JPod Paperback – May 1, 2007

After Coupland's last book, Eleanor Rigby, I was really worried about Jpod, especially since it was supposed to a "sequel" of sorts to Microserfs.After the obvious lag that was apparent in Eleanor Rigby, Coupland is back to his usual satiric, witty self.Jpod follows the life of Ethan Jarlewski, a video game programmer that works with other colorful individuals in a cubicle farm they call "Jpod". There's not much of a linear plot to speak of. The story mainly jumps around between Ethan's involvement in his Mom's pot dealing escapades, his Dad's zest for trying for a speaking part in a movie by over-exerting himself as a lowly extra, and his brother's involvement with a Chinese people-smuggler named Kam Fong. All the stories interweave, and mixing the different stories together produces some outrageous exploits that are fun reading.Coupland does insert himself as a character in the book, which I was worried about because it sounded unwarranted and pretentious. However, he played it out well, and only once did it feel forced. I saw a Coupland reading not too long ago in Austin, and he described his character in the book as an "evil, slick, James Bond version of himself". This characterization is pretty accurate and is why this portion works out the way it does.Coupland inserts many examples of "text art" in the book. On one page there is nothing but the words "ramen noodles" over and over. Another is about 30 pages of random numbers. Others are random buzz words of our modern culture. At first this text art can seem unnerving, but once you realize that their purpose is to conjure images in your head to create a setting in time, you start to appreciate and even enjoy them.All in all, JPod was a very enjoyable read. Without providing any spoilers, I will say that it was an accurate portrayal of our technology and efficiency obsessed culture. It is not preachy but written with a love for who we are. It was a relevant update from 1992's Microserfs.First of all, if you liked Microserfs, you will like JPod. If you haven't read Microserfs...it's not entirely necessary to do so before reading JPod, but I would recommend it, if nothing else than for getting the full effect.

Coupland's JPod is no exception to that rule. Although never blatantly publicized as a 'sequel', it is hypothetically purported to be Coupland's new millennia answer to his early 1990s geek epic, Microserfs.My comparison, Microserfs vs. JPod, in short? Microserfs, in my opinion, was Coupland's zenith of writing aptitude -- fresh and original with 'real' characters that many a geek could relate to. The microserfs made you want to care about what happened to them. The story actually went somewhere.JPod? Stale as 3-week-old bread, artificial as Twin Equal 'sugar' packets, featuring two-dimensional unbelievable characters. Gone are the refreshingly all-too-human disillusioned "microserfs" with their witty repertoires and flat foods. They are replaced with JPod'ers -- dusky, gutter-mouthed and aimless, with their couldn't-care-less-about-anything attitudes. The result? We could care less about them. Coupled with an implausible, over-the-top, and insipid plot, it is a novel that evokes apathy and indifference. Coupland's frequent referrals (blatant plugs) to his other works of fiction, were uncomfortable and tawdry.Not that there weren't any redeeming qualities in the book. The reader is treated to a few remaining bits of Microserfs-esque laurels -- the memoir-like narrative, the fun cubicle surveys ("if you were to sell yourself as an item on eBay...") and splash pages with binary, spam, and technical what-not. However, it was not enough to compensate for JPod's weak plot and characters, which ultimately made the novel uninteresting and difficult to finish. As much as I wanted to like it, I didn't. At all.It was mentioned by a friend and fellow Microserf-aficionado that it's "harder for authors to write like disenchanted young people when they have been rich and famous for 20 years."I agree 101% and couldn't put it better myself.

