Hey, Nostradamus

Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland

Cheryl is the epitome of teenage piety, her purity running deep and steadfast with a stubbornness indicative of any 17 year old. Jason is everything his father isn't. Impulsive, worldly and antisocial he forges his own way blindly and wholeheartedly, trusting in the love and bond he shares with his girlfriend Cheryl.

This story is about them, and wholly not about them. It is at once a coming of age tale and a commentary on society at large. Focusing on relationships - and especially the familial kind - Hey, Nostradamus explores the complexities of the connections forged through necessity and life experiences. The difference between families we are born into and cannot fully escape, and those we seek out to spend our lives with. It is about innocence, and guilt. Avoidance and acceptance, and above all the overriding presence of Something Else. Of God, of spirituality, or simply of the contemplation of such ideas.

Coupland, as always, has an art for weaving religious or spiritual tones throughout his work in an accessible and unchallenging way. He manages to make the reader question thoughts of morality, sin, innocence and human behaviour without bogging down the narrative. Despite heavy subject matter, -destruction, catastrophe and violence are, as is common for Coupland - evident early on in the novel, the text remains a quick and easy read as it deals with dark subject matter in a frank and instinctively human way. This honesty allows the reader to be honest about their own emotions and beliefs, forming a bond between text and reader without enforcing ideologies onto him or her. It is the honesty and the boldness, never sugar coating events or feelings, that makes Coupland such a wonderful author to read. His tales however outside your realm of circumstance become feasible or relatable in the very reactions characters have to them: ones that by little stretch of the imagination could have been yours.

Furthermore the style of the novel is such that we are part of each narrators mind - starting with Cheryl who speaks so calmly and retrospectively - who draws the reader in with compassion and intrigue alike.

A wonderful balance between family relations, the darkness of a world under siege and the guilts of growing up and accepting or rejecting your parents teaching, "Hey, Nostradamus" is a truly excellent read and a great marker of famous Coupland style.

Girlfriend in a Coma

Girlfriend In A Coma by Douglas Coupland

Coupland is, truly, an incomparable author. Strange to be sure, his followers and fans range in opinion over what makes his works master-pieces, or failed attempts. Girlfriend In a Coma, titled after the song of the same name by the Smiths, this 1998 semi-futuristic novel strikes a fine balance between the minute realities of life, and the cosmic tragedy of apocalypse and has been widely referred to as one of his finer novels. It is masterful how Coupland can target the very essence of mundane life within the teenage characters who ground and narrate the majority of the novel - following them through the struggles of teen years, aging, and coming to terms with themselves, while weaving an eerily futuristic and socially critical world of comas, dreams, and end times.

The novel is split between three major points in time, and is told through 3 different narraters.

The first is narrated by a character well known to the other characters of the novel, and yet never fully known by the reader. Jared, introduced post-humulously, narrates in the voice of a deceased 17 year old 'ghost' for lack of a better word. The novel then switches to the point of view of main character Richard, as he narrates life after the coma, and everything that follows.
Following sections are told without the use of a narrator, only to return, in the final chapters, to the voice of 'spirit' Jared, again, to round of the novel.

It is in both the plot and the narrative itself, then, that Coupland plays with this balance between what is ordinary and real, and what is fantasy. As stated in an earlier review from the Times, it is "a disturbing, thought-provoking and moving novel. Girlfriend in a Coma has something of the quality of a fairytale, but it contains a sharp realism that makes the book scarily contemporary" (15 May 1999).

It is this focus on the individuals - the somewhat 'every-man' quality of Richard, kind caring and lost within himself - and the realism inherent in mundane life, that prevents the story from flying from the page in a whirlwind of disbelief as conceptual elements such as visions, ghost narrators and global doom hang over the plot.

