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Generation A

Douglas Coupland (Goodreads Author)

3.54 · Rating details · 7,102 ratings · 604 reviews

“Now you young twerps want a new name for your generation? Probably not, you just want jobs, right? Well, the media do us all such tremendous favors when they call you Generation X, right? Two clicks from the very end of the alphabet. I hereby declare you Generation A, as much at the beginning of a series of astonishing triumphs and failures as Adam and Eve were so long ag ...more

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Kindle Edition, 320 pages

Published September 1st 2009 by Random House Canada

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Nov 24, 2009 Kemper rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: humor, sci-fi

I feel like I owe a debt to Douglas Coupland for tagging my age group as Generation X. Yes, it got wildly over hyped in the ‘90s and led to countless marketing slogans like ‘New X-Treme Corn Flakes’, but that wasn’t Coupland’s fault. And Gen X sounds a helluva lot cooler than ‘Baby Boomers’ or what we would have gotten labeled without it. Probably something like ‘The Pre-Millennial Generation’ or some other equally crappy phrase.

At first, Generation A seems like it’s going to be even grimmer th I feel like I owe a debt to Douglas Coupland for tagging my age group as Generation X. Yes, it got wildly over hyped in the ‘90s and led to countless marketing slogans like ‘New X-Treme Corn Flakes’, but that wasn’t Coupland’s fault. And Gen X sounds a helluva lot cooler than ‘Baby Boomers’ or what we would have gotten labeled without it. Probably something like ‘The Pre-Millennial Generation’ or some other equally crappy phrase.

At first, Generation A seems like it’s going to be even grimmer than Generation X. Set in the near future, the world is winding down. The global economy has essentially collapsed and the lack of gasoline has made travel wildly expensive. A new legal drug called Solon has most of the world addicted. Worst of all, the mysterious extinction of all the bees in the world has led to an agricultural disaster.

But when 5 young people in various parts of the world are stung by bees, they are quickly gathered up for study and held for weeks. Upon their eventual release, they find themselves world famous, and drawn to each other in a way they don’t understand. Confused by the experiments that seemed to be as much about limiting their stimulation (no books, no TV, no brand logos, etc.) as they were about their blood work, the five people eventually meet and discover that they may be the key to the future.

Coupland uses a couple of wonky sci-fi ideas to explore a couple of really interesting concepts. Much is made of the idea that people who read have brains that tend to make them more individualistic and allows them to enter an almost Zen state that stops them from worrying about the future. But if there’s no concern for others or the future, why would anyone try to build anything better? Is the only choice being a consumerist drone or total selfishness?

And for being about the world being in horrible shape, there’s some really funny stuff here. We get everything from what a call center worker in Sri Lanka thinks of Americans calling in sweater orders to earth sandwiches in New Zealand to a character’s hatred of corn in Iowa to a hilarious short story worked into the plot about Superman getting fed up with ungrateful people.

It never really occurred to me before reading a Kurt Vonnegut quote about Gen X that Coupland uses here for the title that they both had a lot in common. (Calm down. I didn’t say he was as good as Kurt.) But both often worked in wild sci-fi ideas with a very humanistic bent and humor, but both also had enough cynicism to prevent sentimentality about the human condition.

I know it’s somewhat fashionable to bitch about Coupland, but I still like the guy, and this is one of his most enjoyable reads yet. ...more

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May 03, 2011 Daniel Roy rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary

I haven't read Coupland since Microserfs and Generation X, and was intrigued by the title's promise that this was somehow a followup to 1991's Generation X. Let me tell you up front: it's not.

The book starts intriguingly enough by building five characters from the US, Canada, New Zealand, France and Sri Lanka. These characters were quirky and interesting, and although shallow, they kept me reading thanks to Coupland's prose.

But midway through the novel, the plot comes to an abrupt halt when thes ...more

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Dec 09, 2009 George Dickerson rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Okay, so I should mention that ever since I grabbed Microserfs off the shelves of my junior high library about 12 years ago, completely wanting to look through it just because of the cover, and ever since that book enthralled me and regenerated my love of reading, I've carried a deep respect and gratitude toward Douglas Coupland.

Of course, years and experience change the writer and the reader, but I've continued buying each book as soon as I hear about it. Eleanor Rigby was the one that sparked Okay, so I should mention that ever since I grabbed Microserfs off the shelves of my junior high library about 12 years ago, completely wanting to look through it just because of the cover, and ever since that book enthralled me and regenerated my love of reading, I've carried a deep respect and gratitude toward Douglas Coupland.

Of course, years and experience change the writer and the reader, but I've continued buying each book as soon as I hear about it. Eleanor Rigby was the one that sparked a sort of unease, a newly skeptical eye that for him I just didn't want to have. Then jPod, which I chose not to read mostly because I didn't want my memories of Microserfs tainted in any way.

