[Books] Christian Kracht - Faserland

Having been in many feuilletons of German newspapers lately, Christian Kracht fetched my interest some month ago. He is a Swiss author and journalist, who has been working for the well known magazine "Der Spiegel". Today I will not write about his new novel, Imperium, but about his first: Faserland.

I can't remember what exactly I liked so much about it. Maybe the fact that after a long book it was easy to finish in two days. It doesn't really have a thrilling story: It's about a well-situated man in his thirties or forties, who is travelling from the very north of Germany to Switzerland via south germany. He meets old friends and more or less intensely interfears with their lives in a not so positive way.

JPod by Douglas Coupland

Hell yeah, this book's going to make you laugh a lot. Unless you're a totally unfunny dickhead, of course.  But wait, maybe it's not that easy ...

JPod was my first book by Douglas Coupland who's probably most famous for his 1991 novel "Generation X". (Reminder to myself: read Generation X.) The scenery it describes is pretty much where I see myself living in. Not in every little detail of course, but in the big picture. So, that's probably why I had no problems understanding even the weird things of this book and finding them funny. But after some research on the web I find that this novel divides opinions.
To point that out I will link two reviews on it, one which is positive, and one which is negative.


January Magazine Review
 
Futurismic.com Review

Wikipedia on Douglas Coupland


For me, this book was - after some challenging novels - a relaxing read, that made me laugh out loud and even inspired me in some ways. Not to see everything too close-minded (is that a word?) and being more gritty when doing art for example.

Did you like Matthias Faldbakken's "The Cocka Hola Company"??
Then you will probably like this one too!