The new CBC Massey Lectures -- the most prestigious and eagerly anticipated lectures series of the year -- are being delivered in 2010 by international bestselling author Douglas Coupland. Coupland's 2010 Massey Lecture is 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. In the tradition of Kurt Vonnegut and J. G. Ballard, Coupland explores the modern crises of time, human identity, society, religion, and the afterlife. The book asks as many questions as it answers, and readers will leave the story with no doubt that we are in a new phase of existence as a species -- and that there is no turning back.
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Quill & Quire
Player One is best-selling author, artist, and now clothing designer Douglas Coupland’s contribution to the annual CBC Massey Lectures. Instead of the traditional series of five lectures, Coupland has produced a novel about four characters in crisis, each having taken a leap toward what they hope is a better life. Coincidence brings them together in the cocktail lounge of a Toronto airport hotel, while the world outside descends into chaos.
Player One is so reminiscent of British writer J.G. Ballard it verges on pastiche. The airport setting, damaged characters, and apocalyptic themes are all classic Ballard. However, while Coupland manages to capture the tone of Ballard’s work, he is a less astute observer. Ballard’s books are apocalyptic in the ancient Greek sense: revelatory, providing detailed examinations of particular times, places, and sociological phenomena. Coupland makes inroads in this direction, but relies too heavily on coincidence and superficial distractions like guns and explosions to carry his story.
The novel is subtitled What Is to Become of Us. Read as a declaration, Coupland offers little but fear, confusion, and poorly developed musings on the nature of time, story, and faith. If the subtitle is a question, then the author largely fails to answer it, and seriously posits it only in one scene near the beginning of the novel. Karen, a single mother, is flying into Toronto for a date arranged online and catches a teenager taking photos of her with his iPhone. She gives him the finger, then wonders about privacy, the role of technology in contemporary life, and her conflicted feelings about the adolescent’s gaze. That remarkable little scene contains a more interesting, subtle, and nuanced interrogation of contemporary society than anything else in the novel.
Player One has other merits. There are entertaining dashes of violence and suspense, and Rachel, a young woman suffering from a kind of autism (among other disorders), is an absolutely fascinating character whose point of view feels fresh. The glossary of terms at the back is sometimes clever, though it presents few real insights.
Ultimately, Player One operates too much on the surface, lacking the kind of rigorous inquiry one expects from a Massey Lecture.
Review
...this is a superior read for those who want the latest thoughts from a nimble, complex author who thinks about this kind of stuff all the time... (Kevin Walker The Tampa Tribune 20101107)
As always with Coupland, the ideas come thick and fast, they're quirky, often funny and frequently profound... (John Harding Daily Mail 20101012)
As Player One haunts the pages of this book, the ideas and inferences you read will haunt your mind every time you indulge in a modern day convenience, such as filling a vehicle up with gas, making this book a worthy read. (Sarah Purdy The Silo 20110725)
Douglas Coupland takes readers on a captivating ride... (Donna Harris Winnipeg Free Press 20101023)
...there is an odd tenderness to this novel, and it has to do with recapturing the sense of life as a story in a world of information overload and non-linear narratives. (The Guardian 20101024)
The way Coupland moulds his fiction from the throwaway debris of North American popular culture is quite brilliant... (Scarlett Thomas The Guardian 20101016)
"...an ease with the language of modernity that contemporary Great North American Novelists should envy... his Eeyorish pessimism, left-field humour and admirable ability to enunciate all of our halfformed thoughts raise this from a sterile dissertation on why modern life is rubbish into the realms of really great fiction." (Katy Guest The Independent 20101114)
"...an ease with the language of modernity that contemporary Great North American Novelists should envy... his Eeyorish pessimism, left-field humour and admirable ability to enunciate all of our halfformed thoughts raise this from a sterile dissertation on why modern life is rubbish into the realms of really great fiction." (Katy Guest The Independent 20101014)
packed full of ideas and always a joy to follow... (Big Issue Scotland 20101025)
As always with Coupland, the ideas come thick and fast, they're quirky, often funny and frequently profound... (John Harding Daily Mail 20101012)
As Player One haunts the pages of this book, the ideas and inferences you read will haunt your mind every time you indulge in a modern day convenience, such as filling a vehicle up with gas, making this book a worthy read. (Sarah Purdy The Silo 20110725)
Douglas Coupland takes readers on a captivating ride... (Donna Harris Winnipeg Free Press 20101023)
...there is an odd tenderness to this novel, and it has to do with recapturing the sense of life as a story in a world of information overload and non-linear narratives. (The Guardian 20101024)
The way Coupland moulds his fiction from the throwaway debris of North American popular culture is quite brilliant... (Scarlett Thomas The Guardian 20101016)
"...an ease with the language of modernity that contemporary Great North American Novelists should envy... his Eeyorish pessimism, left-field humour and admirable ability to enunciate all of our halfformed thoughts raise this from a sterile dissertation on why modern life is rubbish into the realms of really great fiction." (Katy Guest The Independent 20101114)
"...an ease with the language of modernity that contemporary Great North American Novelists should envy... his Eeyorish pessimism, left-field humour and admirable ability to enunciate all of our halfformed thoughts raise this from a sterile dissertation on why modern life is rubbish into the realms of really great fiction." (Katy Guest The Independent 20101014)
packed full of ideas and always a joy to follow... (Big Issue Scotland 20101025)
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Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
By S. Fagence
Format:Paperback
Excerpt from my review:
"I get it. I get what he wants to do. He wants to talk about how in the 20th century we are so aware of the threats to our comfortable existence and talk about them so freely that it's hard and complicated to have a sense of scale about disaster. By setting the novel as he does, he plays with tabloid banner headline fears. However, by keeping the plot shallow and meaningless, we remain on the tabloid headline and fail to read the article and deal with the reality. A discussion of the fears that we live with today and the perceived erosion of traditional safety and traditional values should be countered with explorations of the way it makes people feel, of the actual reality behind the fear and whether or not the fear is worse than the reality. Coupland stays firmly on the surface level - all of his characters are scared of the perceived threats and uncertainty but they don't develop and instead stay permanently scared of things that never arrive and are never addressed in depth."
