Generation A by Douglas Coupland

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Coupland is most famous, I think, for his early (first?) novel, Generation X, which also happens to be the only other book of Coupland's I've read. The older book gave a name to a generation of dispossessed slacker hipsters; and, like the people who took after the book, it wasn't all that great. I read Generation X maybe 10-12 years ago, definitely after the time of its relevance. I don't remember much of it besides that it was about a group of 20-somethings drifting through life, telling each other stories. I also remember I didn't find it that interesting. Oh well.

So, I was a bit skeptical when my partner told me to read Generation A, Coupland's most recent book, because of its clear reference to his earlier work. And isn't just the title; the inside jacket explicitly cites the earlier work and positions Generation A as a follow-up of sorts. That didn't fill me with confidence, but I decided to go for it anyway.

I'm glad I did. While I wouldn't classify Generation A as a truly great piece of literature or put it in my all-time favorites, it is really very good. The basic story is thus: It is the near future. Bees have been extinct for years, causing massive crop failures and severe trauma to the global economy. The majority of people lives a kind of struggling lower-middle class life. The world is fully connected by global communications technology that invades every nook and cranny of life. Yet at the same time, the desire to "drop out" has become nearly overwhelming, and a pharmaceutical named Solon is growing every more popular. It gives on the feeling of complete isolation, and with it, a lack of any deep attachment to anything or anyone. The drug is highly addictive.

5 people, seemingly scattered and random across the world, are stung by bees within a span of a few weeks. Of course, hysteria erupts, and the five are intensively studied to see what it is about them that attracted bees -- animals that hadn't been seen anywhere for years. Eventually, the five are brought together and they -- you guessed it -- tell each other stories. Somehow, these stories -- the sense of connection they bring, the ability to connect (and disconnect) people from one another, the way they build on each other and draw from the collective global internet culture -- are the key to the mystery of the bees, the growing sense of global malaise, and the future of human society.

Perhaps it is because I am closer to the world of Generation A than I ever was to the world of Generation X, but I found this novel much more compelling. The end is, admittedly, a bit of a let-down, as I was hoping for something a bit more grand, but it was a thoroughly gripping and entertaining story. Coupland is a great storyteller about stories and storytelling -- how stories are fundamental to the interpersonal links that connect humans, how no story exists in isolation, how stories mutate and cross over between fiction and life, and how all communication is a form of narrative. The pseudo-sci fi aspect of the novel is something of a red herring, which I think is perhaps why I was a bit disappointed by the end, but I think it should be understood as another story -- another part of global communication and one of the many mini-narratives that wrap around us. Recommended.



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