Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland, Jenna Lamia, David Ledoux, Jillian Crane, John Randolph Jones ISBN: 1-56511-809-X Publisher: Highbridge Audio Pub. Date: 01 June, 2003 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 5 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.06 (32 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Out of the Coma, Into the Night
Comment: Coupland's latest novel is by far the best of his later books. I have been a devout reader of Douglas Coupland's work and have been disappointed with basically everything since Microserfs. Hey Nostradamus! has changed all of that. Hey! is a critical look into modern fanatacism and the consequences of being a teenager in a world filled with guns, God, and video games.
The novel is divided into four parts each narrated by a different character. The connections between the characters are at first, not obvious. Coupland threads these misfits into a disjointed narrative that works. The first part is narrated by Cheryl, who has been killed in a Columbine-style massacre in a Vancouver high school in 1988. Cheryl's account reminds me of Susie Salmon's in The Lovely Bones--She is telling the story from a "space" not heaven, not hell, not earth. As macabre as the plot is, the style works. Her husband's (Jason's) account is not as seamless, but his disillusionment shows well through the narrative.
I would have liked to have read more about Reg, Jason's religious fanatic father, but his portion of the book was cut short, I felt. There is no obvious resolution here, but in today's world, there seldom is. This, I believe, is Coupland's intent, or part of it, anyway.
For those looking for critical insight into post-Columbine, post-9/11 North America, Douglas Coupland's latest novel does not disappoint.
Rating: 4
Summary: Hey Nostradamus!
Comment: The Columbine Massacre is an event which shocked and impacted the lives of many people in a small community in Colorado. However, what if those events had taken place earlier, say 1988 and in a community in Vancouver? How would these events affect the people of that community and more specifically those directly involved? How would their lives, with their own complexities and problems, be changed? Douglas Coupland asks these same questions in his book Hey Nostradamus! By offering the story in series of four narratives which all recount the personal journeys of the four narrators (Cheryl, Jason, Heather, Reg), each reacting in some way to the events of that fateful day, and illustrates just how deeply and how long such an violent event can impact upon someone's life.
The story principle follows Jason Klaasen his trial, tribulations, and his movements from husband, to would be father, to widower, to loser and to simply gone. The characters surrounding the Klaasen family, as well as the small community, all experience similar emotional ups and downs as they struggle to cope with their loss and return to a sense of normalcy while trying to fill the void created by that terrible day. Religious themes then ring heavily in the book starting with the Klaasen family Patriarch, a strict and often ideologically confused, Reg Klaasen. The Mafioso religious youth group both Jason and Cheryl once belong to as well as reoccurring phrases like Cheryl's scribbling in the cafeteria, as she and her class mates are held at gun point, "God is Nowhere / God is Now Here." and the deep need of all character to have some spiritual (supernatural) supervision rings deeply with religious conviction and confusion, many if not all, the character share. With the characters all struggling at some time to deal with their religious convictions and their need to either pass blame or escape guilt they all look to find redemption in the eyes of one another in the unique and odd relationships they develop after the massacre.
Coupland manages to skillfully keep the readers attention while dragging them through confusing narration of a desperate teenager, a guilty and a lonely middle aged adult and a crisis stricken elderly man. By hearing the story from four different points of view, and from four closely related narrators the story evolves as the understanding of then historical events evolves with each passing page. Coupland manages to alter bias as he sees fit to help lead the reader through awkward moments and understand the drives behind which skew the narrators' understanding of the events which unfold before them. As years pass new narrators appear, who were not even at school present when the massacre took place (such as Heather), and offer new insight that helps understand the Klaasen family as all narration seems to focus on them in some way.
Coupland also through this series of four narratives manages to place a unique emphasis on each section by having the character speak as if in a journal, and always seeming to be blunt and honest. So a certain degree of sincerity, even from the strict Reg, can be achieved because it is felt as if they are attempting to do this not just for themselves, but always for others or for a deeper understanding of why things happened this way. The interesting and compelling characters keeps the reader interested and urges them to read further and further into the book because the plot of the story just seems unclear through most of the story and mystery drives the reader on.
Finally, Coupland constantly attacks the reader with new information and challenges the reader to attempt to understand why characters do what they do. Through it presentation the reader achieves a removed sense of judgment, which is more of question of ones own morality than and attempt to understand the morality of the characters, as the unfortunate events unfold and each character experiences loss. The reader tries constantly to understand and when ones comes to the end of the book many questions are left unanswered and plots unresolved, but for some reason with how the story progressed it is no surprise really. For in the end none of the character in spite of how hard they try seem to be able to control their fate and Cheryl's scribbling rings true again, "God is Nowhere / God is Now Here." and so it seems right that these things are left as they are.
In the end the book is an excellent piece of fiction, a compelling and controversial topic with interesting and likable characters. All of which suck you into a world Douglas Coupland is known all to well at being able to do. Propelled by excellent skill with the ability to write prose in a fluid and understandable way, Coupland's Hey Nostradamus! is an excellent and compelling example of modern fiction and a book that very worthy of reading.
Rating: 5
Summary: possibly Coupland's best
Comment: Coupland continues to impress me with his work, and I think this is quite possibly his best novel to date (I consider Girlfriend in a Coma the other contender). It evokes some of the same emotions as All Families Are Psychotic, but without the implausible absurdities that occur in that story. It all falls together in the end in some somewhat unexpected, but quite realistic ways--not so much in story as in character development. This book is told in first person from the perspectives of four major characters, from 1988 to 2003, beginning with Cheryl, who is killed in a Columbine-style high school cafeteria massacre, then moving on to her boyfriend Jason, eleven years later. Jason's character is the most richly developed, and his section of the book accounts for over 100 pages of the book's 244, though the characters of previous chapters continue to echo through the later ones. I very highly recommend this book.
 |
Title: All Families Are Psychotic by Douglas Coupland ISBN: 1582342156 Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Pub. Date: 01 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
 |
Title: City of Glass: Douglas Coupland's Vancouver by Douglas Coupland ISBN: 1550548182 Publisher: Douglas & McIntyre Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
 |
Title: Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture by Douglas Coupland ISBN: 031205436X Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 1992 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
 |
Title: LIFE AFTER GOD : LIFE AFTER GOD by Douglas Coupland ISBN: 0671874349 Publisher: Washington Square Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1995 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
 |
Title: The Contortionist's Handbook by Craig Clevenger ISBN: 1931561486 Publisher: MacAdam/Cage Publishing Pub. Date: 01 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.50 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
