Douglas Coupland’s Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture: an alternative voice :: Essays Papers

Douglas Couplands extension X Tales for an Accelerated Culture an alter indigenous voiceOn production of his first novel, Coupland was labelled by critics spokesman for a new lost generation - Generation X - those individuals aged between mid-twenties and mid-thirties who expect come of age in an increasingly technological and materialistic bureaucratic society. As a consequence, they are emotionally scarred and alienated, reject compliancy and search for some kind of meaning to life. When asked about this label, Coupland stated that he spoke ...for myself, not for a generation. I never have, inclination that he addresses issues relevant to himself and his peer group who grew up in Vancouver (Hall, Sharon K. Douglas Coupland present-day(a) Literary Criticism, Vol. 39, 29). The subsequent success of Generation X both in America and Europe, indicate that the experiences Coupland records are global, appealing to a wide auditory sense who share his fears and expectations.While the debate about the lack of a distinctive Canadian voice continues, the critical reaction to Generation X illustrates the problems inbred within Canadian literature. Coupland wrote the novel in America, and it was here kinda than his native country that it was actually published. In uneasiness of the Mall-Raised, Brian Fawcett details the reasonablenesss for Couplands sign lack of success in Canada, indicating that it was the nurse buying public rather than the literary establishment who put Coupland on the literary map...the book couldnt find a Canadian publisher, that the Globe and Mail didnt review Generation X, or that Books in Canada...rejected it for having an attitude problem (Fawcett, Brian. Malaise of the Mall-Raised Books in Canada, Vol. 21, 44-6).Typical of this critical reaction, Laurel Boone in a Books in Canada review of Generation X, is scathing towards the novel which she describes as shallow, and for the item that its Canadian characters do not translate the F rench phrases they use (Boone, Laurel. follow of Generation X. Books in Canada. Vol. 20, 50-1). Boone also faults Couplands use of cartoons, definitions and slogans within the work. 1 of these pop art cartoons shows a young man reading a real estate magazine and telling his father Hey, Dad, - You can all have a house or a life Im having a life. In contrast to Boones opinion, it was the actual arrange of the novel as well as the content which appealed to the reading public.The reason Coupland was overlooked may be due to the fact that his novel was viewed as the antithesis of conventional Canadian writing.