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Review
'Very funny' Sunday Times 'A blackly comic tale of life in the age of Google, and it's Coupland's best book in years ... A wonderfully inventive book, fizzing with wit and black humour' Image 'The perfect vehicle for his funny and poignant evocations of near-term nostalgia ... there is brilliance at work in JPod. Not to mention more LOLs than you could shake a bong at' Los Angeles Times 'A dazzling comic novel, confirming that there is on current form no funnier novelist writing in English' Literary Review
Scottish Sunday Herald
Humming with life and very, very funny.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I became obsessed with Douglas Coupland's books when I first read Gen X, Shampoo Planet and Life After God in the space of a few weeks and have, ever since Microserfs, awaited each new one with expectations that were rarely disappointed. The overall success of his output since has varied a little, many people suggesting that he does one good then one so-so book, but the last couple - Hey Nostradamus and Eleanor Rigby - were as good as if not better than his best to date (Microserfs, in my opinion) and all of his books, however contrived the subplots and kitschy the references, had a soulfulness and poetry to them that transcended the gimmicks.
JPod is like someone lacking that humanity tried - and failed - to mimic Microserfs. It's devoid of ideas. The technology that, again, felt like a gimmick in Microserfs is now so commonplace that it's got no cachet, the family subplot is painfully unreal and not remotely touching (recall "hellojed" for a reminder of how tear-jerking he could be), the way 'Coupland' inserts himself into the story about halfway through is a poor imitation of Bret Easton Ellis and pages and pages are filled with numbers that no-one will ever read, like he ran out of oopmh and just needed to hit that word count, no questions asked.
If anyone read his recent Morrissey 'interview' for the Observer Music Monthly they should know what to expect - as that was an interview without any quotes or input from the subject, so this is a novel without any creative input or heart from the author.
I would go so far as to recommend that Coupland fans who have not yet read this book should avoid it - this is his 'Phantom Menace' and it stinks.
JPod is like someone lacking that humanity tried - and failed - to mimic Microserfs. It's devoid of ideas. The technology that, again, felt like a gimmick in Microserfs is now so commonplace that it's got no cachet, the family subplot is painfully unreal and not remotely touching (recall "hellojed" for a reminder of how tear-jerking he could be), the way 'Coupland' inserts himself into the story about halfway through is a poor imitation of Bret Easton Ellis and pages and pages are filled with numbers that no-one will ever read, like he ran out of oopmh and just needed to hit that word count, no questions asked.
If anyone read his recent Morrissey 'interview' for the Observer Music Monthly they should know what to expect - as that was an interview without any quotes or input from the subject, so this is a novel without any creative input or heart from the author.
I would go so far as to recommend that Coupland fans who have not yet read this book should avoid it - this is his 'Phantom Menace' and it stinks.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Sometimes you get a bad feeling from the first page of a book, such as when the author namedrops himself. In this case, clever Douglas Coupland.
Fortunately that bad feeling doesn't continue throughout the geek purgatory of "JPod," which can be seen as a sort of sequel to "Microserfs" -- bored, brilliant people in unfulfilling corporate jobs. It staggers at the midway point, but the corporate bizarrities are definitely worth the read.
When he's not dealing with a doomed video game, Ethan is trying to help his parents -- his pot-growing mum killed a hostile biker, and his wannabe-actor dad is having a hot affair with a sexy girl Ethan's age. To make matters worse, his brother has smugglesd illegal Chinese immigrants into his home without permission. And you thought YOUR day was bad.
Things deteriorate even more when the JPod boss develops an obsessive crush on Ethan's mother, and he ends up getting shipped to China. Now it's Ethan's job to go retrieve him, since the turtle-themed video game is being destroyed by their new manager. But getting the boss back won't be the end of his problems.
Let's get this out of the way: Coupland casts himself as a character in "JPod." Essentially it's his evil, sociopathic clone. Coupland does get credit for not making himself come across as appealing at all, but the whole sequence seems very gimmicky and artificial.
"JPod" itself is a smirky black comedy, with lots of dysfunctional characters and a a lot of all-out comic situations. In fact, he really never lets up with the comedy, with idiot bosses, lesbian mothers with lowercase names, and even a gangster born without a sense of humor. Not to mention love letters to Ronald MacDonald. Yes, the fast-food clown.
But in this view of the world, the best you can hope for is a kind of chaos that is familiar to you, and Coupland takes the opportunity to poke fun at the attitudes he helped trigger. It's a very different tone from more uplifting novels like "Eleanor Rigby," and it suits Coupland's satiric tone very well.
Coupland's strongest writing is on the JPodders themselves. They're not really likable, but they are fascinating. They fill up their worktime with mind games, mathematical riddles, and in-jokes. Unfortunately, these jokes also feel like filler to flesh out the story. At the same time, they meditate on what personality quirks drove them to this job.
"JPod" is wildly uneven and also deeply absurd, a black comedy with a postmodern Dilbert edge. It's not fully satisfying, but it is entertaining.
