Life After God - Douglas Coupland [June/06]

Sometimes on nice weekends I will go yard saling. Last weekend was one of those nice weekends, and I decided to head out. At a small sale where the majority of the books they had were romance, I found this wonderful Douglas Coupland. I have liked Douglas Coupland since high school when I read Generation X and All Families are Psychotic. Since then I have read all of his books except Hey Nostradomas!, Eleanor Rigby, Mircoserfs, and his new one, Jpod. His books are all very different, so some I have liked better than others. Life After God is only a short book, smaller than a mass market book, and it has little pictures inside to help stress important comments from Coupland's novel.

YOU ARE THE FIRST GENERATION RAISED WITHOUT RELIGION

From the flap:

What happens if we are raised without religion or beliefs? As we grow older, the beauty and disenchantments of the world temper our souls. We are all living creatures with strong religious impulses, yet where do these impulses flow in a world of malls and TV, Kraft dinner and jets? LIFE AFTER GOD is a compellingly innovative collection of stories responding to these themes. International bestselling author Douglas Coupland takes us into worlds we know exist but rarely see, finding rare grace amid our late 20th-Century lives.

How do we cope with loneliness? How do we deal with anxiety? The collapse of relationships? How do we reach the quiet, safe layer of our lives?

Coupland unplugs from his previous style, cutting through the hype of modern living and traveling inward to the elusive terrain of our dreams and nightmares. He uncovers a new kind of truth for a culture stuck on fast forward. A culture seemingly beyond God.

This novel is really a collection of short stories, with each of the stories answering a question presented on the flap. With a comedic flair, Coupland looks at how people react in a world seemingly without religion. For those of you that have never read Coupland, he is the type of author that looks at serious situations, but with a sense of humour. He doesn't have a preachy writing style, and I think that is why he is so easy to read. He also tends to change his thoughts, making you wonder what he himself really thinks, about the world around him.

Coupland is one of the more interesting Canadian authors. He is easy to read, but at the same time I am often left thinking about things. From this book, it was how people act with or without religion. In Coupland style, things are often left to your own interpretation of how he really thinks or what he is really thinking. He might not be the best author Canada has to offer, but he does offer readers a chance to think about the world around them. Even if his novels do take place in Canada for the most part, the issues he looks at are witnessed on a global spectrum.

3.5/5