Then I stumbled upon The Gum Thief, which I read in an afternoon and felt pretty good about, even though elements of his writing were starting to feel tiresome. Worse, the wearying effect of his formula and his repeating themes had reversed in my mind, like when a lover's eccentricities go from endearing to irritating after you break up. Suddenly I was reading lines and rolling my eyes, because he was trying to write against his age. He was trying to project into an age that he wasn't when he wrote his former successes. He was turning into the 30something who hangs out with teenagers, trying to impress them with how novel it is that he's heard of the music they listen to. But still, The Gum Thief had enough really stellar moments, and unfolded in interesting enough a way, that it was not a negative experience -- it was a highly flawed book that was still a joy to read.

But fuck, then Generation A happened. Here's a book that speaks of a looming unfulfilled book contract, of a desperate bid to stay relevant. Here's someone writing the life you live without really understanding it; someone writing as an outsider and making gross missteps.

Quick: Do you know anyone who plays World of Warcraft? Do they refer to it by the full name every time? No. And PDAs? Really? Throughout the book there are dozens of name-drops that felt like they were written as [POPULAR THING:] placeholders.

You could excuse these (plentiful) sort-of dialectic blunders as idiosyncrasies of the haphazardly-fictionalized setting, but that'd be a pretty weak excuse. This is very much a writer who has only ever lived and thrived in the pop culture, who still feels like he has things to say but either no longer feels like he speaks the language of the people he wants to say them to. Worse, he no longer seems to have anything new to say. Here's book number seven all about lonely people meeting serendipitously and being brought together by stress and instantly liking each other quite a lot. One of them is the sexually thrilling alpha male, one (or more) of them is the charming overly verbose supergenius in disguise (this time hidden behind a Simpsons reference that would have felt relevant in 1994) , one of them has a barely medical profession that allows them to conduct eleventh-hour medical miracles (dental hygienists can expertly excise tracking beacons from deep in human tissue without causing severe damage I guess).

What made me so mad -- albeit irrationally -- while reading this book was seeing that it was just a desperate bid to remain relevant. It is liked scraped fingers grasping the edge of a cliff, and as someone who cares deeply about the man trying to scramble back up, the sight is too harrowing to watch without feeling queasy. Worse still is buying the newest book from the artist most dear to you and feeling for the first time in most of your life like he cheated you out of 25 dollars.

Fuck this book. ...more

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Jul 31, 2011 Sam Quixote rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Douglas Coupland's Generation A sees a not-too-distant world of ours devoid of bees and therefore things like fruit and flowers. A strange drug called Solon is sweeping the planet, it's effects rendering the user carefree and unafraid of the future with a deep inner peace that stops them interacting with other humans and makes them seek solitude. Highly addictive, the drug is wiping out human creativity as well as the bees.

Five people, seemingly random, across the planet are stung by bees. They Douglas Coupland's Generation A sees a not-too-distant world of ours devoid of bees and therefore things like fruit and flowers. A strange drug called Solon is sweeping the planet, it's effects rendering the user carefree and unafraid of the future with a deep inner peace that stops them interacting with other humans and makes them seek solitude. Highly addictive, the drug is wiping out human creativity as well as the bees.

Five people, seemingly random, across the planet are stung by bees. They are suddenly whisked away for testing and become instant global celebrities. Shortly after being released back into the world they are recaptured and taken to a remote island off the coast of Canada and made to tell stories, the idea being something in the telling of stories releases a protein into their blood and the mixture could become a cure for Solon.

Well, damn the negative reviews, because I loved it! Generation A mixes two of Coupland's strengths - his humour, like in Microserfs and jPod, and his humanity, like in Eleanor Rigby - together with his semi-realistic visions of futuristic society. The result is his best book to date.

If you've read Coupland before you'll know his love of employing gimmicks into his stories. The reams of numbers in jPod showing pi or the novel within a novel in The Gum Thief or the new dictionary slang of Generation X; in Generation A, the second half is taken up by short stories told by the characters. While this might irritate some readers (short stories are notoriously niche) let me tell you that the stories are brilliant. They not only fit into the themes of the book but are also great stories to be enjoyed for the sake of stories.

I won't go into too much analysis here but what I got from Coupland was his message of humans telling stories to humans is essentially what makes us human. While Solon (so alone?) is a futuristic drug that induces in the user the feeling of having read a thousand books in an hour, telling stories engages the teller and the listener in the present and keeps us together. The overall message is of stories and company and how this is the only antidote to the growing isolation of humans as a result of the tidal wave of technology.

Read without any subtext, the book is a joy for the reader and a masterclass in writing from Coupland. The swift pacing is kept up throughout and the world he portrays, while different, retains an eerie sense of familiarity.