Fortunately that bad feeling doesn't continue throughout the geek purgatory of "JPod," which can be seen as a sort of sequel to "Microserfs" -- bored, brilliant people in unfulfilling corporate jobs. It staggers at the midway point, but the corporate bizarrities are definitely worth the read.
When he's not dealing with a doomed video game, Ethan is trying to help his parents -- his pot-growing mum killed a hostile biker, and his wannabe-actor dad is having a hot affair with a sexy girl Ethan's age. To make matters worse, his brother has smugglesd illegal Chinese immigrants into his home without permission. And you thought YOUR day was bad.
Things deteriorate even more when the JPod boss develops an obsessive crush on Ethan's mother, and he ends up getting shipped to China. Now it's Ethan's job to go retrieve him, since the turtle-themed video game is being destroyed by their new manager. But getting the boss back won't be the end of his problems.
Let's get this out of the way: Coupland casts himself as a character in "JPod." Essentially it's his evil, sociopathic clone. Coupland does get credit for not making himself come across as appealing at all, but the whole sequence seems very gimmicky and artificial.
"JPod" itself is a smirky black comedy, with lots of dysfunctional characters and a a lot of all-out comic situations. In fact, he really never lets up with the comedy, with idiot bosses, lesbian mothers with lowercase names, and even a gangster born without a sense of humor. Not to mention love letters to Ronald MacDonald. Yes, the fast-food clown.
But in this view of the world, the best you can hope for is a kind of chaos that is familiar to you, and Coupland takes the opportunity to poke fun at the attitudes he helped trigger. It's a very different tone from more uplifting novels like "Eleanor Rigby," and it suits Coupland's satiric tone very well.
Coupland's strongest writing is on the JPodders themselves. They're not really likable, but they are fascinating. They fill up their worktime with mind games, mathematical riddles, and in-jokes. Unfortunately, these jokes also feel like filler to flesh out the story. At the same time, they meditate on what personality quirks drove them to this job.
"JPod" is wildly uneven and also deeply absurd, a black comedy with a postmodern Dilbert edge. It's not fully satisfying, but it is entertaining.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In keeping with some of the reviews here, I see this novel as a short story unnecessarily stretched out into a novel. In fact, take away the endless (and endlessly irritating) pages of numbers, slogans and streams of consciousness and you'd probably have a fairly readable novella. In many ways a sequel to Microserfs (although no where near as good) JPod follows a similar plotline - the lives and loves of a group of geeky co-workers, and in many respects it is as if Coupland is writing on auto pilot. There is even a romance between two of the main characters that is extremely reminiscent of Microserfs. Coupland himself appears as a central character in the novel, which some have seen as a vanity too far but which is more likely a slightly clumsy attempt at self-referential humour. It is, after all, not unknown for novellists to appear in their own works, whether loosely disguised or as themselves. I whizzed through JPod in about four days, probably only devoting around five or six hours to it, and it certainly hasn't made as lasting an impression on me as some of Coupland's other books. But I can think of worse books to read, and even Coupland's worse novels are better than many.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Awful, awful book
I have never read a book so up itself as this one. Even now, years later it still grates on me. I'd enjoyed some of Coupland's other books (aside from ludicrous endings) but this I... Read more
Published 7 months ago by ChuckieEgg
Like a Dilbert cartoon...
Jpod is like an extended Dilbert cartoon. It may not be up there with Coupland's very finest, but it's completely on the money in its deciption of the pointlessness of office life;... Read more
Published 12 months ago by John Moseley
Coupland's best since Microserfs? Maybe, but ...
As someone who has read every Coupland novel pretty much as they were released, I still think that Microserfs is the reference. Read more
Published 12 months ago by D. Smith
Really bad.
Microserfs was better, but this book is appaulling there are huge numbers of pages devoted to nothingness! page 331 - 373 are completley pointless and wasted. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Nigel
Microserfs just edited?
I had some high expectations for this book after enjoying Generation X Y, life after god Hey Nostradamus and Eleanor Rigby. Read more
Published on 30 May 2010 by Paul M
Toby Jezard says thumbs up
Well after the show was cancelled after 1 season (Still pretty pissed about that) i had to buy the book. Not the best thing I've ever read, but enjoyable.
Published on 16 Aug 2009 by Toby Jezard
Somewhat disappointing
I bought this book after watching the complete series of jPod on Virgin Media's on-demand service. Whilst I had not read any of Coupland's material before, but heard opinions from... Read more
Published on 23 July 2009 by A Venice Merchant
hmmm
This was the first Coupland book I had read and to be honest I was mainly drawn to it because it had an interesting cover, when my friends saw this book they developed interest in... Read more
Published on 21 July 2009 by will
Weird but I really enjoyed it
This is a bit of a weird book and unlike anything I have ever read (I've never read any Coupland) but I enjoyed reading it - I particularly enjoyed the unusual ways of finding more... Read more
Published on 1 April 2009 by Janie U
Not as good as usual..
I read this after enjoying Girlfriend in a Coma and Hey Nastradamus. It was a little too quirky for my liking to be honest. Read more
Published on 22 Feb 2009 by J. Underwood
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