (not just religious doctrine), that you've lost your capacity for wonder and enthusiasm, that you're counting down the days to your inevitable death, there's still hope and beauty in life waiting to be discovered if you can just raise yourself from the half-waking existence inflicted upon you by years of moving and breathing and hiding within a society that conspires to keep you ball and chained.

“Time ticks by; we grow older. Before we know it, too much time has passed and we've missed the chance to have other people hurt us. To a younger me this sounded like luck; to an older me this sounds like quite a tragedy.”

To regurgitate what I seem to always be saying about Coupland, and what others have almost certainly said before me; Coupland observes the contemporary malaise better than almost anybody else currently writing, and was on top form when he penned this collection, if you want simple yet beautiful insight in to the minds of those around you then look no further than Douglas Coupland. Although I'll add a small caveat in that you should probably get acquainted with his longer work first.

“And then I felt sad because I realized that once people are broken in certain ways, they can't ever be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one. You wonder when your turn is going to be, or if it's already happened.”

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FumoSnake

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

The book itself is a series of different thoughts put together badly.
Some of the parts remain unresolved when you reach the end.

The recurring series of "end of the world" events -successful in other books of Coupland- is a little boring here.

If you are planning on reading something from Coupland, choose something else.

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Bora-chan1

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

It's refreshing to know that Douglas Coupland can write something that isn't quirky to the extent that you're left shaking your head. This little novel is beautiful, I think especially for the twenty-somethings trying to find themselves. It didn't have quite the power and beauty I remembered from my first reading, but there is still truth in these words, in the string of stories that fit together so well.

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Erasiel

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

I could easily read this once a year and I'd probably be a better person for doing so. I love this work, beginning to end. I am also a little obsessed with geese right now so that gets the book double points.

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YetaiChu

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 17,2025

I have read this 3 or 4 times over the last decade. Each time I read it, I learn something new about myself in relation to the characters, as I have moved through different lifestyles. There have been times I started reading it and couldn't continue because of the despair I felt, other times it was the most uplifting affirmation of life.

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Life After God

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