Generation A is accessible for new readers and old and while Coupland has his ups and downs (to be expected from a writer whose approaches and ideas towards fiction changes from one book to the next) this is most certainly a brilliant novel and easily one of his best. Amazing stuff, highly recommended. ...more

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Sep 21, 2009 Jason Pettus rated it really liked it · review of another edition

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

As I've mentioned here before, about the closest I come to being a literal "completist" of a contemporary author's work is probably Douglas Coupland (I've now read ten of his thirteen novels, and was a pretty obsessive fan at that when I was younger); for those who need a refresher, he's the ~~fifty-somethi~~ ...more

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May 30, 2019 Baba rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopia

2019 review: A good read indeed! To me it was like a cross between Bradbury and Atwood with a dollop of cyber punk thrown in. A dystopian tale based in a alternate reality where many insects, including bees have become extinct, thus destroying the cycle of life on Earth with an ongoing splurge of 'natural' disasters', from the inability of most plants to propagate to tsunamis and droughts everywhere. Suddenly in the space of a few months five individuals spread around the globe are stung by bees ...more

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Oct 12, 2009 Darrell Reimer rated it did not like it · review of another edition

“Generation A mirrors 1991's Generation X.” It says so, right there on the back jacket. I read that and figured if Douglas Coupland was returning, in some manner, to the book that inflated him into what he is now, I was keen to read the by-product.

I don't usually mark up my books, but three pages into Generation A I felt compelled to take the lid off my Roller-Ball and write, neatly, in the margin: “How can a guy who is almost 50 years old write a book populated by characters so fastidiously stu ...more

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Nov 09, 2009 Trin rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, canadian-lit

This book starts out really strongly and made me think I was fortunate enough to be reading an example of Coupland at the top of his game. He introduces five different narrators, each of whom has been stung by a thought-to-be-extinct honeybee, and the story of how they all come together is quirky and fun. However, once all five do land together in the same tiny town, the novel completely disintegrates. The “twists” become so bizarre and nonsensical that I kept expecting there to be some other, r ...more

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Dec 07, 2009 Giacomo rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Coupland fans

Shelves: fiction, novels, american

Coupland is far from his best here, patching together a cast of forgettable characters that mostly feel as simple narrative devices in an otherwise unplausible plot. Yes, yes, the social critique, the observation and bla bla bla, but a novel is supposed to deliver characters and plot as well as background, and "Generation A" fails at the former.
The story follows five twentysomethings from all over the world, living in a not-so-distant future where bees are extinct, fruits have all but disappeare Coupland is far from his best here, patching together a cast of forgettable characters that mostly feel as simple narrative devices in an otherwise unplausible plot. Yes, yes, the social critique, the observation and bla bla bla, but a novel is supposed to deliver characters and plot as well as background, and "Generation A" fails at the former.
The story follows five twentysomethings from all over the world, living in a not-so-distant future where bees are extinct, fruits have all but disappeared, and life is pretty boring. The older generation is longing for a disappeared past (including YouTube, which apparently required bees and fruits in order to run), and people survive on hi-tech antidepressants. When the five are suddenly stung by reborn bees, they are quickly "interned" and exhamined by the authorities, then briefly released and eventually led to a remote island in order to tell each other new stories and encounter their fate thanks to a couple of unplausible deus ex-machina (including the almighty Google).
Of the five (eventually six) characters, three are mostly caricatures; the lonely Tourette-suffering spinster, the lonely hepburn-ish NewZealander and the lonely alienated gamer are little more than (you guessed it) lonely figures with nothing much to say or do. It gets a bit better with the wasted American hunk and the clever call-center worker from India, albeit the points about them are hammered into the reader with unseen brutality ("they all think the Indian guy is stupid, but he's clever! and he's smart! did I tell you how clever he is? they call him Apu! But he's clever!"). One senses that Coupland would have wanted to write the entire novel from the Indian point of view, but chickened out (and rightly so, in my humble opinion) and had to go back to his classic anglo-pop settings, where he's more confident. The bad guy is from Europe, he's arrogant, works for Big Pharma, and gives Alan Rickman another job opportunity.
This said, there are a couple of good moments: the final twist about the intentions of "Alan Rickman" is quite horrifying, if completely disjointed from the rest of the novel; the five referring to themselves as "the Wonka children" is funny; the definition of "Craigs" should be added to wikipedia; and there is a lot of trademark Gen-X irony, as you would expect from the Gen-X author par excellence.
All considered, this book is not pulp, but it's hardly the stuff of dreams. ...more

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Jan 22, 2011 Loredana (Bookinista08) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

A very cleverly built book, I loved it! It was a pleasure to read from beginning to end and I really marveled at Coupland's ideas: he's one smart man! His view of humankind's future is a little scary but it also pushes one to think beyond one's safe zone: everything we do has an impact on the world! Once again, Coupland was a master. Can't wait to read his next books! ...more

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Apr 04, 2011 Lindsey rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2010

Though it had been a while since I read Coupland I recognized all the familiar touches within the first few pages. The narrators are young and savvy but jaded characters, seemingly remote from one another but clearly sharing a destiny within the framework of the novel. The setting is classic dystopia with the most modern flourishes; it's definitely the first novel I've read that mentions YouTube, for better or worse. There's that distrust of science, of corporate greed, of governmental authority ...more

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Jan 16, 2011 Nate rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, reviews, douglas-coupland, read-2011-cycle, christmas-haul-2010

I'm coming back to this book somewhere around 2 years and 10 months after I finished it. I made special note of it because, by Goodreads standards, it has the lowest average score of all books on my "favorites" shelf, which is, to be fair, considerably light. Score coming in at time of review as 3.53 and only three hundredths "worse" rated than Less Than Zero.