Coupland's strength, of course, is in capturing the spirit of everyday people, his characters ever believable, relatable and -though flawed- thereby loveable. We want desperately for Richard to succeed, and yet we revel in his faults and failures, seeing in him the very same flaws we too possess. His devotion, too, to Karen - and indeed Coupland's devotion and attention to a character that is, essentially, off screen for the majority of the novel - is both endearing and intriguing, as it shows a measure of love and kindness we as readers both long for, and would like to think we too possess. It is a testament to Coupland's writing that he is able to make the reader continue to love and care for Karen despite no direct presence. Merely a background character, silent, she remains the fixture around which the story evolves and collapses.

For me it is the relationships, the honesty, and the simple realities, that make this story. Adding in the Canadiana so often found in Coupland's work - Girlfriend In a Coma takes place in his own city of Vancouver - the story became all the more real for me as I related to names and places. His detail with street names and landmarks foster a sense of familiarity that although specific to an actual location, allows the reader to feel as though they know the place - it is their own home town - whether or not they have been there. I, at least, found this to be true. For although I am Canadian, and take pleasure in the (often uncommon in popular literature) Canadian setting, I've never been to Vancouver. And yet, I felt I had. Simple detail, pulling you in to the story, allowed for a solid foundation upon which the reader could stand and therefore more readily accept the more fanciful concepts that are the hallmark of Coupland's dystopias and criticisms of the modern world.

A fast, quick read, Coupland with have you both connecting with his endearing characters, and questioning the very format of the world in which you live. At once acutely real and vastly fantastic, the pages will continue to turn as you follow the halting, tragic and - occasionally triumphant band of friends struggling their way from adolescence to adulthood only to find its really one and the same.

“there are three things we cry for in life: things that are lost, things that are found, and things that are magnificent.”

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.

What is to Become of Us?

The latest from Douglas Coupland, PlayerOne: What is to Become of Us? is yet another reason to praise the snappy, poignant unique style that has come to identify the author. His short sentenced, internal-monologue type narratives lend themselves too quick reads that rely not on the events of the plot, but on each character's perception, interpretation and introspective comments.

Player One is a modern day novel that focuses on the commentary of 5 individuals all stuck in an airport lounge for 5 hours during a sudden and riotous Natural Oil crisis. Each character is given their chance to explain and reflect on the occurring events in a unique manner, focusing primarily on issues of faith, death, life and the 'after' that so often punctuate Coupland's work.

"For a brief moment she thinks of the pizza-sized black circles cartoon characters throw onto the ground – portable holes – which they jump into to escape difficult situations. In her mind, that’s where people go when they die: down Daffy Duck’s hole."

Each character has their unique take on faith, the meaning of living, and the weight of sin and death. It is this analysis, or this series of events which facilitate the analysis, that provides the meat of the story. With each new conversation and event the characters re-evaluate their perceptions of North American culture, their own values, and try and make sense of their purpose in life - or, indeed, whether or not they have them. From the scientifically and socially ‘abnormal’ yet beautiful Rachel who’s various brain anomalies prevent her from recognizing metaphors, faces, laughter or social norms, to the recovering alcoholic bartender Rick, Pastor turn thief Luke, witty single mom Karen, and the charismatic yet creepy ‘Monster’, the lot of them, a so-called “depressing grab bag of pop culture influences and cancelled emotions” contradict, compliment and question each other’s views of their world and the place they have in it.

Regardless of your religious, spiritual or scientific understandings of the world, PlayerOne makes you stop and think. Question things. See new perspectives. This, ultimately, is the signature of Coupland. He questions life and its functions, and therefore poses something new and interesting for the reader to ingest, digest, and do with what they will.

And though the subject matter may sound sort of heavy, the subtle humour, punchy style and short time frame of the novel keep it relatively light and easy reading, so that the reader does not get bogged down with concepts of Eternity, Sin and Justice, and the very concept of life as a story.
A well balanced, smart novel, easily enjoyable but just about any audience willing to approach with an open mind.
“Most big moments in life and death are quick – those key moments that define us probably fill less than three minutes altogether.”