Douglas Coupland; Jpod. What was people's opinion?

So, I'm clearly at least a year behind the time with this one.

But...

I found it superficially amusing but ultimately irritating.

Coupland's arrogance, casting himself as a character in his book (an
arrogant git at that) rather grated.

The numerous pages of kanji. The multiple pages of numbers. The
fragments of code (C++ ???) were all rather unnecessary really.

It would have been a good 300 page novel. He managed to make it reach
many more pages through just inserting tenuously linked material.

I'll buy his next book but... it could have been so much better than it
was.

 

I gave up on Coupland after Girlfriend in a Coma.

Similarly, I'm giving up on Iain Banks after reading Crow Road, Canal
Dreams, Whit and Complicity. Canal Dreams was mind-bendingly awful
(demure Japanese cellist turns into Rambo) and the rest, though
excellent, are blatantly just opportunities for Banks to put political
essays in the mouths of his characters so jarringly incongruously that
it almost completely ruins the story.

On the plus side, just finished Will Self's Book of Dave, one of the
best things I've read in years. Working through How the Dead Live now,
opinion yet to be formed.

Aside from the above, I can wholeheartedly recommend The Testament of
Gideon Mack. Richard & Judy sticker on the cover notwithstanding, it was
practically perfect from beginning to end.

 

Canal Dreams was 'dodgy' but I wouldn't give up on Banks.

Good isn't it. How the Dead Live is also quite good. I REALLY liked
Dorian; I thought it was one of the best things I'd read in years.

The only thing that worries me about Will (apart from his having stopped
the junk, I think it's 'creativity juice' for some) is that I have a
horrible fear he has a car with the registration W5 ELF (a Saab) and if
this is the case I'm mortified.

Hmm. I'll bear that in mind the next time I'm in an airport (hey, it'll
be a whole week and a half!).

Anyway, I think I'm going to reread some Ballard. Really, it's where
it's at; I want to step out of my life and into a Ballard novel.
Preferably Cocaine Nights or Millennium People but beggars can't be
choosers, I'd settle for Crash.

 

Got halfway thorough 'Whit' a few years ago. It bored me.

Can't get any more damning than that.

 

I've got a stack of books to get through at the moment; my biggest worry
is that my supply of crayons won't hold out.

 

The entire book was almost a homage to Hoban's Riddley Walker - it's no
coincidence that Self writes the introduction to the latest edition of
RW. The book's strength was the way it moved from future to present, and
each insight into Dave's deterioration made sense of the madness in the
future, was brilliant. Tbh, I didn't quite work out the forbidden zone
until it was all but referred to by name by Dave, but I genuinely
laughed out loud.

 

I had the same problem with The Communist Manifesto.