Eleanor Rigby

Eleanor Rigby

By Douglas Coupland

I don't even like Douglas Coupland!

I find he tries way too hard to the the hip, millennial author missing from the Canadian literary scene with his odd little novels about vapid Gen Xers finding their purpose in life. Yet somehow I have managed to read even of his fourteen novels to date. That's half of his entire fiction bibliography. How in the hell has this happened? How have I managed to read so much from an author I like so little? Well, I have a theory. Stick around and shake your head in wonder (or shake it in disbelief, either way, stick around)...

If I was to compare Canadian literature to Canadian pop music it would go something like this:

The heavyweights of Canadian literature (Canlit) are akin to the heavyweights of Canadian pop: The Tragically Hip (Mordecai Richler), Neil Young (Robertson Davies), The Guess Who (Farley Mowat), Joni Mitchell (Margaret Atwood), Leonard Cohen (Leonard Cohen). They are the artists who, love them or hate them, have transcended their work and have become icons unto themselves (well, in Canada, at least).

Then there is a much larger group artists who, although quite good, have yet to achieve the status of true legend. Sloan (Carol Shields), Blue Rodeo (Elizabeth Hay), Loverboy (Guy Vanderhaege). It's all over the map, but there's a lot of good in there. You see where I'm going with this, right?

There is also a nice little group of alternative/experimental artists that populate the fringe. Music artists in this genre include Jane Siberry, The Headstones, The Inbreds and such. Great performers if you are into those sorts of eccentricities. For me, this is equivalent to everything published by House of Anansi Press.

And then there is Douglas Coupland. Too mainstream to fall in with the eccentrics, Been around too long to fall in with the not-quite-legends and simply too crappy to rub noses with the legends. Ladies and gentlemen, Douglas Coupland is the literary equivalent of Rush!

Hear me out.

Nobody in Canada likes Rush. Not immediately, anyway. Rush is too strange, too difficult to listen to. The complicated rhythms. The odd time signatures. The pseudo-intellectual lyrics. The high-pitched wail of Geddy Lee. Rush is the bane of every kid in the backseat of a car who has no control over the radio station. A few bars into Subdivisions and your ears are bleeding and you wish you'd hurry up and get to the dentist already! Anything is better than another go round of that chorus!

As any Canadian knows, Rush is always on the radio. Due to CanCon regulations (does CanCon still exist?) 30% of all product on Canadian television and radio must be Canadian in origin (Canadian Content). In the late 70s and early 80s (when there was still precious few Canadian acts worth listening to) that meant a lot of Neil Young. A lot of The Guess Who and a lot of Rush. They really were the only three bands. They got a lot of airplay.

But Rush never fit the mold of, well, anything. And you hated them for it. They weren't quite metal, not quite rock and definitely not cool. You could never get away with wearing a Rush T-shirt to school, no matter how many skulls it has on it. But they were always on the radio, so somebody out there must like them, right? Who knows. Eventually, after years of repeatedly listening to Tom Sawyer and Limelight via Canadian media outlets, most citizens make their peace with Rush and accept them as part of the cultural landscape, but never quite accept them as canon. Our relationship with Rush has been a rocky one to say the least.

As for those people who love Rush, well, that's a different blogpost altogether.

The comparison to Rush, for me, explains the mysterious appeal of Douglas Coupland. He does not fit the mold of Canadian writer. What's a Canadian writer, you ask? Well, you can find examples of the sorts of books they write here and here. It's refreshing that Coupland wants to be different and he should be encouraged to break the cultural death grip other Canadian writers have placed on fiction in Canada. It's just that his quirky, gimmicky nonsense gets really old, really quick. Nobody actually likes Douglas Coupland, he's just always there. and just being there in canada is often enough to maintain a career.

I always got the impression that Coupland was a great fan of Tom Robbins and imagines himself to be a Northern interpretation of his style. If so, he does it with a lot less flare and imagination. Coupland continues to create drab, uninteresting characters living out impossibly outrageous plots. I mean Girlfriend in a Coma? Jeez! What a club-you-over-the-head metaphor for environmental degradation. Yeesh!

