Shampoo Planet

This Coupland book was like comfort food for me. Others have commented on his writing, and I have to agree that there are some excellent passages in the book--there were several chunks that I had to read aloud to my wife because I enjoyed them so much.

Really, though, I enjoyed the growth and interaction of characters most. I appreciate the way he blends the sort of hyper-consumerism of his characters with personality traits to make them likable hypocrites. Flawed, but not hated. You get the same detached lack of emotion you'd find in a Bret Easton Ellis book, but the added connections between characters, especially where he shows them caring for one another, adds reality. Coupland doesn't judge his characters, he doesn't make them evil. show more I am most impressed with his ability to make them human. show less

A pretty interesting story. The narrator's voice was kind of grating in the beginning with his referring to his mother, Jasmine, by her first name, which always seems kind of impolite to me (I would never call my mum by her first name). However, once the story settled down and crazy things started happening, it was less jarring.

The events themselves are classic Coupland, and the story is peppered with observations about the corporation-saturated life of the 1990s, clashes of cultures, journeys to find oneself, and so on. And Coupland's writing is always very evocative. It's all in the details: the colours of crayons Tyler uses to make rubbings of stars on the Walk of Fame; the consistency of KittyWhip Cat Food; Tyler's brother's drawing show more of the Plants; the way Tyler's birthplace looks in the middle of the forest. And if you're not a fan of the Coupland gimmicks, like the pages of numbers in jPod or the subconscious words in Microserfs, you will be relieved to note that this story is told in a fairly straightforward manner. (Personally, I have nothing against those gimmicks, but they may drive some people up the wall.) It's worth a look. show less

"Substance" in this book is in the eye of the beholder, and I guess I am one of those who happened to find a lot to like. Great prose, by a writer who is magnificent at capturing a zeitgeist and material culture of a time. The portrayal of the characters and of life as consumption (including foreign travel and experience as a commodity) makes for a sort of anticaipatory, fictionalized version of "Stuff White People Like" however it feels like more than a gimmick here.

Once I finished rereading Generation X, I reread Shampoo Planet. I remembered being so disappointed with Douglas Coupland's sophomore effort, especially since I had acquired an autographed copy of the novel. I could not relate to the main character at all. Tyler is the complete opposite of Ethan in Generation X. He believes the path to happiness involves gathering all the comforts--the right hair care products, sleek, modern furniture and audio equipment, a sweet ride and a career with a multinational company based in Seattle. He's serious about his education in Hotel and Hospitality Management, not based on a passion and a desire to learn, but based on what consumer products he can gain as a working professional.
The novel follows show more Tyler's journey to a realization that happiness lies elsewhere, that happiness isn't about STUFF. But, to me, his character was so off-putting--so unrelatable--that I never particularly cared about his trajectory. show less

Coupland's style is more naked in this book that his more technologically influenced works such as Microserfs and J-Pod. That is both a boon and a fault as his repetitious, random, flow of consciousness style of prose is in full spotlight. The nature of the dialogue make it very hard to identify with the characters as they are so extreme as to be unreal. The grit of the plot underneath the wordiness is where the books shines. The naked emotion and the journey of personal growth of Tyler make the book worth reading. The more he doesn't say, the better

What I liked most about this novel is the candid wit and very current conflicts and issues tackled by the narrator. It isn't difficult to relate to the story, and the characters are very real and well-defined. A worthwhile read.

I found it very difficult to relate to the protagonist of this, Coupland's second novel. He leaves his dying town in the desert region of Washington State for a summer of rail travel round Europe and cheats on his girlfriend. He returns to Terminaldeclineville (I fail to remember the name Coupland actually uses) and pretends nothing happened. He bemoans the lack of ambition of just about everybody but drops out of college.

When Coupland talks about the USA I recognise the place. In this book he describes a Europe I've never been to, despite living in Brussels.

Coupland writes in the first person most of the time but his unique imagery, ubiquitous in his novels, makes this character seem like a clone of one of his other characters that show more suffered a lot of gene damage and didn't come out as a Asperger's Syndrome experiencing computer geek border-line genius - instead as a hotel manager wannabe!

So the protagonist is dull, dim, immoral and drifting through life - then the French Girl arrives. She's so unpleasant even our protagonist doesn't deserve her, but she takes charge of his life, until an unbelievable ending resolves matters. (Think fairy God-mother.)

For me this book was a complete failure, which was unexpected - I've read five other Coupland novels and always got something worthwhile out of them. show less