....
"At the heart of this practise is why Coupland writes. He wants to define our age and be known as the one who coined phrases that would be used to describe our scary and changing modern world. That's why his characters don't develop and their dialogue sucks - because they aren't really characters at all but mouthpieces that give voice to these pseudo-philosophical ramblings about fear and change and how we should all start looking at the world non-specifically differently. His characters can't develop because they already talk as if they know everything and how can someone who knows everything develop? It would be somewhat acceptable if the author had a coherent point to make (sort of like the drudgery of Goldsteins' Book in 1984 that explains the author's ideas without any kind of drama) but Coupland doesn't. His only point is that the future is scary and maybe we should all talk about our fears constantly and constantly be expecting the world to end. That's not any kind of purpose or premise that can sustain a novel."
See my full blog review: http://havepunchlineneedjoke.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/iconoclasm-douglas-coupland-player-one/
"I get it. I get what he wants to do. He wants to talk about how in the 20th century we are so aware of the threats to our comfortable existence and talk about them so freely that it's hard and complicated to have a sense of scale about disaster. By setting the novel as he does, he plays with tabloid banner headline fears. However, by keeping the plot shallow and meaningless, we remain on the tabloid headline and fail to read the article and deal with the reality. A discussion of the fears that we live with today and the perceived erosion of traditional safety and traditional values should be countered with explorations of the way it makes people feel, of the actual reality behind the fear and whether or not the fear is worse than the reality. Coupland stays firmly on the surface level - all of his characters are scared of the perceived threats and uncertainty but they don't develop and instead stay permanently scared of things that never arrive and are never addressed in depth."
....
"At the heart of this practise is why Coupland writes. He wants to define our age and be known as the one who coined phrases that would be used to describe our scary and changing modern world. That's why his characters don't develop and their dialogue sucks - because they aren't really characters at all but mouthpieces that give voice to these pseudo-philosophical ramblings about fear and change and how we should all start looking at the world non-specifically differently. His characters can't develop because they already talk as if they know everything and how can someone who knows everything develop? It would be somewhat acceptable if the author had a coherent point to make (sort of like the drudgery of Goldsteins' Book in 1984 that explains the author's ideas without any kind of drama) but Coupland doesn't. His only point is that the future is scary and maybe we should all talk about our fears constantly and constantly be expecting the world to end. That's not any kind of purpose or premise that can sustain a novel."
See my full blog review: http://havepunchlineneedjoke.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/iconoclasm-douglas-coupland-player-one/
By doublesight
Format:Paperback
Coupland's insights into the human psyche, religion, and societal structures are quite powerful. The points that the book raises are very thought provoking, and that being said, the book is not something to pick up if you're only looking for light reading. I would have to agree with other reviewers in saying that the characters are unrealistically well-spoken throughout the whole book, and Coupland's primary goal of presenting his provoking questions and insights are the main cause of this. As each of his characters are blatant mouthpieces, I found that this book became much more enjoyable when I considered it to be like an academic lecture or debate which was placed within a fictional context. I think readers would appreciate the work more if they took the fiction/story element as a creative way of presenting the information that would otherwise make an essay or lecture. The book also benefits from its short length, as this 'style' of writing may have been crippled had he let the characters and story go on any further than he did.
A good read, if you're looking for a piece of fiction to sit down and think about.
