Generation A
Ratings6
Average rating3.8
15
Ratings6
Average rating3.8
In the near future bees are extinct - until five unconnected individuals, in different parts of the wowrld, are stung. Immediately snatched up by ominous figures in hazmat suits, interrogated searately in neutral Ikea-like chambers, and then released as 15-minute-celebrities into a world driven almost entirely by the internet, these five unforgettable people endure a barrage of unusual and highly 21st-century circumstances. A charismatic scientist with dubious motives eventually brings the quintet together, and their shared experience unites them in a way they could never have imagined.Generation A mirrors the structure of 1991's Generation X as it champions the act of reading and storytelling as one of the few defences we still have against the constant bombardment of the senses in a digital world. Like much of Coupland's writing, it occupies the perplexing hinterland between optimism about the future and everyday, apocalyptic paranoia, and is his most ambitious and entertaining novel to date.
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I didn't get my standard Coupland vibe of cultural gestalt from this one. I'm talking about those moments when you nod in understanding and agreement when a character does or says something that you don't expect in a book but really captures your current everyday experience. It's there in thin layers but this book went somewhere else.
The storytelling at the end seems to be a modern day Canterbury Tales. The tales almost seem a parody of earlier Couplan works. Gen A actually tries to pull a deeper meaning out of those stories. And it almost succeeds. But when I finishe this book I didn't have that experience of thinking I just read something that captured and added to my understanding of our world.
That said I enjoyed the story and it did pull me along enjoyably.
