My Rating - 4 stars
Published - October 1st 2010 by House of Anansi Press
International bestselling author Douglas Coupland delivers a real-time, five-hour story set in an airport cocktail lounge during a global disaster. Five disparate people are trapped inside: Karen, a single mother waiting for her online date; Rick, the down-on-his-luck airport lounge bartender; Luke, a pastor on the run; Rachel, a cool Hitchcock blonde incapable of true human contact; and finally a mysterious voice known as Player One. Slowly, each reveals the truth about themselves while the world as they know it comes to an end.
My Review
Player One was originally written as a series of week long one hour lectures hence the novel is split up into five "hours" and is written in real time.
This is the first Coupland book I've read in years, I have a vague recollection of skimming through Generation X in my teens and dismissing it as pretentious intellectualism. It would be interesting to re-read it now and see what I think as I really enjoyed Player One and Coupland's unique style of writing.
When Coupland describes a character he gets to the nitty gritty, into their soul and thought process. The novel alternated between the point of view of a preacher turned thief, an ex-alcoholic bar tender, a beautiful autistic teenager and a 40 year old divorcee. Then throw into the mix a self help guru, an indiscriminate killer, a MILF hunter and an awkward internet hook up, and you have Player One's unlikely cast. Whilst each character has a distinct personality Coupland points out"we run out of things that make us an individual very quickly; all of us have more in common than we do not have in common". And he's right of course. In a world overpopulated with 6 billion people, how is it possible to be truly unique? Yet everyone wants to feel they are different, everyone wants to count, as Luke puts it "I want a Wikipedia page. I want Google hits. I don't want to just be a living organism that comes and goes and leaves no trace on the planet". So many of us can relate to this. Or at least I can. Yet in wanting fame, or infamy as the case may be, we become just like everyone else.
I could go into the intricacies of the plot but a Coupland novel is much more than this. It's food for thought. It's liberation. And most importantly it made me think about so many things I'd never normally consider. I feel a better person for reading Player One, like I learnt something intangible yet important. I will definitely be reading more from him. Whilst the characters are different they all speak with Coupland's voice and give you a unique glimpse into a future I hope we never have to witness.
The only thing I would say that errs on the negative side is that this is not a book you can read when you're sleepy and about to go to bed. It requires full concentration, if you daydream through a paragraph you will lose the thread entirely and need to re-read it. As i'm the kind of person who likes to read before I go to bed to relax this was hard going at times. Player One is NOT a relaxing book that you can take to the park to chill out with, it's a thinking book that challenges you, and whilst I honestly do love this, after 250 pages I felt like i'd earned a well deserved rest!
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