Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture
Ratings37
Average rating3.6
Andy, Dag and Claire have been handed a society beyond their means. Twentysomethings, brought up with divorce, Watergate and Three Mile Island, and scarred by the 80s fallout of yuppies, recession, crack and Ronald Reagan, they represent the new generation- Generation X. Fiercely suspicious of being lumped together as an advertiser's target market, they have quit dreary careers and cut themselves adrift in the California desert. Unsure of their futures, they immerse themselves in a regime of heavy drinking and working in no future McJobs in the service industry. Underemployed, overeducated and intensely private and unpredicatable, they have nowhere to direct their anger, no one to assuage their fears, and no culture to replace their anomie. So they tell stories: disturbingly funny tales that reveal their barricaded inner world. A world populated with dead TV shows, 'Elvis moments' and semi-disposible Swedish furniture.
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This was very good. Funny, crazy. Kind of like Kerouac's On the Road. Frantic dialogues with lots of popculture references that make more sense in the time it was written.
Not a typical novel because there isn't a plot as such. What we have here is an odd collection of anecdotes about/told by a group of 20 somethings living in the early '90s. Andy, Dag, and Claire have gone through a “mid-twenties” crisis and decided the usual life path of college to career to marriage to house to kids is not for them.
I can relate. As a middle-class kid you always feel like you have to aim for the same life your parents had. If you don't, I suppose you delay “adulthood.” Of course if you delay too long, your life can still seem kind of empty. The characters in this book share the notion that the pursuit of status and material objects that their parents engage in wasn't going to give them a real life. So they withdraw and live underemployed, doing jobs they are too smart for and just getting by. Still, are they happy? Coupland isn't offering you a solution here, just showing you how this generation may have looked at the world.
I love the chapter titles, “ I Am Not a Target Market”, “Shopping is Not Creating,” and “Remember Earth Clearly” are a few favorites. I'm still thinking about my moment of how I want to remember Earth. One story that stood out in my mind was about the three sisters and the astronaut. In a “fairy tale” the sister who went with him would have been rewarded with a fantastic new life for her faith but in this cynical Gen-X tale, it is assumed by the other two sisters, and the reader, that she dies for being a trusting fool.
I would say an almost must-read for high schoolers and college kids just starting to wonder if society isn't worth dropping out of. Very thoughtful while remaining very accessible and easy-reading. A landmark.
