Girlfriend in a Coma
by Douglas Coupland
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List Price: ££7.99
Our Price: ££2.88
Your Save: £ 0.00 ( % )
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
Manufacturer: Flamingo
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780006551270
ISBN: 0006551270
Label: Flamingo
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: 1998-11-16
Publisher: Flamingo
Studio: Flamingo
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: I wish I was in a coma
Comment: I loved Microserfs so much, I was shocked when I discovered that Coupland had never worked for Microsoft (!) so it pains me to admit that I struggled my way through this book. The first half was okay, the characters seemed to be drawn well, all very disillusioned in a Couplandian style, yadda yadda yah, but roughly around the time Karen wakes up, I totally stopped believing in the book.
Maybe I'm missing the point, but the book really just didn't speak to me. I found the second half almost completely vacuous: I would have hated the characters and their annoying quips and the trowelled-in culture references if I had cared enough... but I didn't. Then comes the end, when Coupland and his characters latch onto some ridiculous "moral" point about the world and harp on about it until I felt like the whole book was dying a slow, slow death in my hands... I don't know, I guess I was frustrated because I think it's possible to write about disillisionment, unhappiness and even vacousness and still give something that feels in some way real.... And this, for me, didn't.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Complete and utter dross
Comment: I, like another reviewer on here, picked this up mainly on account of the cover, as part of a sale. However, I was thoroughly disappointed.
The characters failed to grab me, with their stilted dialogue failing dismally to capture that either of adolescents or of adults. The hopeless, mawkish sentimentality of the opening initially showed some sign of improving, the scene in which Karen falls into her coma being one of the few involving passages.
Unfortunately, the narrative then descended into a pretentious discourse on the meaning of existence and the nature of modern society, the attempts at dark humour falling spectacularly flat.
Suffice it to say that I was close to comatose myself by the end.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not coma inducing
Comment: I read this when i was a lot younger and loved it. It was a simple story but incorporated big ideas and themes. A real weepy one.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Certainly makes you think
Comment: I think some of the previous reviewers of this book may have missed its point slightly. The story might be a little far fetched (although - as the recent re-release explains - it does have a real life precedent) but it is the message that is the important part, a message achieved through depicting an exaggerated set of circumstances. This story deals with a deeper meaning of life and also with that common theme of Coupland novels - what this new world of technology, MTV and McDonalds means and how to look a little deeper.
If you entertain even the slightest philosophical train of thought, have ever wondered what is behind that slightly eerie feeling of déjà vu or have ever considered whether a remarkable coincidence was something more than a coincidence, then this story will appeal. For a relatively short novel, a number of 'big' themes are tackled. The actual Girlfriend In A Coma storyline is self-explanatory but is just a vehicle for dealing with a number of tricky concepts such as striving for a better world, selfishness, loneliness, dreams vs. reality, love, addiction, friendship and making the most of what you have.
Personally, I think that the best moments in reading come when you read something - a concept, a train of thought, an idea - that you connect with and can identify with. Coupland delivers here and should satisfy anyone who thinks a little deeper-than-your-average. Others who tackle similar themes often come across as pretentious, but Coupland's style is so direct that calling him pretentious would also be to miss his point all over again because - as one other reviewer mentions - this book isn't about offering answers, it's about making you think.
Quite a spectacular work of modern fiction, daring to question whether this 'new world' we live in is actually as comfortable and fulfilling as society would have us believe it is.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Utterly depressing!
Comment: What a boring book, I usually always feel compelled to finish reading a book, whether I like it or not but this was just too boring.I kept waiting for the story to take off, but it never did. It was far too deep and utterly depressing for me as it contemplated the meaning just a little to much.
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Editorial Reviews: |
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Customer Rating:
Summary: I wish I was in a coma
Comment: I loved Microserfs so much, I was shocked when I discovered that Coupland had never worked for Microsoft (!) so it pains me to admit that I struggled my way through this book. The first half was okay, the characters seemed to be drawn well, all very disillusioned in a Couplandian style, yadda yadda yah, but roughly around the time Karen wakes up, I totally stopped believing in the book.
