Jpod: Amazon.de: Douglas Coupland: Englische Bücher

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Already dubbed Microserfs 2.0 by some pundits--a winking allusion to Douglas Coupland's previous novel Microserfs, which similarly chronicled pop-culture-damaged twentysomething misfits flailing, foundering, and occasionally succeeding in the high-tech sector--JPod is, like all of Coupland's novels, a byproduct of its era and yet strangely detached from it. Only this time with a bold and very crafty narrative device: Douglas Coupland, novelist, is a character in Douglas Coupland's novel. Which, when you think about it, makes sense since the type of people Coupland depicts are precisely the type of people who consume Coupland novels. As the once-great comedian Dennis Miller might holler, "Stop him before he sub-references again!" Readers familiar with Coupland's oeuvre know what to expect with the characterizations here. They also know that Coupland on a roll is both savagely observant and laugh-out-loud funny: "Bree was showing someone photos of her recent holiday visiting Korean animation sweathshops. She was bummed because she couldn't get into North Korea: too much legal juju. [She said] 'I just wanted to know what it's like to be in a society with no technology except for three dial telephones and a TV camera they won from Fidel Castro in a game of rock paper scissors.'" Much of the book is like that, built on granular and meandering exchanges between characters about . . . stuff. While JPod's flow is hobbled by some preposterous twists and character traits and by random words, phrases, and numbers splattered gratuitously across successive pages in oversized typeface, it's hard to imagine Coupland fans walking away disappointed. --Kim Hughes

From Booklist

No, "JPod" is not the next version of iPod; it refers to a group of geeks with last names starting with J cubicled together in a distant quadrant of a giant Vancouver video-game corporation. Coupland revisits the digital kingdom he so shrewdly depicted in Microserfs (1995) in a zeitgeist-trawling satire about twenty-first-century cyber obsession. JPoder Ethan Jarlewski narrates in deadpan geekspeak, reporting on life in gamer land, where he and his fellow designers--each precocious, cynical, oddball charming, and possibly a touch autistic--invent hilariously clever trivial pursuits to avoid work. But Ethan is often distracted from fun with porn sites, math problems, and an evil cyber version of Ronald McDonald by the crazy demands of his off-the-charts family. There's a South Park edginess and surrealism to the frequently violent escapades of Ethan's actor-wannabe father, gun-toting and pot-growing mother, and real-estate salesman brother, who gets them all entangled with the gangster Kam Fong. As both actual and cyber mayhem crest, Coupland, himself a character in this rampaging comedy, reminds us that no matter how seductive the virtual realm is, it is real life that requires our keenest attention. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Coupland schwächstes Buch 21. Juni 2006

Von Khan

Format:Gebundene Ausgabe

Bis jetzt konnte ich jedem Coupland-Buch etwas abgewinnen und habe das Lesen genossen.

Bei "JPod" ist das leider anders. Der typische Schreibstil und die kreative Textgestaltung finden sich zwar, es fehlt allerdings der rote Faden, die Story. JPod liest sich wie eine Aneinanderreihung von skurrilen Szenen, denen die Hauptfigur Ethan mehr oder weniger hilflos ausgesetzt ist.

Was aber eben fehlt, ist die Entwicklung. Die Personen um Ethan werden zusehends verrückter, wobei eine Einsicht in die Gedankenwelt wünschenswert wäre. Bei Ethan selbst - nichts.

Nach zwei Dritteln beginnen dann die repetetiven Schemata der Erzählung und der sinnlose Einbau der Autorenperson richtig nervig zu werden.

Coupland-Fans rate ich ab - lieber Microserfs nochmal lesen.

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7 von 8 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich

Not Microserf 2.0! 17. Mai 2007

Von sista A

Format:Taschenbuch

Not Microserf 2.0!

I need to say this first: jPod was a huge disappointment for me, especially since it was dubbed Microserfs 2.0, and I really like that book. Granted, the similarities are there: Endless references to pop-culture, twenty-somethings, blabla. And sometimes the book is even reasonably funny. BUT: Where the voyage of Microserfs characters is heartwarming and has depth to it, the characters in jPod are as well-rounded and interesting as the minifigs on the cover, with the difference that there is nothing whatsoever likeable about the characters. And while the cultural references in Microserfs sometimes resemble a pop quiz about the `90, more often than not they also help to define the characters, whereas in jPod they are just completely random and after a while quite tiresome. The same is true for the plot which twists and turns and turns and twists without any aim or direction.

As for the "crafty narrative device" of Douglas Coupland as a character... What can I say? Douglas, how 1976!

All in all I think the problem is that Coupland tries too hard to be clever, which he doesn't need to because he is. And there the book goes belly-up. In my opinion it is certainly one of his weakest.

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5 von 6 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich

Geek fun 5. August 2007

Von weberwu

Format:Taschenbuch

I dunno, I laughed myself silly in places. I was not expecting depth of character or anything, and had fun with Pi and the prime numbers. The Douglas Coupland self-reference is corny, but I must say that I just could not put it down, which is more than I can say about the last 10 books or so that I read. Just the thing for the geek in your life!

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