The Tea Makers

3 Comments

• A-nony-nony says:

  September 8, 2009 at 1:23 pm

  “Douglas Coupland: the writer who sees into the future
  In his new world, people don’t do anything any more, but merely cut and paste from the past”

  And interview of the detached but ‘so sensitive’ Canuck writer by The Guardian newspaper.
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/sep/07/decca-aitkenhead-douglas-coupland

  Course the interviewer has been on other worlds at times too.

  Reply
• Anon says:

  September 5, 2009 at 10:29 pm

  It doesn’t relate, except for CBC jPod series, Friday’s tedious Coupland playlist on Terfry’s unendurable Drive late evening show (bring on the PeopleMeterDeathStar ratings). And Coupland’s bad appearances sponsored by “friends” throughout the CBC Ahts crews.

  Meanwhile this book has been hacked–to bits–in reviews.
  TITLE : The point of Generation A eludes me
  The new book mirroring Douglas Coupland’s Generation X is not to every taste
  By Les Wiseman, For Canwest News ServiceSeptember 5, 2009
  http://www.vancouversun.com/life/point+Generation+eludes/1966339/story.html
  ….” As in most Coupland tales, matters such as corporate branding and
  selective consumerism are wittily portrayed and given heightened
  importance.”
  …” Now, Vonnegut had Kilgore Trout, a curmudgeonly, poverty-stricken
  character who was a prolific writer of science-fiction short stories.
  Vonnegut would pepper his novels with humorous little précis of Trout
  stories. They were glib and funny.
  The Gen A characters’ stories aren’t, though they try hard to be. ”
  …” Still, while it is a pleasant little read, it doesn’t go anywhere.
  And, as with “Generation X”, I am left not getting it.”

  the London (U.K.) Telegraph said “Douglas Coupland’s new novel Generation A is a backward step from Generation X”
  …. an irritating example …
  …such bland homogeneity …
  …incidental characters, who feel rather contrived in their colourfulness…
  … an act of desperation, not creation…

  He was a bad short story writer who cobbled together a book into a Meme, but he was never a good writer.
  As an artist he has a dispirited view and little mechanical skill–a workshop executes his mundane visions.

  We really don’t need to pay attention to him, though CBC producers think he has a vague value and connection to the audience they think is out there for their Ahts programmes.

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• Fake Ouimet says:

  September 4, 2009 at 12:52 pm

  OK, and I know we have rather expansive definitions we work under here, but this relates to the CBC how?

  Reply