My Weekly Book

A week on a boat gives you, theoretically at least, plenty of time for reading. In practice, you may well be too tired to do anything but sink gratefully into your sleeping bag. However, a number of books have been consumed since the last update to this site.

The Coupland experiment continues apace, and I am glad to report that it has definitely been worth persevering past Girlfriend in a Coma and Miss Wyoming. This latest book is an odd one, nonetheless. As far as writing and characterisation go, it’s witty, sparkling and original. Particularly notable is the complete break with the Gen X’ers - this story focuses on a character in her 60s.

The plots, however, are out of the window. Bizarre coincidences and incredible happenings are heaped upon the bones of odd situations and things that will make you shake your head in disbelief. This does stretch your patience a bit as a reader, but it also leaves you wondering whether it’s actually not a failing on the part of the author, but quite deliberate, and part of his grand plan for the novel.

Which leaves me wondering how I am supposed to react, a problem that I haven’t got to the bottom of yet. Still, I’m glad to have cracked my Coupland problem. Three novels out of the problematic four read, and I think that my conclusion will be that he is, once again, an author I will want to read.

But, sadly, no longer one I will rush out to buy the minute he comes out in paperback. I sense that it is also pretty generally acknowledged that Hey! Nostradamus, while controversial, is maybe not quite such a difficult book as its predecessors. Which means the only way is up, I suppose. Hurrah!

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 10th, 2004 at 11:43 am and is filed under 2004 - Books read. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.