Review of Douglas Coupland's Girlfriend in a Coma

Douglas Coupland's Girlfriend in a Coma is a pretty good novel. (Yes, there are many Smiths references.) Not great, but pretty good. It is about a few friends from Vancouver who go through their Gen-X-style lives, not really becoming anything too meaningful. One dies in high school, and one ends up in a coma for 17 years. The rest get jobs and lead unfulfilled lifes toying with drugs, depression and all around unhappiness.

Then some 17 years after high school weird things start to happen, and all the friends happen to reassemble in their home town when the girl in the coma miraculously reawakens. At that point the world falls apart, and it is just the few of them left.

Coupland wrote a thoughtful book. In it he attempts to doagnose just what it is that made Gen X the way it was. He attempts to give us the answer to our problems. We are not interested enough in the past, we are not concerned enough about asking the questions whose answers may help un understand things. Coupland tries to convince us that we can break out of the vicious cycle that is our meaninglesness if only we probed deeply and an hard enough. Then will we get out of our miserabel lives.

This is one of those books that does leave a bit of room for interpretation. One can see the characters in different ways if one wants to. I personally am not sure what to really make of the whole thing. I really doubt I agree with his analysis of the problem, nor do I see how we can start making a change to look for meaning. Life just seems to be the way it is.