Free Download | Generation X | Douglas Coupland Novel

Generation X is a cool, loose limbed, flexi sort of a novel. The plot is not really there - it is more a series of character portraits of doomed gen x'ers who opt out of the yuppie sell out rat race, with miserable jobs in cubicles 'veal fattening pens' working for clapped out, sold out hippies. They wind up in the Desert, Palm Springs region, working in dead end 'McJobs' in the service industry and don't do much else except whine, gripe, tell stories and fuss in a sort of Delillo lite pop analysis way. It is a compelling read for the observational nails Coupland hits time and time again in this novel. The numbers he puts up are extraordinary. Nearly every line rings true in some sense, except perhaps the really weird far left field final chapters which dissolve the book in a fairly unsatisfactory ending. Many of these points are in the extra text dictionary definitions that weave through the pages. You'll recognise them, even if you yourself are not a gen-xer. Terms such as 'emotional ketchup burst: the bottling up of opinions and emotions inside oneself so that they explosively burst forth all at once, shocking and confusing employers and friends - most of whom thought things were fine; 'Conversational Slumming' - the self conscious enjoyment of a given conversation precisely for its lack of intellectual rigour; me-ism - the search for a personal religion, personally tailored.