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Loading... Eleanor Rigby: A Novel (original 2004; edition 2006)by Douglas Coupland
Work InformationEleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland (2004)
   No current Talk conversations about this book.  beentsy | Aug 12, 2023 |    ) mathgirl40 | Apr 17, 2022 | In this one I really liked Liz, the protagonist, I really liked the premise of the book, with a woman being alone and lonely and having witty and sincere inner monologues about it. I don't know what kind of plot I expected but somewhere around finding the long lost son I realized I wouldn't get what I want. Unfortunately I am not too patient with crazy people and their visions and strange ideas. Jesus, all those pages with telling and retelling farmers' stories - I had to skip them just to stop myself from throwing the book away. At one point when Liz said something like "it's great that he's sane now but what a pity he'll never have his visions again", I wanted to slap her hard on the face. Aside all that, it still was a page-turner, and it still had some great, deep and funny moments (sometimes made me laugh out loud), and I don't think my time was wasted on this, no. But anyway, I expected much more of it, so only 3 stars here. (  )1  alissee | Dec 8, 2021 | Liz Dunn, a woman in her late 30's is lonely. She relies on her daily routines and rituals to keep herself functioning. When she receives a phone call from a hospital, saying her names appears on the medical bracelet of a young man named Jeremy, her life moves on to a different tangent. Jeremy is her son, adopted at birth, whom she has never met. Their rapport is immediate, but Jeremy has an underlying health condition and needs her support. The relationship with her son, although short-lived is beautifully wrought but leaves Liz feeling more isolated and alone than before. As anticipated the title of the book refers to the Beatles song of that name and Liz Dunn is the writers visualization of that person. The pace and the tenor of the book did improve but the emphasis on Jeremy's visions I found strange and was unsure of their relevance to the story. There was also a somewhat farcical incident in the latter stages of the book that I found unconvincing. (  ) HelenBaker | Sep 28, 2019 | ) Brauer11431 | Apr 16, 2019 |
 And as the narrative descends into a series of wacky, quasi-spiritual coincidences involving meteorites and foreign soul mates, it tranforms from a novel into a Rube Goldberg device brutally determined to produce a nugget of poignancy. It's a lost opportunity. While Liz insists she is unique, she's got sisters -- a legion of cranky-plain heroines from Jane Eyre to Peppermint Patty. Instead of following their path, ''Eleanor Rigby'' dwindles chapter by chapter into a high-art twist on chick lit -- aiming for bittersweet but tasting at last suspiciously of artificial sweetener.  At a cursory look this book risks whimsy, seems a rather slender story about a middle-aged woman finding herself. A more careful reading reveals an utterly integrated and impossibly lightly held fable of blindness and vision. Its title acts as exactly the social synonym it is, not just for loneliness but for popular expectations of women of a certain age and spinster state, nothing more to look forward to than being buried along with their names. Distinctions
Following the hugely acclaimed bestseller Hey Nostradamus! comes a major new novel from Douglas Coupland: the wonderfully warm, funny, life-affirming story of Liz Dunn, a woman who has spent her whole life alone and lonely - until now... This is a brilliant work of commercial literary fiction from an author who just gets better and better. 'My name is Liz Dunn. The Liz Dunns of this world take classes in croissant baking, and would rather chew on soccer balls than deny their children muesli. They own one sex toy, plus one cowboy fantasy that accompanies its use... Look at me: I am a traitor to my name: I'm not cheerful; I'm drab. I'm crabby and friendless. And lonely.' Liz Dunn is 42 years old, and lonely. Her house is like 'a spinster's cell block', and she may or may not snore - there's never been anybody to tell her. Then one day in 1997, with the comet Hale Bopp burning bright in the blue-black sky, Liz receives an urgent phone call asking her to visit a young man in hospital. All at once, the loneliness that has come to define her is ripped away by this funny, smart, handsome young stranger, Jeremy. Her son. Eleanor Rigby is a tale of loneliness and hope that introduces Douglas Coupland's finest character yet. Illuminated by a wonderfully gentle, searching wisdom, it sees Coupland ascend to a new level of peace and grace in his ever-more-extraordinary career. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.63)
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Wikipedia in English
8
'Since I don't remember where I was before I was born, why should I be worried about where I go after I die?'
I love reading Coupland, beautiful little nuggets of words that make me stop dead and say YES! This was an interesting story with a few wait, wut? moments in the storyline. Some plot twists that smacked me over the head. Really enjoyed it. (