The story: Five people get stung by bees. Bees are thought to be extinct in this roughly 2020 version of the world. There's a drug that m I'm coming back to this book somewhere around 2 years and 10 months after I finished it. I made special note of it because, by Goodreads standards, it has the lowest average score of all books on my "favorites" shelf, which is, to be fair, considerably light. Score coming in at time of review as 3.53 and only three hundredths "worse" rated than Less Than Zero.

The story: Five people get stung by bees. Bees are thought to be extinct in this roughly 2020 version of the world. There's a drug that makes time go by faster that everybody's on. Anyway these five twerps get whisked away to tell stories to one another. All the stories kind of build off each other and borrow similar characters and it turns out that going to the Canadian wilderness to tell stories about aliens and superman and the disintegration of language is not actually just a way to be meta but is kind of conspiracy theory-y and drug related.

Background: I was sort of reclaiming my love of reading, largely channeling Douglas Coupland, at the time of reading this book. Honestly I didn't really want to "expand my horizons." I just wanted Doug to write books as fast as I could read them. I think I have four Coupland books in my favorites list. A list that is constantly checked and revisited. In short, I'm unabashedly biased toward Doug.

Why this book is actually good despite admitted bias: Look it's branded Coupland in that there's a scene that tests the characters reactions to brandless furniture. They're from all over the world but they all have that same Coupland voice. Yet Doug never writes beyond himself. Does that make sense? He knows what he wants his future and book to be. Imagine if Doug were a fantasy writer or a straight sci-fi writer. Imagine that Coupland books themselves are a genre. They're not out to replicate the world but to kind of re-use the ephemera that inhabits our current world and re-organize it into a world that's more suitable to his fiction. Not dissimiliar, but totally different in feel of worlds to what George Saunders does.

The book is ultimately about storytelling. Storytelling as a function of humanity. Isn't that what all dystopia is about? Even if it's only over the proverbial ridge of the present. There's that normal pop-culture armchair philosophizing ever permeating Couplandia, but that's a function of the world, not an intrusion on it. Destruction of narrative and the "inner voice" metaphor-ized all too often as the Channel 3 News Team. In typical Coupland fashion the plot is kind of shrugged off, but it ties in to the quality of non-narritveness. Everyone kind of strives for inaction, ultimately in the shape of the drug Solon. Solon is that kind of drug you get after a full eight hour day of reading, except the "Craigs" of Couplandia are just out for the end result, skipping all the plot and action of the story for that special buzz.

I like the book because it's that special one author genre I like. To talk about this book is really to talk about Coupland and his ethos on writing (he comes from art school, where high and low culture truly have no separation as opposed to literature, even postmodernism still has some avant garde bones to pick with how pop-culture-y you can get bla bla bla). For sheer innovation and creating verisimilitude of a world without bees and taking our celebrity, drug-obsessed culture a bit farther on the continuum I love this book. I'm a sucker from those points on. Anything left is just bonus.

...more

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Jun 07, 2009 Kara Babcock rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: canadian-author, 2010-read, science-fiction, own, humour

I've had Generation A sitting on my shelf since Christmas and feel vaguely guilty that I did not read it sooner. On the other hand, now I've gone and read it in a single day, so I kind of wish I had prolonged the experience. Douglas Coupland is one of those authors whose books are a pleasure to read and experience. He is very aware of the nature of his medium (which, some might say, is also the message), and he likes to play with the structure of his novel and his text. In earlier books, this of ...more

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Feb 11, 2010 Elizabeth rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

I wouldn't consider this Coupland's best, but I was drawn in immediately and stayed up past my bedtime several nights in a row in order to finish. It's been several years since I last read Generation X, which this book is supposed to parallel, so forgive me if I make (or miss) overly obvious comparisons between the two.

Oh fiction, how do I even talk about you anymore? I feel like Coupland's earlier work often focused on how our increasingly mediated and culture-saturated lives made us both isola ...more

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Apr 02, 2010 Shane rated it really liked it · review of another edition

An interesting premise that left me somewhat hanging in the end. Set sometime in the future, five people in different parts of the world get stung by bees, during a period in which bees have gone extinct due to the proliferation of a drug called Solon that cures human anxiety.

So begins their odyssey, when the five characters are immediately quarantined and subjected to a barrage of tests to find out what made them attractive to the bees. Following their release a month later, with no conclusions An interesting premise that left me somewhat hanging in the end. Set sometime in the future, five people in different parts of the world get stung by bees, during a period in which bees have gone extinct due to the proliferation of a drug called Solon that cures human anxiety.

So begins their odyssey, when the five characters are immediately quarantined and subjected to a barrage of tests to find out what made them attractive to the bees. Following their release a month later, with no conclusions reached, and only having become instant celebrities, they are rounded up again and isolated in a Haida community off the coast of British Columbia and asked to relate stories to keep themselves aloft while more blood samples are taken from them at various times as their impromptu story telling alters their moods.