In JPod, Douglas Coupland merely reformats his earlier novel, Microserfs, in order to produce a literary product that is sloppy, overwrought with cheap cynicism, and is a clear signal that he is no longer interested in writing. The book, as most readers will notice after about 100 pages, is the EXACT same structure as Microserfs, albeit twisted by taking what was normal in Microserfs, and making a sort of "hyper-reality" that is neither entertaining, nor enjoyable to read. It is as if Coupland were like the Hippy Generation, who after the blow-out in 1968 gave birth to movements like The Weather Underground, and psychotics like Charles Manson.When the events in the book begin to become repetitive, Coupland merely inserts another set of textual jargon, numerical "geek games", or a clever turn-of-phrase, in order to keep the reader from losing interest. While novel in Microserfs, this technique comes off as lazy in JPod (though I found it helped me get through the book faster as I did not have to read it to keep up with the plot and could thus turn the pages faster). To make matters worse, Coupland inserts himself into the story, which may have seemed like a good idea during a heavy night of drinking, but should've been nixed by his editorial staff. It comes off as cheap and vain, and only adds to the reader's misery.Readers should read this book, but only after it comes out in paperback...and can be bought by the boxful at the local Salvation Army for a dollar. Perhaps by doing this, the book will finally find its proper place in literary history- as kindling.To end this review on a kind note, I recommend readers check out Microserfs, Generation X, and especially Polaroids From the Dead.These texts were written when Coupland was in his prime and will fortify the reader prior to their decent into hell with JPod.

I'm not too sure of the point of this book. It's a little as though as his follow up to the Sistene Chapel Michaelangelo opted to recreate it, in crayon, on the ceiling of a toilet.It is very similar in many ways to Microserfs in style and characters except that in this work the characters are simply 1 dimensional projections of their equivalents in Microserfs, projected onto a ridiculous plot that involves a version of Coupland himself, for no obvious reason.Having said that, once you get over the fact it's going nothing to do with Microserfs, and managed to cope with annoyance that much of the stylistic brilliance you loved in Microserfs is in here simply regurgitated and cheapened it is quite an amusing read and whilst I may not actually recommend it I wouldn't caution people not to read it.

I loved this book. It was recommended to me by someone who rarely reads so I thought I had better give it a go. It is a little bit odd in places with fonts changing type and the narrative changing style - such as words being written in Chinese with limited translation, but this all fits in with the geekiness of the world of computer programming.The story isn't in a huge amount of depth, and focuses on minute aspects of day to day life such as finding in `O' in 20 pages of random numbers, and the main characters relationships with his colleagues, his weed growing mother, ballroom dancing rather and people smuggling Chinese housemate.The one downside of the book for me was the author placing himself into the story. In my eyes it wasn't needed and could as easily have worked as another character.I'm finding it quite hard to review this book because it's quite unlike what I normally read, and I cannot easily explain why I enjoyed it. It's a combination of everyday life and the weirdness of the workplace. The best thing would be for you to read it and make you own mind up. Some people will love it and others hate it.

A starker version of Coupland than some of his other books, but by no means unprecedented. However, I really enjoyed the book and some of its more off-the-wall story elements - even the one where Coupland appears as a character. It was funny, cynical yes, but ultimately quite uplifting and compelling. I think I read the whole thing in 3 days: I couldn't stop reading.

I bought this book after watching the complete series of jPod on Virgin Media's on-demand service. Whilst I had not read any of Coupland's material before, but heard opinions from others who had, I had some idea of what to expect. Some pages had me laughing out loud (letters to Ronald, for example), whilst the numerous pages of seemingly unnecessary cruft (e.g. number sequences) infuriated me.I don't know if Coupland includes himself in the narrative of his other books, but I found his appearance in jPod rather cheesy and, again, unnecessary. I believe the story would have been at least unaffected, at most enhanced, by replacing Coupland (or his evil twin persona, whatever) with another character playing the exact same role. I found his self-inclusion an indulgence, but maybe I missed some nuance or finer point he was trying to make here.Having read jPod after seeing the excellent TV series, I was disappointed. If I'd read the book first, I probably wouldn't have bothered with the TV show - and that would have been a damn shame.

Jpod is like an extended Dilbert cartoon. It may not be up there with Coupland's very finest, but it's completely on the money in its deciption of the pointlessness of office life; unnervingly so.