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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Jpodding, 14 Aug 2006
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.
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21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
This is his 'Phantom Menace', 16 Jun 2006
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.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Most Fantastically Irrelevant Book I Have Ever Read! , 4 Sep 2006
JPod - so named because all of the programmers in this Canadian software house that sit in a particular section of the office have surnames that begin with the letter J.
There you have it, mystery solved; good night and go home.
Well kind of...
You could say the main character is Ethan, the story is in fact told (mainly) from his point of view but the plot does revolve around 5 other characters whom have varying degrees of (according to Ethan's girlfriend Kaitlan) autism - an interesting view on the teccies of this world and one that I would investigate just here.
The lives of our young JPoders are as varied as they are bizarre, John Doe (yes its his real name!) grew up in a lesbian commune and always tries to be statically normal as possible, Evil Mark has an edible stapler and Ethan himself has a drug dealing mother and a father with a girlfriend his own age. The cameo from Kam, the drug dealing people smuggler and smack head Steve are hilarious.
The puzzles that are incorporated in the book (find the odd one out from a list of prime numbers) are irrelevant but although they adds nothing of note to the story it is a funny interlude. The inclusion of the author himself in the story has been much discussed but I actually find it very amusing that the author would chose to portray himself in this way and find that it really works!
This is my first Coupland novel but will certainly not be my last.
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