Ruined by a Silly ending (Girlfriend in a Coma - Douglas Coupland)

Member Name: thevenerablebede

Product:	Girlfriend in a Coma - Douglas Coupland
Date:	16/08/01 (409 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: amusing, pleasing, tender

Disadvantages: crap ending

Some books just cannot deliver what they set out to. They set out their stall, express their abstract and then fall short. And I am afraid to say the Girlfriend in Coma falls well short.

Perhaps I should come clean and say that this is the first work by Coupland that I have ever read and it came my way as a recommendation from a friend. So, if you like, I came cold to the book and its author. However, whilst I enjoyed this book and read it in two sittings, I am quite convinced that what Coupland was attempting was too ambitious for his talents.

It begins very much like any teen saga: a group of young people who hang out in and outside of school are bound, pretty much, by boredom. These six people (Karen, Richard, Pam, Hamilton, Wendy and Linus) share everything and the start is very alive and evocative and a real spirit of teenage Canada in the late 1970s is caught. Coupland does have a gift for detail, which although it gets too much every now and again, is as entertaining as it is often poignant. However, this typical scene is dented by two extraordinary events that draw these people ever closer. Firstly, a close friend, Jared, dies of leukaemia. The slow, tragic death is wittily described by Jared’s ghost in the book and for much of the book Jared seems like an irrelevance. It is later on that we discover the importance of Jared to the plot

The second tragedy to befall the group is the mysterious descent of Karen into a coma. Obviously, this is the eponymous Girlfriend in a Coma, and is précised with certain revelations about mysterious visions Karen has been having and the feeling that something really terrible is going to happen in the future. Karen has glimpsed the future and it doesn’t work. She is seeing Richard at this point and before she falls unconscious, she and Richard make love for the first time, which, of course, turns out to be of key significance, but it is also simply one of the most tender moments in the bo
ok.

So when Karen goes into her coma, little do we know it will last for 17 years and little do we know that she is pregnant. But in the coma Karen remains and the others grow old, get into scrapes and act as representatives of a world going wrong. And a baby is born to Richard and Karen. The faults of the group over those 17 years are modern diseases: drug addiction, alcoholism, workoholism, failed romances and love and just general crapness. Karen’s daughter too turns out to be a bit of a rotter: a typical teenage brat of the nineties.

So we have whizzed through 17 years whilst Karen has not developed and when she comes to the world it, and her friends, have changed. But Karen as seen the end of the world and she knows when it is coming. And despite disbelief and some media frenzy the world does not believe here anyway. Which is perhaps not really a problem because there is no way to stop it.

And, as predicted, the visions start to manifest themselves. People just lie down and die and this condition causes everyone to die until it is only the 7 of them left in the world. All very believable. Coupland’s evocation of a world without people, gradually decaying is interesting if a little far-fetched and poetic. But in many ways it is the most interesting part of the book. Not least because those left behind seem to have no sense of mission and just seem to faff about for a year.
The story is taken up, at last, by Jared’s ghost and we can get some clarity to what has happened. When we finally discover what has been going on from Jared’s spiritual point of view and we discover the method to the madness, this books starts to plummet into the realms of total claptrap. Jared explains how Karen was put into a coma so that she would retain her wide-eyed youthful view of the world and whilst the others grew old. With the life experience they gained, and with the innocence Karen retained, they were in the perfect position
to see what was going wrong with the world. To see that people were becoming like automatons, losing their souls and they had stopped asking questions.

Basically, ever since Jared died these 6 people have been charged with saving the world. However, they had failed and so, in the most mysterious aspect of the book they are all sent back to the old earth before apocalypse to lead a crusade to save the world! Yep, I kid you not!

Whilst the book starts especially well and is humorous, poignant and amusing, it tails off into absurdity. Stylistically, Coupland’s work is very pleasing. The narrative devices are accomplished. I was particularly pleased that the book starts with Jared, the ghost, basically explaining how the story would be told from several points of views. And he also trails the book with his perspective that is at the heart of the book. Thus, when he finishes it up, it feels as though the story has come full circle.

I certainly think that people will enjoy this book. I did, but the end leaves a lot to be desired. Coupland just tries to make to many grand philosophical statements that he cannot quite carry through. But that’s no crime. I shall seek out his other books now.

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