Aan al deze mensen kan ik maar 1 boek aanraden, dat ik ondertussen al voor de 3e keer aan het lezen ben: Generation X van Douglas Coupland!
Hieronder een review (in het Engels):
Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, written by Douglas Coupland in 1991, could be described as the result of the social observation of a new generation. The book tells the story of three friends in their late twenties having a life… or rather having nothing but an existence. Like they always do when something’s hard to describe, mathematicians would call this feeling of emptiness X.
At the end of the 1980s, young people in the USA get bored of life. They go through college, get a well-paid job, buy a car, and travel around the world. This yuppie culture seems a pleasing and comfy way of life, but some people don’t agree.
Andy, Dag and Clair, the main characters in this novel, have quit their dreary jobs to install themselves in small bungalows in the California desert. Unsure about their future, they earn some money with McJobs (“
low-pay, low-prestige, low-dignity, low-benefit, no-future jobs”

and spend most of their time together, drinking and telling stories to each other.
These stories are, like the title suggests, loose anecdotes that reflect the world as they see it. The main theme of these tales is the materialistic culture in which they are forced to live. People get divorced, hate their jobs and travel around the world, merely in search of themselves. They don’t know their neighbours’ names, but will always be jealous of them. The mind of these yuppies (young urbanite professionals) is filled up with dollars by an over-commercialised society.
There is no real plot in
Generation X, and the anecdotes are always a bit of nothing. Although the book was praised by most critics, some criticised it for a lack of character development. That’s true, because the surface of what’s been told is somewhat rubbish, but the philosophy behind it can be intriguing.
The writing style is gorgeous. The ironical tone of Douglas Coupland throughout the novel emphasises the lack of ethical values between people or the absurdness of society and makes you grin every now and then. “I like Margareth. She tries hard. She’s older, and attractive in a hair-spray-and-shoulder-pads-twice-divorced survivor kind of way. A real bulldozer.”
A very extraordinary thing in the book is the overdone use of footnotes. They contain the exact meaning of neologisms Coupland uses to make the image of an absurd, materialistic society complete. Status Substitution, Successophobia and Legislated Nostalgia are examples of expressions typical of
Generation X.
Some of them have become really popular in the USA. McJob has been added to
Oxford English Dictionary, while fast-food chain McDonalds has complained about this definition in an official press release!
Another bizarre aspect of the book is its illustrations. These can be pop-art vignettes, satirical comics or semi-intelligent slogans (“SIMULATE YOURSELF”

.
In that respect,
Generation X becomes rather a concept than a story. I think this novel is just like the society it describes.
Empty, but fascinating.