Ultimately (and without giving the plot away) the five discover the awful secret of their incarceration through their stories. They escape, but the world still remains the same. At the end, we are told that the drug production has stopped but not why and how, we are told that the bees may come back but we don’t know when. And the five characters end up becoming “hive minded” as they are inextricably bound to each other by their experiences.

Despite this inconclusiveness, the writing is vibrant and funny, the manufactured stories are pure flights of the imagination, and are told like parables by the five while under house arrest. The stories feed off each other and cover various themes: the shallowness of our glorified super-heroes, the emptiness of a consumer society that takes its cues from branding, the pervasiveness and invasiveness of media ( A Channel Three News team appears in almost every story), and the carnage that ensues when people lose their ability to read, write or count. The only saving grace is that reading and story-telling are espoused. One character finds a copy of Finnegan's Wake and uses it to cure his addiction to gambling. He even starts to make comparisons of Joyce's work and calls Ulysses "a lower priced house brand of Finnegan's Wake."

In the end, the five arrive at the reality of their situation through their stories and the final story is a parallel to the plot behind their incarceration. The villain, who is captured by them, tells his own story in similar fashion, giving us the final piece to this puzzle.

I had one peeve. I wished Coupland had done his research better. He bases Qatar in the United Arab Emirates (wrong!), and he talks about Trincomalee being close to the Bandaranayake Airport in Sri Lanka (wrong again! - they are at opposite ends of that island nation) and finally, he makes Trincomalee the capital of Sri Lanka (absolutely wrong - the capital is Colombo!) Having lived in both these countries for many years, I felt a bit annoyed at this obvious faux pas by such an imminent writer. I was also less than enthused with his character Harj, a Sri Lankan call centre worker who talks and acts like an American. Working for an American company in that part of the world and selling to American mid-west customers via the telephone does not impart that type of a persona - sorry Doug! But, as this is fiction, and just like the parables within the main story, as this novel is set in the future, the novelist has infinite licence to alter names, places, events and reality itself - that is the power and the privilege of the writer. And who are we plebes to dispute that?

...more

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Feb 11, 2010 Paul Eckert rated it liked it · review of another edition

By now it’s a running cliché to say that Douglas Coupland’s books tend to capture the mood of contemporary culture, and sometimes, are even a bit prophetic. Cliché or not, I still believe it’s true.

I think Generation A did a pretty good job of both capturing the irony of the culture of isolation as well as showing us where this isolation can lead us. Unfortunately, I felt that he did a better job of it in his last novel, The Gum Thief.

Generation A follows five people that are stung by bees in By now it’s a running cliché to say that Douglas Coupland’s books tend to capture the mood of contemporary culture, and sometimes, are even a bit prophetic. Cliché or not, I still believe it’s true.

I think Generation A did a pretty good job of both capturing the irony of the culture of isolation as well as showing us where this isolation can lead us. Unfortunately, I felt that he did a better job of it in his last novel, The Gum Thief.

Generation A follows five people that are stung by bees in a world where bees were thought to be extinct. The first half of the book shows us how everyone is put into isolation for a month, and then it examines their post-sting lives. This section was a pretty funny examination of instant fame and its consequences, but then the ‘Wonka kids’ (as one character dubs them) are all brought together on a remote Canadian island for an experiment: they are asked to tell stories.

This is where the novel seems to reach a disconnect. The stories that the characters tell are often funny and read like Kilgore Trout stories, but they feel very removed from the first half of the book. Once the storytelling begins, it’s just one story after another. And all the stories sound like they are told by the same person, not by five individual people from five different countries.

Coupland’s themes are often, if not entirely subtle, well contained within the subtext of the story. In Generation A, they are often explicitly stated in a way feels as if the moral of the story is being spoon fed to the reader, without the cleverness that someone like Vonnegut might have used.

The last thirty pages dance a fine line between absurdity and awful. Coupland fans will be reminded of Girlfriend in a Coma, but without the necessity and urgency of that story.

For the first time in a Coupland novel, I didn’t feel an intense connection to the characters. They seemed thinly drawn with a few broad strokes. For example, we know that Samantha is from New Zealand and that she enjoys making ‘Earth sandwiches’ with strangers on the internet. She’s also a fitness nut, and her parents recently confessed to her that they don’t believe in anything. And that’s about the extent of her character. Even when the backgrounds of the characters were funny, they didn’t seem to add to the story.

Solon, a drug that makes time seem to pass faster, is ubiquitous in the world of Generation A. This is the second time (or maybe third?) that Coupland has mentioned the idea of a drug that makes time pass faster. There was a passing reference in Eleanor Rigby, but now Solon is its own thematic element (and a somewhat confusing one at that).

Unfortunately, it contributes to the wacky ending in a strange way.
Overall, I felt Coupland could have done a lot better with this story, especially considering the inspiration was from a great quote from a Kurt Vonnegut speech to a graduating class of students, calling them Generation A so that they had plenty of room for the successes and mistakes every other generation had. Instead, Coupland almost seemed to be doing an impression of Kurt Vonnegut, and the message doesn’t hit home like usual.

