Again with the Coupland

i've decided also to review books i read in here, because why the fuck not. it'll help me remember books later on to so when someone asks me why i liked a book i don't sit around and go DUHHHHHHHH

So- Book of the Day is Hey, Nostradamus by Douglas Coupland.

I have to admit i'm reading this book for class, but i'm re-reading it because i first read it when it came out since Douglas Coupland is one of my favorite authors. this class has been really fucking hard on me because i'm already so morose about aging and then here's Coupland to give me a whole pile of religious guilt and few of becoming one of his characters as i feel i already am.
I don't remember really enjoying this book the first time around . However, this second time around read was really good and i assume that The more serious nature of the book through me off, since i was a big Microserfs and All Families Are Psychotic fan before the class, which are his more irreverent writings.

To forgo spoilers i won't go to far into plot analysis.

the story is broken into 4 characters in 4 different time-lines, all dealing with the repercussions of am incident and how it effects their views on religion

It begins in 1989 with Cheryl. Cheryl is 17, part of a heavy Christian youth group, secretly married, and has just started her first trimester when she is shot in a school shooting and exists in a purgatory-esque area where her narrative is broken up by prayers people are saying to god about the massacre. Her religious quandary has to do with her existence and it's brevity, wondering why God would make her and take her without having had the chance to do something with her life. however, she still has the naivety of youth and doesn't put God on trial for her life. I feel like Coupland has made her too detached in an effort to write from a voice closer to him. the memories she has and dialogs are really good and age-appropriate, but i'm not so sure i like the whole being dead giving you total newfound clarity.

Part two is Jason, Cheryl's husband in 1999. unable to recover after both the massacre and the events following, Jason's part is told in the form of a letter he is writing to his nephews to be given to them on their 21 birthday. Jason has tried to give up on faith, but cannot bring himself to completely do so. his religious quandary is in the fact that his lifestyle shows he's completely lost and that all humans are really lost, desperately trying to make, rather than find, meaning to their existence in a world where every sign points to God's abandonment. Jason's story contained so many out of nowhere adventures and foul dealings that, while entertaining, i wondered why they existed with his message. While they are definitely Coupland ideas, their existence is kinda unnecessary.

Part Three is Heather, Jason's girlfriend, in 2002. Jason has disappeared and she is desperately trying to reclaim him, having found so much life through him. She was not a religious character and her story dealt more with faith in a person. That Jason had been so perfect for her meant that God must exist and taking him away is cruel and leaves her alone in the world. Her portion was by far the saddest and made me want to huddle into a ball. Their bond is probably the most sickeningly adorable relationship that would ever exist in a Coupland novel without being dripping with irony and self-satisfaction (ala Shampoo Plant's Tyler and Anna(?)) the only problem with it was Coupland's need to have everyone be friends and create a tiny support society among themselves- which makes an odd sidebar occurrence in the chapter that continually threw me out of it

Part four is Reg, Jason's asshole starch relgious father, in 2003. In it Reg explains why he was such a dick to his son and serves as a broken man's plea for redemption. His quandry was with the "falsehood" of his faith in the majority of his life, and how he tortured his son because he was afraid the boy could tell. Coupland's able to make you feel for a character he's vilified throughout the majority of the novel, and that's enough for me to make it a good section. the end, which is also the end of the book, is also amazing.

In all, the book was pretty standard Coupland except the fact he seemed to actually go into his actual religious questions as opposed to sitting back and making fun of relgion and pop culture. while i liked the book it's still not one of my favorite's, but apparently it's one of his so what the fuck do i know. These characters are actually alone, unlike most of the other characters that appear in some of his books who are alone with 6 other identical people. the 4 characters are related insomuch as they are in turn (Cheryl-Jason, Jason-Heather, Heather-Reg) the only people in this universe who really understand each other at the times in their life described. They are each other's emotional analogs- an almost exact match of wit, hope, sadness, purity, curiosity, and most of all need for, desire for, some kind of greater - god given love. I think Coupland likes this book because he is actually being genuine in a story form that is not necessarily him put on page with a different name. yes he had great moments in Generation X and Life After God but the majority of the time it didn't sound like he was telling a story but instead spilling his guts into a published work. this is the first time he's able to be a true fiction author while creating a message that comes from the heart and i have to give him credit for that. It will never be his funniest, or his most emotional, but it may in fact be his biggest accomplishment as an author.