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?)