I was a bit disappointed because the book didn’t come together to me very well as a whole, but the individual parts are worth the read.
...more

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Dec 27, 2009 Felicity rated it did not like it · review of another edition

In the past I have really enjoyed Douglas Coupland's novels (though I've still never read Generation X). He has such a wonderfully dark, bleak sense of humor. This novel, however, was just plain boring--so tedious it put my teeth on edge. Firstly, I'm not sure if Coupland was trying to make a larger social statement through his narrative about humans and their relationship to earth. I don't think so, because that is not what Coupland does....but, it was difficult to tell. If he was, it was a spe ...more

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May 31, 2010 Idleprimate rated it it was ok · review of another edition

ouch. I'm not sure what to say about this book, and so am going to say very little. coupland has long been devolving into a caricature of his caricatures. there were many elements within this book that might have been developed into different books, but instead they were mashed into each other, cancelling each other out and leaving nothing but the endless drone(no pun intended) of Coupland's smarmy too-hip-too-breathe voice. if the characters had mattered, it would have been dreadful that five d ...more

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Oct 07, 2011 Angela rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopian-apocalyptic, read-2011

I must admit I have a soft spot for Coupland. He's one of those author's I discovered in Sixth Form and so far has never disappointed (well, not much). His prose and characterisation’s are excellent, alternating between ludicrous scenarios to some deeper philosophical and sociological discussions.

Generation A tells the tale of a near future society where it is believed bees are extinct until five unconnected people get stung. The premise is interesting and Coupland starts the novel well. I've re ...more

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Sep 15, 2009 lucy black rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: novel

I realise that he is just writing the same stuff in the same way and yeah some of it is getting old (he gets some of the slang so wrong: New Zealanders DO NOT say crikey dick that is Australians). But, parts of this book are still really brilliant. The stories the characters tell are genius. I think it is easy to want to pull Douglas Coupland off his throne but maybe at least one bum cheek deservers to stay on there.

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Oct 26, 2016 Melissa McShane rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, science-fiction, own, protag-both

There are some Douglas Coupland books I read just for the prose. This is one of them. Coupland's metaphors and descriptive passages are lovely, but in the end I wasn't sure what the point was. I think he was saying something about interconnectedness, but as I write this, I no longer remember the ending. (It's only been ten days.) Clever, interestingly characterized, and ultimately forgettable. ...more

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Aug 18, 2010 Nick rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I’ve never hidden my admiration for the work of Douglas Coupland. I admire the creative flare and originality that permeates his catalogue of work, and the precise nature to which he can articulate satirical observations of contemporary society that in my eyes escapes the majority of commentators. There hasn’t been a single book I’ve read that hasn’t lead me to genuinely ponder the questions posed to the reader, and this was no different. When reflecting on his latest work Generation A I choose I’ve never hidden my admiration for the work of Douglas Coupland. I admire the creative flare and originality that permeates his catalogue of work, and the precise nature to which he can articulate satirical observations of contemporary society that in my eyes escapes the majority of commentators. There hasn’t been a single book I’ve read that hasn’t lead me to genuinely ponder the questions posed to the reader, and this was no different. When reflecting on his latest work Generation A I choose to focus primarily thematically as I believe this really is the crux of why his stories are written.

This book is marketed as a return to the storytelling format of his most well publicised and read work Generation X (1991). In truth, the book reads like a consolidation of Coupland’s previous work, adopting the unorthodox parable style short stories of both Generation X and Life After God. We are introduced to the protagonists in completely separate stories that are eventually brought together by concurrent bee stings (in a near future world in which bees are thought to be extinct), we proceed through the book and come to understand how everything in this book serves a purpose. The characters, their personal stories, and the stories they choose to eventually tell each other collectively form the critique that this book makes of 21st century western culture.

The characters of Generation A themselves serve as caricatures of what many of us have become in an age dominated and consumed by our expectation for instant gratification in every aspect of our lives. People will forever be born now not knowing a world without google, wikipedia and having access to information from across the world instantly. As an example, the first introduction to anyone we have is to an heir to a corn dynasty, whose daily routine consists of using his tractor to create vast images of phalluses in his crops only viewable from satellites, while nude, and while a man on the other side of the world pays to view this live via webcam…. Coupland makes it deliberately hard to invest anything in the protagonists as they are amiable but ultimately shallow reflections of the gadgets, computers and social networking sites (etc) that they represent. Indeed, every character we meet, whether it’s ‘The Craigs’ (apolitical areligious clothing branded obsessed American teenagers), Julien (a World of Warcraft obsessed Frenchman) or the wealth obsessed scientist, is immersed in some kind of abstract fascination. Furthering the stance Coupland takes in Life After God or Shampoo Planet therefore, we see God being replaced by a desire to find real meaning in any number of the artificial realities we have made for ourselves.