Maybe I'm missing the point, but the book really just didn't speak to me. I found the second half almost completely vacuous: I would have hated the characters and their annoying quips and the trowelled-in culture references if I had cared enough... but I didn't. Then comes the end, when Coupland and his characters latch onto some ridiculous "moral" point about the world and harp on about it until I felt like the whole book was dying a slow, slow death in my hands... I don't know, I guess I was frustrated because I think it's possible to write about disillisionment, unhappiness and even vacousness and still give something that feels in some way real.... And this, for me, didn't.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Complete and utter dross
Comment: I, like another reviewer on here, picked this up mainly on account of the cover, as part of a sale. However, I was thoroughly disappointed.
The characters failed to grab me, with their stilted dialogue failing dismally to capture that either of adolescents or of adults. The hopeless, mawkish sentimentality of the opening initially showed some sign of improving, the scene in which Karen falls into her coma being one of the few involving passages.
Unfortunately, the narrative then descended into a pretentious discourse on the meaning of existence and the nature of modern society, the attempts at dark humour falling spectacularly flat.
Suffice it to say that I was close to comatose myself by the end.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not coma inducing
Comment: I read this when i was a lot younger and loved it. It was a simple story but incorporated big ideas and themes. A real weepy one.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Certainly makes you think
Comment: I think some of the previous reviewers of this book may have missed its point slightly. The story might be a little far fetched (although - as the recent re-release explains - it does have a real life precedent) but it is the message that is the important part, a message achieved through depicting an exaggerated set of circumstances. This story deals with a deeper meaning of life and also with that common theme of Coupland novels - what this new world of technology, MTV and McDonalds means and how to look a little deeper.
If you entertain even the slightest philosophical train of thought, have ever wondered what is behind that slightly eerie feeling of déjà vu or have ever considered whether a remarkable coincidence was something more than a coincidence, then this story will appeal. For a relatively short novel, a number of 'big' themes are tackled. The actual Girlfriend In A Coma storyline is self-explanatory but is just a vehicle for dealing with a number of tricky concepts such as striving for a better world, selfishness, loneliness, dreams vs. reality, love, addiction, friendship and making the most of what you have.
Personally, I think that the best moments in reading come when you read something - a concept, a train of thought, an idea - that you connect with and can identify with. Coupland delivers here and should satisfy anyone who thinks a little deeper-than-your-average. Others who tackle similar themes often come across as pretentious, but Coupland's style is so direct that calling him pretentious would also be to miss his point all over again because - as one other reviewer mentions - this book isn't about offering answers, it's about making you think.
Quite a spectacular work of modern fiction, daring to question whether this 'new world' we live in is actually as comfortable and fulfilling as society would have us believe it is.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Utterly depressing!
Comment: What a boring book, I usually always feel compelled to finish reading a book, whether I like it or not but this was just too boring.I kept waiting for the story to take off, but it never did. It was far too deep and utterly depressing for me as it contemplated the meaning just a little to much.
In this latest novel from the poet laureate of Gen X--who is himself now a dangerously mature 36--boy does indeed meet girl. The year is 1979, and the lovers get right down to business in a very Couplandian bit of plein air intercourse: "Karen and I deflowered each other atop Grouse Mountain, among the cedars beside a ski slope, atop crystal snow shards beneath penlight stars. It was a December night so cold and clear that the air felt like the air of the Moon--lung-burning; mentholated and pure; hint of ozone, zinc, ski wax, and Karen's strawberry shampoo." Are we in for an archetypal '80s romance, played out against a pop-cultural backdrop? Nope. Only hours after losing her virginity, Karen loses consciousness as well--for almost two decades. The narrator and his circle soldier on, making the slow progression from debauched Vancouver youths to semi-responsible adults. Several end up working on a television series that bears a suspicious resemblance to The X-Files (surely a self-referential wink on the author's part). And then ... Karen wakes up. Her astonishment-- which suggests a 20th-century, substance-abusing Rip Van Winkle--dominates the second half of the novel, and gives Coupland free reign to muse about time, identity, and the meaning (if any) of the impending millennium. Alas, he also slaps a concluding apocalypse onto the novel. As sleeping sickness overwhelms the populace, the world ends with neither a bang nor a whimper, but a universal yawn--which doesn't, fortunately, outweigh the sweetness, oddity, and ironic smarts of everything that has preceded it.
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