Personal Response

Wow, hard to believe I'm actually finishing the project, but at the same time, I'm a little disappointed that it's done. Jpod was one of the first books that I like "analyzing", and from this I'm hoping it will give me that push to keep doing so in such an acceptable manor. From what I've heard, this project has also improved my writing a lot. I've gotten comments on blogs from random people (some who aren't even in this class..) saying that they are interesting and fun to read. Its always good to hear that someone had fun reading them, because I had just as much fun writing about the world of Jpod. Personally, what I think I'll miss the most is the blogs themselves. I'm a really tech-like person, and enjoy the change from writing on paper to keyboard. It doesn't set your opinion in stone quite like paper, and gives you the chance to go back as many times as possible and change what you want. Now, I'm not going to finish this small bit by saying this assignment helped me "grow as a student, an intellectual and amazingly enough – as a person" as I think that's going a bit overboard. But I have grown as student, I just need to work on my punctuality and perhaps wording things better. Hope you enjoyed this blog, I'm out!~

Explication

So..to start, I thought I had posted this. But as I retype this, I know that it somehow did not get published. So this is my best attempt at recreating what I originally had typed for my Explication:

First off, Jpod is one of the most diverse books I have ever read. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but will all its strange events, I had troubles focusing on one. Perhaps Revolt, for the programmers within Jpod are set on putting an evil Ronald McDonald character in their newest production manager's game for ruining their own game. Or perhaps Abduction, as Steve is taken to China to work in a Nike Knock-off factory, and Ethan is sent to save him. This could also be Recovery. In reality, I could go on and on, naming off countless events that happen within the book. However, I have narrowed down Ethan's conflict to be the Dramatic Situation which happens throughout the entire book.

An Unfortunate, I see as Ethan. He is seen as stuck in this world he lives in with an almost dysfunctional family and out-of-the-ordinary co-workers. We see him constantly striving for some normality, but whether it be helping his mother with her grow-op or his father with an obsessed hooker or retrieve his (now drug addicted) boss from China, he seems to always be in the middle of the Drama. The way his character is written makes sense, but Coupland makes it awkwardly obvious that this character has problems.

A Threatener, in my opinion can be one of two things. As described before, Ethan's life is complex and almost everything and everyone can be described as the "threatener" to Ethan's normal life. However, Ethan can also be the threatener. He is always stopping himself from truly fitting in 100%. He tries, he participates, but he is constantly questing why his life can't just be normal or comparing instances from his childhood that could of played out differently. Its great that one individual can strive for something in such a manner, but he needs to learn to give in. I can just sort of imagine all the other characters in hoods, whispering "join us Ethan..join the dark side".

And so when Ethan finally does join the "dark side", he is rescued by none other than the author, Douglas Coupland. At the end of the book, he is in a hole after digging out a body he had buried months before with his mother. This is the point where he accepts his world, but finally takes his first step into it when Coupland offers him a job on Dglobe. From this, he feels accepted and (from what I can tell) feels as if his life will be a bit more normal.

Apologia

Douglas Coupland has contributed a large amount of Canadian postmodern literature, and Jpod is a great example of this. The book is based largely within Canada, and focuses on cultural and social issues commonly reconized in Canadian literature. To have someone such as Coupland contribute so much to the list of postmodern art is a gift to any and all Canadians, even if at first his work was not reconized. (Cheesy? Overglorifing?)

Even as a young child, Douglas Coupland was able to reconize art in many forms. An insident that stands out is "when he read an encyclopedia article for pop art". "It showed a tomato soup can by Andy Warhol and a Roy Lichtenstein exploding jet that said, "Whaam!" My brain just kind of melted. The "TOMATO SOUP" and the "Whaam!" told me that the everyday world and its documentation is just as aesthetic and as important as any other realm.(Douglas Coupland)" After attempting courses in science, he attended Emily Carr College of Art and Design in which he describes "the best four years of [his] life" and emerged with a focus on sculpture. He did not study and forms of literature as his major, and did not start writing until offered a job as a magazine writer.

"Douglas Coupland can be seen as the King of Postmodernism in today's day of age(Nancy Stotts Jones)." His first work, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" was his first postmodern work. It started as a handbook that outlined the generation, but changed throughout its writing. The Canadian publishing company that had hired Coupland to write this handbook cancled the publication, and so Coupland's first novel was published in the United States. The novel was a "sleeper-hit", as it rose in success far after its release date. However, this was the trigger that started the avalanche of Canadian works from Douglas Coupland.

