By Douglas Coupland, 2009.
“Now you young twerps want a new name for your generation? Probably not, you just want jobs, right? Well, the media do us all such tremendous favours when they call you Generation X, right? Two clicks from the very end of the alphabet. I hereby declare you Generation A, as much at the beginning of a series of astonishing triumphs and failures as Adam and Eve were so long ago.”
Kurt Vonnegut, Syracuse University commencement address, May8, 1994
Zack, Julien, Samantha, Harj, and Diana are five people from different parts of the world who are stung by bees. This is a big deal because bees are believed to be extinct and the authorities are all over it, but also because video footage related to the stings goes viral on youtube, making them “The Wonka Children”.
Generation A is a very contemporary novel that explores the cultures of reading and storytelling that are supposed to be at odds with the digital lives portrayed. It is lovely to read a novel that engages in a real way with technology and how it changes us instead of portraying it as the end of culture or showing a dystopian future, never mind a novel that manages to be smart, intellectual, funny, serious, and trivial all at once … a mash-up in print!
I love that Douglas Coupland writes about generations after him in a way that is fair and truly engaged (he was born in 1961). He is also an artist, screenwriter, playwright, actor, and New York Times blogger who lives in West Vancouver.
Official Site of Douglas Coupland