Anyway, Eleanor Rigby is just more of the same bullshit Coupland has been publishing for going on two decades. Fine. Good for you Mr. Coupland. I support your right to publish this stuff and wish you the best of luck and no ill will. The same feelings I have toward Geddy and the boys. I'll even buy you a beer next time I'm in Vancouver as well. We'll sit down and compare notes on Canadian literature and beyond. I imagine, if nothing else, you have a lot of interesting stories. Maybe then you can explain how you have duped me into reading half your novels.

Here's to the end of CanCon!

Atonement

Atonement

By Ian McEwan

I broke a cardinal rule.

I'm a fairly disciplined individual who likes to live by a certain set of rules, most of them self-imposed (I have no idea why I seem to function better via self-discipline, but I do). I have self-imposed rules is virtually every facet of my life. It helps me stay organized. It helps me stay focused and it keeps me out of a lot of trouble I would otherwise find myself in (read: no alcohol on weekdays).

I have rules for reading. Some of them cardinal. One of my cardinal rules is that I must read every day. This is a rule I have not broken in over three years. Most days I read in the vicinity of 50-100 pages depending on how interesting the book is, font size and time. I also never leave a book unfinished, no matter how bad it is. Oddly enough, because of these rules I tend to read books quicker if they are bad. I can't set them aside or put them down, so I blast through trash as quickly as I do gems.

Another cardinal rule is that I never, ever read a book if I have already seen the movie. Like I wrote in a previous blog, I don't often go to movies, but I have seen a few along the way. I generally avoid novel adaptations figuring that I might one day like to read the book. Plus, I think that movies and novels should be mutually exclusive. Just cause a segment of the population doesn't want to take the time to read a story we should have to pander to them by making good books into sub-par movies.

But I digress.

I've seen Atonement. I can't for the life of me remember having seen it, but I have. I know I saw it because it was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars a few years back and it was one of those years where I decided to watch all the nominees (before they went to ten nominees and I completely lost interest). I remember because that was the year of No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, two movies I actually liked a lot and I watched them back to back. A rarity.

Despite the fact that the novel was short-listed for the Booker Prize in 2001, I wouldn't have even bothered to pick Atonement up if I weren't so desperate. But I've been reduced to Douglas Coupland and Crime and Punishment on my bookshelf, neither of which are all that enticing. Breaking a cardinal rule and reading Atonement seemed like a better alternative to either of my other options and I figured the book would give me some insight into the characters that appeared in the movie (once I remembered the plot).

Well, it didn't really matter. Even at the end of the book I could not recall a single scene from the movie and the plot was completely unfamiliar (I don't watch movies drunk and I'm not prone to blackouts, so I'm at a loss for how this happened). In a way, I lucked out. I got a first-time read out of Atonement, and it turns out that it's a pretty decent read... if a bit plodding.

The first half of the novel center around Briony, a foolish young girl who fancies herself a writer of fairy tales and has her head firmly entrenched in her own fantasy world Through a series of tragic misunderstandings and misinterpretations, Briony mistakenly vilifies her older sister's (Cecilia) lover (Robbie) for a crime he did not commit, sending him to prison and social disgrace.

the second half of the novel fast-forwards a few years into the early days of World War II and the evacuation of Dunkirk. Briony reappears as a slightly older, slightly less foolish girl who works in London as a nurse. Robbie has spent time in prison and Cecilia has broken all ties with her family over the false accusation. Over time, Briony has realized the severity of her deception and has developed an overwhelming desire to set things straight and clear Robbie's name. At this point it's best to stop. I will not spoil the end. The plot is thin but what McEwan lacks in events he more than makes up for in emotional and psychological deconstruction.

McEwan explores the depths of some pretty intense human emotions, especially love, hate, guilt, shame, redemption and, well, atonement. It offers a wonderful introspection on the relationship between truth and fiction, love and hate as well as war and peace. McEwan balances between these dichotomies with a deft hand. It's a book deserving of the accolades it has received and a tour de force for the author. a must read for anyone who enjoys books that explore the depths of human emotions and the complexities of familial relationships.

I was truly surprised by this book and glad I broke a rule to read it. I figured it was the sort of book that would instantly hate but it turns out it is a very readable book. Perhaps I should break more of my rules.

Recommended. (Just don't see the movie. It's entirely forgettable).