A Novel in Five Hours

I have just completed my first adventure into the world of Douglas Coupland.  I've spent the last couple days mostly curled up on the couch, going through boxes of kleenex, watching Say Yes to the Dress marathons, and reading Coupland's Player One: What Is to Become of Us. Proclaimed at the bottom of the front cover as "A Novel in Five Hours".  It is indeed structured as such, hours 1-5, and narrated by 4 characters stranded in a seedy airport hotel bar during a global disaster.

Kathy, a divorced mom looking for a second shot at love, Rick, a divorced alcoholic tending bar at the lounge, Luke, an ex-priest turned criminal, and Rachel, a physically gorgeous, emotionally and mentally complicated 20 something looking to have a baby, all end up stuck in Rick's bar when oil hits a whopping $900 per barrel and the world as they know it goes absolutely to shit.

Along with these 4 characters, the novel is also narrated by "Player One" a disembodied voice that exists in the computer world, and knows everything.

Coupland's novel is eerie, and post-modern, but not preachy or annoying. I daresay I enjoyed it very, very much, but I can recognize that I might be a minority audience in this feeling.

Through his 5 narrative voices, Coupland launches an inquisition in to too many hot topics to count: Religion, Technology, Relationships, Time, Society, Identity....the list goes on.  And while it doesn't offer many answers to any of the proposed questions, Coupland's novel certainly gets you thinking.  

Get this though- it has a happy ending!  Yes, "the New Normal" is depicted in a not altogether positive light, but the characters that I got surprisingly attached to all came out of their shared-disaster-experience THANG alright.  Then after the story there's a hilarious "Future Legend" of terms, that also includes clever little references to the plot and characters preceding it.  For example:

Time Snack:

Often annoying moments of pseudo-leisure created by computer when they stop responding in order to save a file, to search for software updates, or, most likely, for no apparent reason.

Torn-Paper Geography

The phenomenon in which, if you take a sheet of paper and rip it in half, both pieces will probably resemble and American state or Canadian province...

Pope Gregory's Day-timer

Doesn't mean anything in particular, but it certainly would have been interesting to see.

I'm having trouble discussing this Player One without giving too much away...think Woolf meets Hemingway meets that t.v. show Jericho meets Canada meets the Dystopian lit genre, and if you're still interested, let me know and I'll lend it to you!

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