Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture (1991)

I first read this book when it was most relevant to me. A friend, one of those friends who is not particularly hipster but always seems to know what's sharp on the bleeding edge, loaned it to me. It had that early 20s ring of authenticity. I thought it was marvellous.

I was disappointed by every single subsequent Coupland book and eventually stopped reading him. It was hard to reconcile the author of Generation X with the author of Girlfriend in a Coma. Were they really the same guy?

Re-reading it now, 21 years later, I can see all the stylistic quirks and tedious fixations that so depressed me in all his other work and the joy and relief and recognition I once felt reading Generation X is hardly even a memory.

This is a book about storytelling and fear and the pomposity of youth. It's pretty good.

( )

My reactions to reading this book in 1992. Spoilers follow.

I read this shortly after reading Generations by William Strauss and Neill Howe. Their nonfiction work of sociology and history claimed that the reactive generational types (particularly, the Lost Generation which produced Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and F. Scott Fitzgerald) often produce America’s best writers. I wanted to see what Coupland would have to say about our mutual generation, the reactive 13ers, and our plight and attitudes, so my reaction is twofold to this book: one on its literary merits, one on how truthful it is portraying our generation.

On the literary level, it’s a quick, fun read. I won’t say you really come to care for Claire Baxter, Dagmar Bellinghaus, and narrator Andrew Palmer, but they are interesting to be around -- at least on the edited, organized printed page. Coupland does try to reach for a new image or metaphor (most of which seem to be drawn from pop culture or achitecture) too hard sometimes, but some of them are genuinely arresting like comparing the future to a “horrible diseased drifter”. It strikes me that this book, filled with little tales Dag, Clair, and Andy (and a couple of ther minor characters) tell each is a sort of anti-Canterbury Tales. The novel starts out in the desert of Palm Springs and ends in the desert of Calexico, Mexico. There is no movement to a City of God, a spiritual enlightenment, a new understanding of self, or even a future (Dag at one point laments of “futurelessness”), only a physical movement (appropriate since reactive generations are often referred to as peripatetic). The tales the characters tell ring with frustrated quests, apocalypse, longing, frustrated ambition, and loneliness. Dag’s tale of apocalypse met in a supermarket, a boy chasing lightening storms across the prairie hoping to be struck, Claire’s tales of fatal -- yet longed for -- love on the strange asteroid Texlahoma where it’s always a strange twisted version of a dark 1974, Claire’s tale of the woman that implodes upon spiritual enlightenment, Eluissa’s tale of a long hoped reunion with an ex-lover that comes to nothing. As Dag says, life in this book is “kind of scary, kind of sexy, and tainted by regret”. In the end, when Claire, Dag, and Andy go to Mexico to live on “the lurider side of the fence”, to enact their “difficult destinies”, I sensed little psychological, little psychic change in the main character,s merely an external manifestation of their lifestyle attitudes by moving to Mexico and getting a hotel. I don’t think this is bad. I don’t believe in the “requirement” that characters must change in a story. The best part of the novel is the marginalia: the cartoons, stamps, and coined phrases. The latter are especially truthful in detailing 13er plights and attitudes. Several are humorous and deserve wider use.

To me, the book seemed to have a lot of truth in it about Coupland’s and mine generation. Dag shows the 13er resentment of old people (the retirement leeches of the civic generation of G.I.s whose mooching is detailed in an appendix of statistics) and Boomers who have won “a genetic lottery” and lucked into the jobs reactives want. There are the relatively uneducated, but ambitious “Global Teens”, the ones who want to work for a big corporation and earn lots of money. And there is the love of fashion. Its interesting to contrast the novel with the slovenly portrayal of 13ers in the movie Slackers. Both, though, feature characters aimless, befuddled, voraciously consuming pop culture, and who are devotees of conspiracy theories and paranoia.) and feelings of desperation, futility, and anger at being robbed of a future which most 13ers (me included) have to one extent or another. I feel somewhat removed from these characters though. They seem, by my standards, to be rather wealthy in their clothes and travel. I feel this may explain the book’s running attacks on consumerism (and Republicans and nuclear power -- all of which give the book a liberal feel) and marketing. Coupland even explains this with a sidebar word: “Conspicous Minimalism: A life-style tactic similar to Status Substitution. The nonownership of material goods flaunted as a token of moral and intellectual superiority.” and "Lessness: A philosophy whereby one reconciles oneself with diminishing expectations and material wealth”. Coupland is ironically suggesting his three main characters have only convinced themselves they don’t want things and the good life, softened their frustration by denying their original desire. In short, I don’t feel there’s any great statement in this book, no revelation of 13er psyche it moves to, but it is a truthful book in describing some of my generation’s anger, aimlessness, frustrations, and concerns. ( )

"Honestly, I don t get what the big deal is about Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. Although I found the writing witty I didn t really get the point. Besides understanding the generation and telling these 20-somethings story, what was the point? Nothing really happens in the book and I m not sure why it was picked for Canada Reads 2010.[return][return]I think my favourite thing about the book was the inscription; I picked the book up at a local secondhand bookstore (MacLeod s in downtown Vancouver) and the following was written on the title page inside:[return][return] To Sean of:[return] Generation X[return][return] From Mom & Dad[return] of Generation Grey Hairs Remember[return][return] Easter 1995[return][return][return][return]Read my full review here: http://www.monniblog.com/2010/03/generation-x-by-douglas-coupland/" ( )

Usually when I finish a book I'm straight onto Goodreads with a review. With this one It's taken me nearly a week. I didn't have any strong feelings about it, either way, which might explain the delay. I think I was expecting something more radical, perhaps, given the way that the phrase 'Generation X' has gone on to define a whole generation. My generation.I didn't find myself in the characters here. They seemed so shiftless, self-absorbed, resentful. I liked the story-telling aspects of the story and could relate to the anti-consumerist aspects, but just couldn't connect with the people. ( )

A great book especially when reading it 19 years later as it was first published, because time has caught up with the books future view. Anyway, the meaning of the plot is the following: Three people had been leaving their 'yuppie' lives and are living in Palm Spring, telling each other bedtime stories, whereas the stories main characters were always themselves. As a reader one's got a good idea about those three. Sometimes they got visitors from their 'earlier' life. Those guests are trying to leave there yuppie life for some days but would never give up it, whereas the three dropouts would never give up their newly freedom. ( )