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?)