Product Description

Generation A is set in the near future in a world where bees are extinct, until five unconnected people from around the world -- in the United States, Canada, France, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka -- are all stung. Their shared experience unites them in ways they never could have imagined.

Generation A mirrors Coupland's debut novel, 1991's Generation X. It explores new ways of storytelling in a digital world. Like much of Coupland'swriting, it occupies the perplexing hinterland between optimism about the future and everyday apocalyptic paranoia. Imaginative, inventive, and fantastically entertaining, Generation A is his most ambitious work to date.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23943 in Books
• Published on: 2009-11-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781439157015
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Coupland's thematic sequel to Generation X strives once more to explore and define the edges of group identity through a Decameron-style storytelling marathon. Taking place in a near-future in which bees have become inexplicably extinct, five young men and women become the subjects of fame and scientific curiosity when they're the first people in five years to suffer a sting. Zack, an Iowa farmer, is the first and is soon followed by Harj in Sri Lanka, Samantha in New Zealand, Diana in Canada and Julien, who resides in Paris but lives primarily in World of Warcraft. Captured by a clandestine organization headed by a man named Serge, the unlikely group is eventually moved to a remote island, where Serge compels them to recite stories. Always in the background are rumblings of the hyperaddictive drug Solon, which holds its users in a perpetual present. Coupland juggles some fascinating ideas, and the story circle holds equal parts humor and revelation, though the revolving crew of narrators—particularly the women—can be difficult to distinguish from one another. Despite its flaws, this book will interest readers in search of an intelligent look at pop and digital culture. (Dec.)
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Review
‘With this exceptional sequel to Generation X, Douglas Coupland may be one of the smartest, wittiest writers around… He is a terrifically good writer…Generation A is set in the near future… Bees have become extinct, but then five people are stung…It is the attempt to get to the bottom of this mystery that brings the five together on an Alaskan island [actually BC island!] where they are made to tell stories to one another. Coupland weaves common elements across these tales and into the main narrative: large themes… comic themes… existential themes… There is a compelling plot… Coupland scatters his smartly satirical observations throughout…This is a clever, brilliant book — and it’s loads better than Generation X…funny and profound.’
—Esquire UK

‘Eighteen years on from Generation X, Coupland still satirises pop culture better than anyone. This globe-spanning tale, set in the near future, is masterfully told and often hilarious.’
—GQ UK

I know I’m not alone in thinking that Douglas Coupland is one of our finest chroniclers of modern life…. He’s funny, though, and maybe that’ s his ‘problem.’ Memo to the Custodians of CanLit: Big Ideas can be delivered with humour and wit.”
— National Post

"Douglas Coupland is the greatest Canadian ironist of his time. . . . A far-fetched and enjoyable romp. . . . If he lives long enough, he could go through the alphabet of generations and entertain us thoroughly in the process. . . . A world without bees is hard to imagine. It's almost as hard to imagin[e] a Canada without Coupland."
— The Globe and Mail

"As you're revelling in Coupland's wit and political acumen, a knockout section offering a trenchant commentary on storytelling suddenly hits ...

Review
‘With this exceptional sequel to Generation X, Douglas Coupland may be one of the smartest, wittiest writers around… He is a terrifically good writer…Generation A is set in the near future… Bees have become extinct, but then five people are stung…It is the attempt to get to the bottom of this mystery that brings the five together on an Alaskan island [actually BC island!] where they are made to tell stories to one another. Coupland weaves common elements across these tales and into the main narrative: large themes… comic themes… existential themes… There is a compelling plot… Coupland scatters his smartly satirical observations throughout…This is a clever, brilliant book — and it’s loads better than Generation X…funny and profound.’
—Esquire UK

‘Eighteen years on from Generation X, Coupland still satirises pop culture better than anyone. This globe-spanning tale, set in the near future, is masterfully told and often hilarious.’
—GQ UK

I know I’m not alone in thinking that Douglas Coupland is one of our finest chroniclers of modern life…. He’s funny, though, and maybe that’ s his ‘problem.’ Memo to the Custodians of CanLit: Big Ideas can be delivered with humour and wit.”
— National Post

"Douglas Coupland is the greatest Canadian ironist of his time. . . . A far-fetched and enjoyable romp. . . . If he lives long enough, he could go through the alphabet of generations and entertain us thoroughly in the process. . . . A world without bees is hard to imagine. It's almost as hard to imagin[e] a Canada without Coupland."
— The Globe and Mail

"As you're revelling in Coupland's wit and political acumen, a knockout section offering a trenchant commentary on storytelling suddenly hits you: how the best tales work, what inspires us and how stories can change the world. Don't miss it."
— NOW

Customer Reviews

As entertaining as it is, it feels a little too familiar
I'm a fan of Douglas Coupland, whose writing in many ways reminds of Kurt Vonnegut (an author that I think Coupland has an affinity for - in fact the book's title is derived from a Vonnegut quote). Unlike Vonnegut though, Coupland has not yet (in my humble opinion) delivered a novel anywhere near the calibre of Slaughter-House Five or Cat's Cradle.

As entertaining as Generation A is on many levels, it feels too familiar. Coupland has the potential to write something truly extrodinary but it seems to me that he only provides us with glimpses of brilliance, unable to grow beyond what he has already shown us he can do. Generation A feels like a blending of Generation X and Girlfriend in a Coma.

Generation A is set in the near future. A future without bees (they suddenly and mysteriously disappeared from the planet and along with them, the flowers and fruit that they pollinate). Then, in the course of a few short months, five `20-somethings' in different parts of the world are stung. The five young people become instant celebrities and are whisked off for scientific study. The bees are symptomatic of the health of the planet and the occurrence of these bee stings sends a message of hope to the world.

