Awesome
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This is one of those books that I have wanted to review for a while, but was unsure of how to approach it. I love the book and have read it over a half dozen times in less than two years. Yet it is such an atypical book that it is difficult to review. I can just be blunt and state that the book will grab you and draw you back in again and again.
The book is published as fiction, yet rumors have it that Coupland will admit that it is at least partially autobiographical. It is a collection of recollections, thoughts, memories and drawings by Coupland. It is the recount a man's life, and as we find out he is telling the story to find out how his life got to where it is. He wants a record for his daughter so that maybe she will understand him better. My favorite of the individual entries is:
"Now -- here is my secret:
I tell it to you with an openness of heart I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God - that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem capable of giving; to help me to be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond able to love." p.359
Every time I pick up this book, I get something more out of it. Sometimes I read it from beginning to end, and then at other times I just pick it up and read at random. This book deals with many of the 'big' questions all of us will have to deal with in our lives. Questions like: How do we deal with Loneliness? Anxiety? Failed relationships? How can we find quiet in our lives? It also deals with the question of being raised without a religion or belief system and how, as we age, we end up struggling with spiritual questions.
If you can track down the first edition hardcover it is worth it. It is in a different format and shape. With the dust jacket off, it looks like a prayer book or bible. If you read it without the jacket in public places people will often ask you what you are reading. This was intentional and the shape and design of this book are part of the art of the book, and part of the complexity Coupland has woven into it. The front cover of the hardback also has an outline of a hand, like a tracing of a child's hand. As we are all reaching out beyond ourselves in search of some greater meaning in life, we are reaching out like a child in search of a parent.
My hat is off to Coupland and this amazing work of art - on all the levels that it is art of the deepest level. Coupland has created a masterpiece that will become a classic, which will survive through the ages.
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Life after Plots
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`Life after God' seems to have split people. Some love it, whilst others felt it was a bit of a con. I am afraid that I fall into the latter category as I did not think much of Coupland's pseudo cod psychological mumblings. At around 200+ pages you soon realise that most of these are full of white space or childlike drawings. This means that you are effectively paying full price for a book that would sit comfortably in the Quick Reads section of the book shop.
It is not the length of the book that really bothered me but the fact that there was absolutely nothing to it. There is no story as such and it is more about a man's crisis as he narrates how his life has unravelled. Each chapter jumps to a point in his life were he no longer feels connected to life. Personally I would tell him to get a clue - everyone feels like an outsider, it's called the human condition. It has always irritated me to see rich Westerners moaning about their place in life whilst other people live on the edge of starvation or in war zones. The richer you are the more inane your petty problems - but you still worry e.g. Owen Wilson.
Some people may find something deep and meaningful from this book, but personally I find it a bit of a short cynical cash-in that Coupland probably rushed out after his initial success with `Generation X'. I have read other books by Coupland and `All Families are Psychotic' proves that his explorations of psychology, family friction and depression do work - they just need some sort of coherent structure.
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God is the teeth of a man who bites me on the back of the neck after a lucky night...
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A lecturer of mine from university once gave me a list of books to read, which at first glance, had nothing to do with the module we were studying at the time. "These books are not designed to teach you anything as such" he began, "I have recommended them only to create a spirit of reflection". Having read all of the books on the list (sad life I lead), I asked him again whether there was some underlying common thread between all of the novels he had included. His answer: the only element that each book had in common was that you needed to embark upon a period of mourning after finishing each novel - the only mark of a truly wonderful read.
I include this story only because my lecturer discluded it from his list - "Life After God" is both thought-provoking and wonderful. Typical of Coupland's written prose, it is difficult to really summarise what the story is about. Quite simply, it is a series of biographical reflections penned by a man who never quite seems to come to terms with his own nihilistically, existentialistic reflections. Each page in itself is worthy of praise, every thought is both harrowing and revelationary. Never a word wasted, never a memory misplaced, this surely is Coupland at his very best.
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more directed coupland
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Anyone with a vague cerebral itch that their life is missing something should read this book. Anyone who feels that existence is a meaningless ritual of minutiae with an absence of narrative should seek it out and have Coupland once again have their suspicions confirmed.
Probably best not to do it on your own over Christmas and New Year though. Doesn't really put you in the party mood.
This is the third Coupland novel I've read (following Girlfriend in a Coma & Miss Wyoming). Once again Coupland proves his expertise at articulating the need for need that our generation occasionally suffers from. Told as sporadic journal entries and stream of conscious reminiscences, it makes its point more directly than the two later novels I read, but is maybe less memorable or enjoyable for eschewing narrative (though the absence of narrative in life is one of his main points).
Closure is once again however his weak point. Like Miss Wyoming and (especially) Girlfriend in a Coma, he ends with the vagaries of Easy Rider style escapism, where the 9-5 is rejected in order to just head off and, you know, do stuff. Just switch off your television set and go and do something less boring instead.
But then, by accurately portraying our questioning of how inconsequential work and life is, it's inevitable that he'll never be able to give us an answer.
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Beautifully written - a strange but moving masterpiece
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I'll admit to having read many of Coupland's books. As a chronicler of our vacuous, materialist age and the damage it inflicts on us as human beings, he is without peer. After his seemingly more substantial works like All Families Are Psychotic, Eleanor Rigby and Hey Nostradamus, the pared down, minimalist structure of Life After God at first seemed ethereal and a cop-out even. But as I read on, I realised that in Coupland's case, less is more. This is a profound and almost scary take on modern life. The structure (there are several narrators) and lack of plot in the conventional sense may make it hard for some to appreciate, but as with all Coupland's books I found myself laughing aloud one minute and pondering deep sorrow the next. He has an uncanny ability to nail the quintessential element in a vague emotion and nail it. Here's one of my favourites; "Now: I believe that you've had most of your important memories by the time you're thirty. After that, memory becomes water overflowing into an already full cup. New experiences just don't register in the same way or with the same impact. I could be shooting herion with the Princess of Wales , naked in a crashing jet, and the experience still wouldn't compare to the time the cops chased us after we threw the Taylors' patio furniture into their pool...." Brilliant. Buy it. Read it. Read it again. Delicious!
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