If you read more than two of three of Coupland’s works it becomes clear that both stories, and the human need to understand their own lives in a linear narrative (comparable to a story) is something very important to him. I suppose the real question is whether human existence should be thought of as quantifiable into progress or lack thereof, and at what point do we consider the degree to which chance rather than a prospected sense of destiny to some unknown and better future is what shapes our belief system and our understanding of ourselves and our behaviours. To what extent do we really understand how our own actions have taken us to this point in our lives, and how different had we followed any of the infinite paths constantly open to us, could our lives actually be? Is it constructive to even have these thoughts? Would we be happier if these things never crossed our minds? Indeed, those in the world of Generation A are reflective of this, falling for a new drug named Solon, that allows users to be entirely fixated with the present, living it and experiencing it with no regard for any sense of future or past.

The other major theme is in relation to a search for truth. Every character, from the ‘gap yearing’ students (also Craigs!) trying to ’find themselves’ that Harj detests or the protagonists trying to establish what made them special enough to get stung is on some kind of search for truth or meaning. The second half of the book is made up of short stories, which the protagonists have been told that by telling will grant them access to the truth they are looking for. Now if we can return to the earlier concept of people thinking of their lives as stories, the question remains as to in this context why we would make such underwhelming decisions! The absurdity of the concept of truth is somewhat addressed by the surreal nature of some of the short stories, but also when Julien’s insistence of first using an online story generator as opposed to his own creativity. Is this actually a more truthful depiction of our lives? A hodgepodge of recycled ideas from a finite source put together in a slightly different order to make something supposedly unique. The short stories ask questions to which there are no real answer. There is no real truth. How does one rebel in a culture that doesn’t believe in anything? Does a lack of belief prevent you really falling in love? If Superman were real would be become a debased alcoholic addicted to kryptonite martinis and rack up unpayable debts? (yes really!)

The outlook for Coupland is ultimately optimistic. The insatiable desire to question, a fierce resistance to becoming stupefied, and to make our own real world lives into interesting stories is what Coupland is actually preaching.

To fans of Coupland, his style and stance will be at once familiar. I feel however, this is the most cogent expression of his look at life so far and worth a read even if you haven’t read anything else. ...more

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Nov 26, 2018 Rachel Tremblay rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I considered this a good 4 star about 1/2, 3/4 of the way through. But the plot twist and the ending bring to a strong 5.

5 people get stung by bees at a time when bees have gone instinct, a time when people are so worried and full of anxiety they get hooked to a drug called Solon, that keeps them in the moment, happy to be alone, uncaring about the future. Kind of the opposite of the life of bees. The 5’s stings bring them together in an unexpected way.

It’s playful and funny the whole way throug ...more

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Jan 11, 2021 Chris rated it liked it · review of another edition

Always worthwhile to spend some time with Douglas Coupland. Of course, he is a genius with new ways of looking at the world, unique ideas, and fresh metaphors. You always come away feeling smarter and cooler. The plot in this book was pretty crazy, but worth sticking around for. I always am let down by the world that does not celebrate Coupland the way that he deserves, as he continues to be an extremely fresh, inventive, and relevant writer, writing about what it is like to live in todays compl ...more

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Dec 16, 2017 Mark rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Rarely has a book flipped on me so badly: brilliant beginning, poor development, terrible storytelling conceit ("let´s all tell stories to each other"), silly "climax". ...more

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Nov 19, 2009 Amy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorite-author, 2009-books-read, amazon-vine

I read this months ago, but I just couldn't bring myself to write the review because it was the last book my friend and former roommate added to his Amazon.com Wishlist (on my recommendation) before he took his own life. The themes of this book are themes we'd discussed and were just too raw to talk about. I'm just glad that I took notes as I read.

Douglas Coupland has long been one of my favorite authors because he has a gift of looking at the problems of the generation and capturing their essen I read this months ago, but I just couldn't bring myself to write the review because it was the last book my friend and former roommate added to his Amazon.com Wishlist (on my recommendation) before he took his own life. The themes of this book are themes we'd discussed and were just too raw to talk about. I'm just glad that I took notes as I read.

Douglas Coupland has long been one of my favorite authors because he has a gift of looking at the problems of the generation and capturing their essence on the written page. These are problems that many people know exist but allow them to continue because of the convenience factor. One of the things my friend was often depressed about was the state of our world and his inability to change it no matter what he personally did.

Generation A is a fictitious satire on current popular culture. Specifically, it is a commentary on how separate we've all become even though we're more connected electronically. Coupland shows how people are turning into photoshopped avatars and cartoon characters rather than living out their lives as real people. In the novel, a contributing factor to this problem is a drug called Salon which makes people crave solitude and want to escape reality, time, and people. As a result of this drug, people have separated themselves even further from a reality in which the world is falling apart and the bees have died out.

The storyline centers around 5 people around the world who are bitten by bees when the world thinks that they're extinct. Immediately, these people are whisked off to research facilities to find out what is so special about them that they have been chosen to be bitten by an insect thought to long be dead. When these people meet, they pass the time telling stories to each other. They tell stories of royalty, cults, wordplay, superheroes, disasters, aliens, fear,devolvement of language, and seclusion. My favorite of these stories is one called "The Man Who Loved Reading and Being Alone". It's through these stories that Coupland brings about a gradual message. I've never read an author that delivers a message in a book like Coupland does. He weaves fine threads like spider webs throughout the novel that eventually come together to make a picture. But the picture is so transient and fleeting that it's like seeing a picture in a cloud and then losing it again or like staring at one of those 3D pop out images forever before seeing the image and then losing it again. But all the little ideas coalesce together in your brain and stay there forever, becoming part of your worldview.

