Saturday, December 29, 2007
The Gum Thief
Douglas Coupland
2007
This is a novel constructed from letters exchanged between cynical workers at Staples.
I guess I'm moving away from Douglas Coupland. In the end the book was touching. It had the usual offbeat insights, but wasn't as rich as some of his recent, and nowhere near his best. It was a bit like Tom Wolfe writing about Charlotte Simmons. Coupland should move past alienated 20 somethings. I think he's said all their is to say on the subject and after a while the characters stop being endearing and start becoming pathetic. If this was my first Coupland, perhaps I'd be kinder. Some of the imagery in Glove Pond, the novel in the novel, was interesting. And the playfulness of having the characters successively write novels featuring characters that are writing novels worked well, but I didn't feel much weight to it overall. A little gimicky and a bit off.
Douglas Coupland
2007
This is a novel constructed from letters exchanged between cynical workers at Staples.
I guess I'm moving away from Douglas Coupland. In the end the book was touching. It had the usual offbeat insights, but wasn't as rich as some of his recent, and nowhere near his best. It was a bit like Tom Wolfe writing about Charlotte Simmons. Coupland should move past alienated 20 somethings. I think he's said all their is to say on the subject and after a while the characters stop being endearing and start becoming pathetic. If this was my first Coupland, perhaps I'd be kinder. Some of the imagery in Glove Pond, the novel in the novel, was interesting. And the playfulness of having the characters successively write novels featuring characters that are writing novels worked well, but I didn't feel much weight to it overall. A little gimicky and a bit off.
# posted by mz @ 6:00 PM 
