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Product Description
Review
"Coupland…writes a sparkling sentence and a mean epigram."--Entertainment Weekly
"Coupland has crafted a formidable pop style that hooks up dead-on cultural anthropology with surprising reserves of emotion…What's remarkable is how easy it is for even the best adjusted among us to see ourselves in Coupland's compassionate (and occasionally madcap) portrait."--Village Voice
"Told with abundant wit and a deceptive simplicity."--Boston Globe
"Coupland's weirdest and most accomplished work to date…could be one of the first great novels of the new century."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Poignant, funny, intrepidly offbeat…[a] clever, inspired, brilliantly strange tale."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Coupland has crafted a formidable pop style that hooks up dead-on cultural anthropology with surprising reserves of emotion…What's remarkable is how easy it is for even the best adjusted among us to see ourselves in Coupland's compassionate (and occasionally madcap) portrait."--Village Voice
"Told with abundant wit and a deceptive simplicity."--Boston Globe
"Coupland's weirdest and most accomplished work to date…could be one of the first great novels of the new century."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Poignant, funny, intrepidly offbeat…[a] clever, inspired, brilliantly strange tale."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Book Description
"Heartwarming…Coupland has a canny take on everything, and his one-liners zing."--People
Eleanor Rigby is the story of Liz, a self-described drab, overweight, crabby, and friendless middle-aged woman, and her unlikely reunion with the charming and strange son she gave up for adoption. His arrival changes everything, and sets in motion a rapid-fire plot with all the twists and turns we expect of Coupland. By turns funny and heartbreaking, Eleanor Rigby is a fast-paced read and a haunting exploration of the ways in which loneliness affects us all.
Eleanor Rigby is the story of Liz, a self-described drab, overweight, crabby, and friendless middle-aged woman, and her unlikely reunion with the charming and strange son she gave up for adoption. His arrival changes everything, and sets in motion a rapid-fire plot with all the twists and turns we expect of Coupland. By turns funny and heartbreaking, Eleanor Rigby is a fast-paced read and a haunting exploration of the ways in which loneliness affects us all.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
all the lonely people,
By E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME) (TOP 10 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Eleanor Rigby (Paperback)
The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby" is a melancholy song about lonely people, isolated in the world. The same could be said of Douglas Coupland's writing -- particularly this book, "Eleanor Rigby," a look at mortality and loneliness. It's not his finest or most insightful, but it has wit and heart.Middle-aged Liz Dunn is crabby, lonely and fat. After dental surgery, she seals herself in her apartment with a stack of sad movies, until she receives a shocking phone call. A young man ODed and ended up in the hospital -- and he claims to her son, the result of a drunken tryst when she was only a teenager in Rome. For the first time, Liz finds herself actually having to be a mom. As if that weren't enough of a shock, Jeremy is also dying of multiple schlerosis. But he is also chipper and upbeat, unwilling to let his impending death get him down. The mother and son start to get to know each other, with the bittersweet knowledge that whatever bond they form is temporary. But Jeremy's mere presence is enough to change Liz forever. Yeah, it sounds like a Lifetime tear-jerker. Fortunately, Douglas Coupland is able to yank the seemingly ordinary plot up by its acid-wit shoestrings. He isn't exactly known for his chipper outlook on life, but there's a certain poignant optimism to this novel. Its most memorable line is "Death without the possibility of changing the world was the same as a life that never was," challenging the bleak life that Liz is living, and defining the too-short life her son had. At times, Coupland seems a bit too flip about Jeremy's M.S. Maybe that humor keeps the book from becoming morbid. The tone is also intimate than his prior books, since it focuses mainly on two people. His smooth, stripped-down writing style is intact, along with dry witticisms. But Coupland's acerbic style hides a surprisingly sweet center. Liz is quite possibly the funniest lonely person in modern literature -- she takes her private misery and constantly makes fun of it, but not enough to make us take her lightly. And Jeremy is a character who easily could have been insufferable, if Coupland hadn't made him so earnest. Coupland's ninth novel is an ode to all the lonely people -- especially those who don't necessarily have to be lonely. "All the lonely people, where do they all come from?/All the lonely people, where do they all belong?"
5.0 out of 5 stars
my favourite since life after god!,
This review is from: Eleanor Rigby (Hardcover)
Something I found in Eleanor Rigby that I missed in some of his earlier works is hope.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Kinda makes you stop and think,
By
This review is from: Eleanor Rigby (Hardcover)
Douglas Coupland has done a great job of capturing the feelings and emotions that all of us have experienced in our lifetimes, althoug the primary feeling which the author focuses on is that of loneliness. His description of the how the protagonist feels is written in such a manner that everyone, regardless of their background, will be able to relatee to. I also enjoyed how Coupland was able to write about the interplay between family members. In reading the interactions between the main character and her mother, sister, and brother, each conversation felt as though it could actually have taken place. These are not phoney characters, designed simply to advance the plot. Rather they come across as real people with feelings and emotions. In the words of Siskel and Ebert, I give this novel two thumbs up.
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