Eleanor Rigby

Eleanor Rigby, by Douglas Coupland, jumps straight into the life of middle-aged, single Vancouverite Liz Dunn in a whirling tail of loneliness, breakdown, and the Human Condition. Unsugar coated, blunt and open, Coupland never shies away from the bigger issues of life hitting the reader with cases of MS - depicting quite honestly the crippling loss of self that chips away inexplicably at those effected. It is a blunt and therefore all the more effective look at sickness, human frailty and perseverance whilst incorporating the overarching themes of life, death, life after death, and inevitability of mortality.

Between the charming Jeremy who dreams of a simple working life on a farm to the office working Liz trapped in the cage of her own loneliness, the two begin to build a life together two halves thoroughly dependant on the other for more than happiness, but in many ways, survival. Coupland depicts perfectly the relations between the two as well as other characters, building a frighteningly real life wrought with the trials and small triumphs of Liz's life at 40. While seeing glimpses of her early years, it is the slow passing of her life up until the point she meets Jeremy that builds the foundation for the novel, constructing a crippling sense of self-inflicted isolation and lonely a condition mirror in a physical sense by the symptoms and complications of Multiple Sclerosis and their effect on one's body.

Coupland so easily paints the picture with such finite believability and detail that characters immediately become real, and true, a connection forming between them and the reader as you follow through their daily and (often monotonous) lives, all the while growing to love them more and more with each stumble, mistake or moment of happiness. Raw and rule, Eleanor Rigby is a true reminder of the importance of real connections, relationships, within the context of the both limited and fragile human life.