Coupland is well known for writing about such issues as Web 2.0 technology, human sexuality, and pop culture, but specific to Jpod, are the topics of immigration and drug trafficing in Vancouver. He approaches it with a relaxed tone, almost no seriousness, which can somehow let the issue settle in, yet still show the intensity of what is actually going on in the novel. Ethan, the almost "entirely normal" character can be a representation to how the community in which Coupland lives in would react, whereas the chracters who don't react "normally" (Ethan's Family, Kam Fong) can be seen as how Coupland might react or see the events played out. This style is different in comparason to other forms of literature in Canada, and has been well recieved by a variety of people. Jpod has been criticed both negatively and posatively, however has had many nominations for awards, including the Giller Prize in 2006.


(...Unfinished?)

Welcome Post

To those of you who have stumbled upon this blog, Welcome. My name is Chris Klomp, and as part of my English ISU, I have chosen to investigate the novel "Jpod", by Douglas Coupland. The novel consists of some interesting quarks, and it is my task to report on them here on this blog. I've already posted 3 responses relating to some things within the book, so I suggest reading over these if you'd like a bit of perspective on the book's events. Coming up are an Apologia, Explication, and my own personal response to the entire project. Stick around and feel free to follow if interested.

Links List

1. Douglas Coupland's Official Website - This site outlines all of Coupland's expereiences, includes a Biography, and shows all of his work in novelization and television.
2. Jpod's Offical Website - This flashy website is the official website for the Jpod, book and tv-series. Detailed information is given on almost all the characters and has an extract from the book. Good for those who are interested in reading Jpod.
3. An interview with Douglas Coupland - This interview was very insightful (to me atleast) as it covered a lot of topics I did in my own responses. Such questions cover the pages and pages of prime numbers, Douglas in the novel himself, and the character Ethan.
4. A review on JPod(Positive) - This page praises Coupland's style and ability to write through the mind of a cubicleworker. Like almost all found reviews, it refers to his previous works being great influences (Generation X and Microserfs).
5. A review on JPod(Negative) - This USA Today outlines Coupland's work as "empty iriony, shapeless plots and more wink-wink witticism than an episode of VH1's I Love the '90s." I thought it would be good to show both opinions the public had on the novel, even if I personally disagree with this one.
6. Chinatown, Vancouver - This page is from the offical Chinatown Vancouver site, but it clarifies the heritage, mainly looking into immigrants and refugees.
7. Microserfs - This book is seen as the basis of JPod, and has very close ties. To fully grasp some of the critism of the book, you have to understand this book.
8. Postmodernism - Douglas Coupland is considered royalty here, the King of Postmoderism.

Response #4(???)

Ok I know this post won't be done by October 5th because I've been trying to think of what to do the response on, and still nothing comes to mind. I promise it will be finished soon, but I have still to think on this one.. Sorry.

Response #3(Ethan's Conflicts)

I'm find doing this response very hard, simply because I have no direction to go in. Everyone else is reading their book and responding as they go, which I didn't do. So I'm reading through what the significant points could be about, and conflict comes up. Ethan's the main character, lets look at his conflicts.

Now I'm not ignoring Mrs. Stotts-Jones comment from my first post, to look at the book from a Post-Modernist's view. In fact, I did a little research, just so I could fully grasp what Post-Modernism was. From what I can see (thanks to Wikipedia's article), I have already covered a few things.

Pastiche, which involves pasting multiple elements together. This would reflect on my first post, showing the different forms of media in the novel.

Metafiction, which is basically writing about writing. This would reflect on my second post, showing that Douglas Coupland is writing the novel, in the novel.

Another form of evidence in Post Modern literature is Paranoia. "The belief is that there's an ordering system behind the chaos of the world. For the postmodernist, no ordering system exists, so a search for order is fruitless and absurd."(Wikipedia) However, we are presented with Ethan, the character who is looking for this orderly world, and yet the more and more he tries, the more chaos the world spits back out at him. This is why I can see this as one of Ethan's main conflicts, is that he is trying to be normal, but there are just to many things obstructing this goal.

The novel starts out rather normal. A group of co-workers are coming out of a meeting and are discussing the outcome. But when Ethan's mother calls him, it stirs the orderly way Ethan sees things, and he is thrown into the chaos of finding that his mother had electrocuted a client of her weed-selling and must discard the body. From here, the "rising action" would be that Ethan deals with much more ordeals, much more worse than the first.

These different instances weave the characters and Ethan together to the point where he just gives in. Within the book, he finds that this way of living is much more satisfactory if you aren't swimming against the stream. So, by the end of the book, we find that Ethan is satisfied and content with the outcome of his life within the novel. This is what I can see as Ethan's main conflict.

(This is just a little side question towards the English teachers at central, but why are your Profile Photos stuff monkeys? Inside joke?)