Artificial Dissemination

I had planned to write a big spiel about the artificial process of communicating via 'blog' as opposed to the traditional fanzine format, but quite frankly you don't have the time for all that and neither do I. Paper is nicer, but the internet is cheaper. So here we are.

I just finished reading Douglas Coupland's latest novel, "Eleanor Rigby". The man was one of my favourite writers up until the age of 20, then the whole thing trailed off. I brought "All Families Are Psychotic" with me on my first trip to Rotterdam in 2001, and accidentally left it lying around there in a half-read state. Basically, it was more of a monetary loss than a literary loss. So after that, I followed his reviews with interest but never bothered delving into the new fiction he was putting out.

But due to fortuitous circumstances (read: Christmas), a Coupland novel once again fell into my hands. His new one. And it was fucking good. To read the description on the back, a lonely woman whose life is opened up by the re-discovery of a son she gave up for adoption at birth, it is not a promising read. However, the man has a clear fascination with, and knowledge of, the subject matter and is able to translate it into an engaging, funny story which goes as far as deserving the rather cumbersome adjective "weighty", whilst also courting her more acceptable cousin, "enjoyable". In non-wank terms, it's just a great book that encourages thought and laughter. There is no adequate translation for the German word nachdenklich (literally: after-thoughtly) in the English language, but it summarises the whole affair pretty well. You get the intial hit and then let it filter through you.

Alas, no sooner had I turned the final page, satisfied that Coupland had not fallen too far into his self-imposed trap of offering a bizzare and overly-sentimental ending to his story, then I came across the letters PS. The PS series is an innovation of the Random House publishing group and involves an interview with the author, along with a brief biography and a series of recommended reads. It is, frankly, the equivalent of a sexual partner climaxing and then yelling, "Aren't I great?".

That is not to blame Coupland for the whole business. It seems to be some kind of standard which the publishers are trying to impose, offering something more than just a novel which ends and then expels you back into the real world, where you will confront the uncomfortable silence in which you must contemplate what you've just read and critically assess it according to your own value system. The interview with Coupland, whilst interesting enough, loses its edge because you know it has been commissioned by the very same people whose own financial interests are inextricably tied in with the novel's fate. It's not honest, and it's not truly critical. And yet they select a quote from each section and present it seperately from the rest of the text, promoting it to the level of a soundbyte in the way that the broadsheet newspapers will do when interviewing an artist, athlete or a politician.

Worse still, the recommended reads are introduced with the unbearably presumptious preamble: "If you're missing Liz Dunn (Eleanor Rigby's lonely protagonist) already, you'll love these...". It is not for Random House, or Douglas Coupland, or anyone else for that matter, to tell the reader who has turned the last page what they should be feeling. Should we like, dislike, be attracted to, or be repelled by, Liz Dunn? That's our own decision. These asinine post-scripts have no place in serious literature.

Of course, a well-written and insightful foreword to a book which has already achieved 'classic' status is welcome and useful. Assuming, that is, that there has been adequate space between publication and response for the necessity of such a piece to arise. But since Coupland's novel was first published in 2004, aren't Random House jumping the gun a little?

I believe that 'Eleanor Rigby' will stand the test of time admirably, so let's not rush the process.