A good read, if you're looking for a piece of fiction to sit down and think about.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Jeffrey Swystun
TOP 50 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
Coupland examines our fragility through the insecurities and foibles of individuals and sets Player One against a chilling apocalyptic backdrop. The book provides two avenues that run in parallel and crisscross over a very short and frightening period of time. But what makes it so readable are the characters. Though largely implausible and far too articulate, Coupland provides us with engaging personalities that we cannot help but connect with.
These include Karen, the single mom from Winnipeg, who flies across the country to eradicate loneliness, "Karen feels as if her life is a real story, not just a string of events entered into a daybook - false linearity imposed on chaos as we humans try to make sense of our iffy situation here on earth." And her observation that. "A man walks into a bookstore and looks up books on loneliness, and every woman in the store hits on him. A woman looks for books on loneliness, and the store clears out" is an insight both humorous and sad.
Luke, the disgraced pastor, "has decided that, although he is a failure, failure is authentic, and because it's authentic, it's real and genuine". Luke also believes that the Seven Deadly Sins need to be updated to perhaps include: " the willingness to tolerate information overload; the neglect of the maintenance of democracy; the deliberate ignorance of history; the equating of shopping with creativity; the rejection of reflective thinking; the belief that spectacle is reality; vicariously living though celebrities." This is Coupland at his best when he beats up pop culture and its `dumbing down' of society.
And then there is Rachel, though plagued by a laundry list of autistic and other challenges, she portrays a humanity that is clinically inviting. Her bewilderment in a world of "neurotypicals" is not unlike anyone's discomfort except she has been duly labeled.
Coupland throws these and other characters together into a terrifying scenario over a period of five hours. In that time they are forced to survive, adapt, reveal their inner fears, question engrained beliefs, and rely on each broken and searching self for answers. They each bring their own "iffy situations" to one very large one and the results are fascinating.
These include Karen, the single mom from Winnipeg, who flies across the country to eradicate loneliness, "Karen feels as if her life is a real story, not just a string of events entered into a daybook - false linearity imposed on chaos as we humans try to make sense of our iffy situation here on earth." And her observation that. "A man walks into a bookstore and looks up books on loneliness, and every woman in the store hits on him. A woman looks for books on loneliness, and the store clears out" is an insight both humorous and sad.
Luke, the disgraced pastor, "has decided that, although he is a failure, failure is authentic, and because it's authentic, it's real and genuine". Luke also believes that the Seven Deadly Sins need to be updated to perhaps include: " the willingness to tolerate information overload; the neglect of the maintenance of democracy; the deliberate ignorance of history; the equating of shopping with creativity; the rejection of reflective thinking; the belief that spectacle is reality; vicariously living though celebrities." This is Coupland at his best when he beats up pop culture and its `dumbing down' of society.
And then there is Rachel, though plagued by a laundry list of autistic and other challenges, she portrays a humanity that is clinically inviting. Her bewilderment in a world of "neurotypicals" is not unlike anyone's discomfort except she has been duly labeled.
Coupland throws these and other characters together into a terrifying scenario over a period of five hours. In that time they are forced to survive, adapt, reveal their inner fears, question engrained beliefs, and rely on each broken and searching self for answers. They each bring their own "iffy situations" to one very large one and the results are fascinating.
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3.5 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
Waste of Time
This summary of this book is so promising, I was very interested to read it. After about 50 pages, I was fed up. This book is terrible. It's mindless and drags on and long. Read more
Published 18 months ago by 0Clairebear0
1.0 out of 5 stars
Contrived tosh
Really, really poor cod-psychological effort. Every cardboard character is Coupland espousing his not-very-original philosophical take on what it means to be human in the post... Read more
Published on May 17 2011 by Andrew Dunn
4.0 out of 5 stars
entertaining and though provoking
this is a fairly quick read that leaves you asking many questions....it has great in-depth character development within a backdrop that is never explained, which made it all the... Read more
Published on Feb 6 2011 by Chupacabra
4.0 out of 5 stars
A little book with a lot to tell
Once again, the comparison with Vonnegut holds very well. Coupland manages in his latest novel to comment on a wide range of topics, most of them long time favorites of his:... Read more
Published on Dec 1 2010 by Stevie the suburbanite
1.0 out of 5 stars
Save yourself a few hours...
The review by "DeadTrees" below is bang-on. I ignored it and read the book anyways. The streaming babble of the characters become unbearable around page 50. Read more
Published on Nov 26 2010 by Hugh Sturgess
1.0 out of 5 stars
Don't bother...
This is a ghastly book. The description on the back looked so promising, and I bought it on the strength of Coupland's other books that I've read, but it took all my strength just... Read more
Published on Oct 27 2010 by DeadTrees
4.0 out of 5 stars
Pleasing thought experiment & a genuinely frightening apocalypse
It's hard to say why the apocalypse considered here is so frightening. Perhaps because it's only sketched in indistinct outlines; we never find out exactly what has gone wrong. Read more
Published on Oct 7 2010 by Rodge
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