This is a must-read for any Douglas Coupland fan or anyone who finds the asocial individualism of the internet to be an evolving problem of our current generation: Generation A. ...more

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Feb 15, 2010 Larry rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Kudos to Douglas Coupland for a powerful opening on one of my favourite themes:

“How can we be alive and not wonder about the stories we use to knit together this place we call the world? Without stories, our universe is merely rocks and clouds and lava and blackness…. What is prayer but a wish for the events in your life to string together to form a story – something that makes some sense of events you know have meaning.”

As usual, Coupland creates a cast of characters with extremely quirky lives Kudos to Douglas Coupland for a powerful opening on one of my favourite themes:

“How can we be alive and not wonder about the stories we use to knit together this place we call the world? Without stories, our universe is merely rocks and clouds and lava and blackness…. What is prayer but a wish for the events in your life to string together to form a story – something that makes some sense of events you know have meaning.”

As usual, Coupland creates a cast of characters with extremely quirky lives, experiences and attitudes – yet characters still rooted in a familiar modern life experiences that feel quite familiar.

The story takes place in the not-too-distant future. Five young people in different countries, from different backgrounds, become the first people in decades to be stung by bees, which were thought to be extinct for some unexplained reason. Each character is a complete hoot, Coupland-style.

They live in time where a growing portion of the population is becoming addicted to a new drug, Solon CR, which decreases anxiety by “severing the link between the present moment and a patient’s perceived future state. “ The drug also turns people into solitary beings who feel no need to be with others.
After their bee stings, the five young people are taken into custody by mysterious captors. They are initially isolated and studied, and then brought together – and directed to tell stories to one another. The characters gradually become aware and talk about the use of story-telling as a life-coping process.

In the end, they learn they have been held captive by the man who created Solon, a drug that he likened to having a similar affect to that of reading book – it withdraws one from society by placing them in a separate reality. He discovered the five young people were the key to developing an antidote for Solon.

While book-reading (and the use of Solon) creates a withdrawal from other people, story-telling does the opposite, by bringing people together to talk and listen. The five young people were biologically unique in that their brains secreted a chemical when story-telling that could be used for an anecdote to Solon. Having become rich addicting the world to Solon, he planned to get even richer by selling the treatment.
Meanwhile, the five young people realized they were likely on an evolutionary path toward developing a hive type consciousness (hence the bee attraction).

Well – brilliant quirky characters, and probably a brilliant story idea that somehow become lost in the convoluted story of the drugs and kidnapping.

While the idea behind this novel had great potential, it didn’t quite gel.

I found J-Pod far more satisfying. But in any case, I’m pumped to read a lot more Douglas Coupland.
...more

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Jul 18, 2010 Thurston Hunger rated it liked it · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 04, 2010 Meredith rated it liked it · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This was good. I'm one of those who, in my 20s, would consistently rate him as one of my top five favorite authors. I've read Coupland's last couple of new titles out of loyalty, and I still enjoy them...but. I feel like the magic is gone, but I don't want to give up on him yet, based on his output. I'd have to go back to re-read Gen. X if I wanted to make a comparison with this book, it's been too long. I feel like it won't rock anybody's world the way Gen. X might have/did, back then. He seems ...more

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May 25, 2011 Cori rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I love Douglas Coupland. He is a true Canadian gem and I leap at any opportunity to read something new from him. Usually it means I have to wait a while, because I don't like reading hardcovers and it usually takes a year for the trade paperbacks of his work to be released (I wouldn't have this problem if his works were available on ebook...). Generation A was a painful wait for me. I ALMOST bought the hardcover about 20 times while I was waiting. Then, I finally bought it in trade and it sat on ...more

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About Douglas Coupland

Douglas Coupland

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Douglas Coupland is Canadian, born on a Canadian Air Force base near Baden-Baden, Germany, on December 30, 1961. In 1965 his family moved to Vancouver, Canada, where he continues to live and work. Coupland has studied art and design in Vancouver, Canada, Milan, Italy and Sapporo, Japan. His first novel, Generation X, was published in March of 1991. Since then he has published nine novels and sever ...more

Books by Douglas Coupland

Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture

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Quotes from Generation A

“Trevor realized that the odd thing about English is that no matter how much you screw sequences word up up, you understood, still, like Yoda, will be. Other languages don't work that way. French? Dieu! Misplace a single le or la and an idea vaporizes into a sonic puff. English is flexible: you can jam it into a Cuisinart for an hour, remove it, and meaning will still emerge.” — 36 likes

“You've seen what you've seen; you've felt what you've felt. Ideology is for people who don't trust their own experiences and perceptions of the world.” — 35 likes

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