The story is told from the rotating points of view of the five young people: A corn farmer and artist of sorts who makes extra cash by filming himself naked from his tractor to internet subscribers, a young woman in New Zealand who uses the internet to make "earth sandwiches" with cyber friends on the other side of the world, a French student obsessed with `World of Warcraft' just coming off 114 days of consecutive play, a fundamentalist Christian with Tourette's syndrome, and a customer service call center rep from Sri Lanka.

The five young people are characterized by an alienation or purposelessness in their lives. They have no real meaningful relationships and `connect' with their world through technology (webcams, email, videogames, social networking `friends', websites, and blogs) or, in the case of one character, religion. Unlike most of the world around them though they have no interest in taking a new drug that is becoming popular around the world. The drug eliminates anxiety that people have about the future, causing them to think only of the present and to feel internally fulfilled without the need for any human interaction. The drug is like a solitary escape from reality, much like the feeling you might get when lost in a good book, but multiplied.

Coupland is an astute observer and his writing is filled with remarkable insight and clever, often hilarious pop culture references. Zack, the Iowa farm boy writes: "When I was growing up, Mother Nature was this reasonably hot woman who looked a lot like the actress Glenn Close wearing a pale blue nightie. When you weren't looking, she was dancing around the fields and the barns and the yard, patting the squirrels and French kissing butterflies. After the bees left and the plants started failing, it was like she'd returned from a Mossad boot camp with a shaved head, steel-trap abs and commando boots and man, was she pissed."

Where the novel falters a little is in its lack of subtlety regarding its themes. There are few connections that the reader has to make for himself as the characters speak openly and plainly about the central themes of the novel. This comes across as a little preachy at times, or at the very least, it makes me feel as if the author doesn't respect the readers ability to `get it' without spelling it out over and over again. Coupland's characters, as in previous novels, are hyper-aware of themselves and life's grander themes. We may be connected in a digital world but it also isolates us. Digital communication (and religion) is a poor substitute for real, meaningful human interaction. By sharing our stories with one another we can reconnect.

Coupland's novels tend to alternate between the reasonably normal (real people in the real world having real experiences - like Microserfs) and more speculative fiction (where things can get a little bizarre and surreal - like Girlfriend in a Coma). Some people might read a novel like Generation A expecting it to be "normal" only to become increasingly perplexed when it departs from conventional reality.

The bottom line: this is an imaginative and inventive novel. Like all of Coupland's novels, even when they fall a little short, it's a remarkably entertaining read. The novel is filled with a number of stories within stories, and one of them, the tale of Superman and the Kryptonite Martinis, is worth the price of admission alone. I can't help but feel that Coupland came up a little short in the end (again) but maybe I'm just expecting too much from him.

What's the buzz?
I can't say that I've loved every word Douglas Coupland's ever written, but by and large I enjoy his work quite a lot. His novels are observant, quirky, and very funny. So, I was looking forward to Generation A. And I enjoyed reading it, but I wanted to like it so much more than I did. I think my biggest problem is that I felt like I was reading two different books. The first half of this novel did not seem to match up with the second.

The novel is primarily told from the points of view of five individuals from five different lifestyles and countries. What bonds them is that they all share an extraordinary experience. They are each stung by a bee--at a time (roughly the year 2024) when no one's seen a bee for five or six years. They've long been assumed extinct, and the world suffers for it. Fruits and flowers are incredibly rare, and must be labor-intensively hand pollinated. Honey is like gold. The bees are essentially the canaries in our coal mine, and the future isn't looking too bright.

This is so much an issue, that there's a new, hyper-addictive drug on the market called Solon. It keeps users in the present, instead of all that pesky worrying about the future. It also makes time pass quicker and helps alleviate loneliness, so that users can "live active and productive single lives with no fear or anxiety." So, it is in this near future that Zack from Iowa, Samantha from New Zealand, Julien from Paris, Harj from Sri Lanka, and Diana from Canada become instant worldwide celebrities--and subjects of scientific scrutiny.

And I was really engaged in this somewhat bizarre story. I was totally digging it! But as things moved forward, the plot veered off into left field. For reasons I won't get into, the B5 (as they are called) spend the second half of the novel telling each other quirky stories they've made up. Very little happens as a series of sometimes charming short stories are recited, and the ideas behind Coupland's satire are driven home.

Eventually there are revelations that somewhat tie the two halves of the novel together, but I found the ending to be weird and somewhat grotesque. There were definitely pleasures to be had in the reading of this novel. Coupland's just too darn good for that not to be the case, but Generation A never quite came together as a cohesive work.

Vonnegut Lite
First off let me state, that for the first time reader of Coupland, skip the first 155 pages and begin reading the short story called Superman and the Kryptonite Martinis. That short story is Coupland at his best and the short vignettes that follow will please most fans, however I can't help but think I have read all of these stories before in books like Welcome to the Monkey House and A Man Without a Country, both Vonnegut short story/essay collections.

The story as a whole is an anthem that technology is bad, replacing the human need for interaction with each other and an expose of the drug industry and their greed to control us all, both financially and mentally. No need to explain further just read the review posted by the BookReporter in this review section.

I have read every book he has ever written and I must say it is time for him to grow up a bit as I am now in my forties, and his characters he writes about are constantly 23 and self absorbed. (my pet peeve maybe not others). If I wanted to read Vonnegut I would just pick up Player Piano and reread that. I realize that the book starts with a quote from Vonnegut given at a commencement speech, but I had expected the author to write a book himself and not just mirror one of America's greatest writers. The book is an homage to Vonnegut and nothing more.