Comments on: Player One, by Douglas Coupland

By: KevinfromCanada

KevinfromCanada — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 15:03:05 +0000

More like Mordecai Richler, I’d say.

By: Lee Monks

Lee Monks — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 11:41:36 +0000

‘Perhaps part of my problem is that I put religious orthodoxy and dystopian futurism into the same bucket — both are a load of bollocks as far as I am concerned.’

And if that doesn’t sound like Howard Jacobson I don’t know what does!

By: KevinfromCanada

KevinfromCanada — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 03:21:28 +0000

Max: I did wonder while reading it what it would have been like to sign up and go to one of the five lectures (since you couldn’t go to all five without substantial flight bills). I guess you just had to either read the book in advance or pick up a copy at the lecture. Also, I did see some grumpy comments on the CBC website that they were selling a CD of the lectures rather than making them available for free online after broadcast.

All of which speaks to the “high concept” that Shelley raised (which I figured came with a healthy does of irony. I think he probably did try to stretch his target market — but didn’t adjust his content to build it.

By: Max Cairnduff

Max Cairnduff — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 02:36:38 +0000

I’m perhaps less charitable Kevin, I would rather he tried to stretch his target market more. He’s built up trust with his audience, he could use that to carry them with him rather than giving more of what they expect.

But then for any author there is that question of whether you seek to take readers somewhere new with you or to pursue the path you’ve already furrowed together. I don’t think either is intrinsically better, after all more than one excellent author has spent multiple books exploring the same concepts to ever greater depth.

Still, when you produce a literary equivalent of twitter something’s gone a bit wrong, and while I appreciate you’re not the audience Trevor’s review wasn’t much different to yours. I’m on twitter a fair bit, but it’s not the place for serious thought or analysis and a comparison with it is not a good sign.

Shelley’s high-concept take is a nice one. As you say it is up for a literary fiction prize, in which case clearly a high-concept is not enough (not that Shelley was saying it should be, just to be clear).

By: KevinfromCanada

KevinfromCanada — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 16:20:41 +0000

Shelley: I would tend to agree with your assessment. A review of just the book is probably unfair — viewed from a more proper perspective, it is a published lecture series which I suggest alters the criteria. On the other hand, the book was longlisted for a literary fiction prize, so I do feel it is valid to look at from that point of view.

By: Shelley

Shelley — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:23:28 +0000

Of course I shouldn’t comment without reading it, and as a writer I have nothing but admiration for the serious, even the ponderous, but this book sounds…overthought. What they call in Hollywood, I believe, “high-concept.”

By: KevinfromCanada

KevinfromCanada — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 15:37:09 +0000

Max: I will give Coupland credit for using the Massey Lecture invitation to create a multi-media project, even if I don’t like it much. Let’s face it, his target market probably is not that interested in paying to attend a one-hour lecture. If you do some googling and web-surfing, you’ll see he has turned the lecture project into a number of offshoots. For me, this is a literary version of twittering (give me a good old-fashioned book), but I suspect that is just my age speaking.

By: Max Cairnduff

Max Cairnduff — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 13:58:41 +0000

I’ve read at least a couple of Couplands and like him well enough, but then I am the target market (I probably am squarely Gen X after all).

That said, this one sounds like a dog even if you are taken by his other work.

The glossary thing I think is now looking very tired. It was original when first done, but it’s been done a lot since then and for me is now closer to cliche. It’s also a cheap way of seeming deep without really engaging. Why do those things threaten religious orthodoxies? If they do, why has religion been gaining ground the last twenty or thirty years when in the 60s and 70s it looked like it was falling back? Coupland’s statement is mere assertion, and so valueless.

Also, I play a fair number of computer games and while I don’t play MMOs (online ones) I’m very familiar with them. His descriptions and the avatar name don’t ring true for me. That’s a problem, because if the bit I’m familiar with isn’t right how can I trust the bits I’m not familiar with to be right?

Coupland can be an interesting writer, though I doubt you’d enjoy many of his books Kevin, but this one sounds to me slight by any standard and I suspect he’d have been better off writing a more conventional lecture – even if it wouldn’t then have been Giller eligible.