THE VARSITY: I’m sure you’re sick of being asked questions about Generation X. But if you’ll indulge me, I’ll get this one out of the way. Your novel defined Generation X, your own generation, as one plagued by boredom and disaffection.
DOUGLAS COUPLAND: Not the generation, just the characters in the book. And the characters were never bored, in fact they enjoyed being alive. But they were indeed disaffected.
TV: Do you still feel that way about your generation, or do you think it has evolved over the years?
DC: I don’t feel as if I belong or belonged to any generation. Really truly. So I don’t think the question is answerable coming from me.
TV: Many of your novels emphasize the importance of storytelling in an increasingly digital world.
DC: It’s been a theme that has emerged, partially unwittingly, over the past two decades. It became blazingly clear with Generation A.
TV: Is this why you chose to write your Massey Lectures in the form of a novel?
DC: No.
TV: Why did you decide to present your lectures in this way?
DC: I originally wanted to present a “Dictionary of Doug”… some of my more enthusiastic readers (listed at the start of the book) helped out. They each took one book and culled it for anything aphoristic or crystalline. They then got together and arranged it all by subject. It was 425 pages. And once I read it, I knew there was no way I could do something purely indexical. And so I decided to exploit the subversive capacity of fiction to pull readers through what is actually a huge list of ideas and notions that, in the end, create a condensed version of two decades of my thinking, much of which, while slightly apocalyptic in nature, seems to be playing itself out in the culture right now.
TV: Did you approach the writing of Player One differently because you intended it to be presented in a lecture format?
DC: I went to art school, and I’m not joking when I say I’ve never been to a lecture before. I went to Wade [Davis’] Massey last year and it was awesome. But it’s not what I do. Also, don’t forget that the lectures are also a performance of sorts. It’s not just me or whoever up there reading. There’s an intimacy that develops that you don’t find in a 300 level lit. class.
TV: Player One is set during a kind of apocalypse, which is a topic that you explore in many of your novels. Do you think that as a culture, we’re fascinated by the possibility of our own extinction?
DC: We always have been, but it’s also emotionally draining and hard work to do so — which means it’s a semi-taboo.
TV: In your op-ed “A Dictionary for the Near Future,” you discuss what you call “Airport Induced Sensitivity Dysphoria.” Did this loss of identity that one experiences in an airport influence your decision to write Player One from the perspective of four people trapped in an airport lounge?
DC: Both loss of identity coupled with disinhibition. People will tell you the most amazingly intimate things in an airport lounge precisely because they know they’ll never see you again and because airports really do remove you from yourself. It’s why cults and religions target airports; travelers are vulnerable and they don’t even know it.
TV: The full title of your novel is Player One: What is to Become of Us. “What is to become of Us” — it’s not a question. Do you believe that we’re heading towards a global crisis?
DC: Absolutely. Not even if — when. You most likely weren’t around for the 1973 Oil Shock. The world stopped. The economy stopped. Time stopped. It was terrifying. And if it happened back then, it’ll certainly happen again. And it doesn’t even have to be oil. Look what one dinky volcano did to European travel. Or look what happened on 9/11.
TV: I asked that question because so many of the predictions that you have made in your novels about contemporary society have come true. Do you ever intentionally try to predict our socio-cultural direction?
DC: No. I think if you do that as a conscious act, you won’t end up with anything new. My goal is always to look at things that are so obvious as to be tacitly considered not worth investigating. Time. Disposable Culture. Pop Culture.
TV: I thought I would end the interview with something a little more lighthearted.
DC: No! Depress the shit out of everyone! Aren’t you sick of everyone being nicey-nicey all the time? 🙂 (note the happy face emoticon which renders the statement preceding it possibly ironic.)
The 2010 Massey Lecture: Douglas Coupland will take place at Massey Hall, October 25 at 8 p.m.
