JPod
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
|
| Author | Douglas Coupland |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Will Webb |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Epistolary, Satire |
| Publisher | Random House of Canada (first edition), Bloomsbury USA (first edition) |
| Released | 9 May 2006 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 528 (Canadian Hardback), 448 (USA hardback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-679-31424-5 (first edition, Canadian hardback), ISBN 1-59691-233-2 (first edition, USA hardback) |
| Preceded by | Terry |
JPod is a novel by Douglas Coupland published by Random House of Canada in 2006. Set in the early 2000s, it concerns a group of video game programmers whose last names all begin with "J". They live and work in a development "pod", which they refer to as the "jPod", within a company that Coupland has described as "resembles, but legally no way is Electronic Arts", located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (Electronic Arts has an important branch in Vancouver and its suburb Burnaby). As in Coupland's other novels, the characters can be said to face issues that define their era.
The novel is presented in the form of diary entries maintained on a computer by the narrator, similar to a previous novel from Coupland, Microserfs (1995). In fact, JPod can be seen as "a 21st-century sibling" [1] to this novel, in the "Google age". Microserfs centered on a group of friends working for Microsoft who started up their own company.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, is making JPod into a television series due to air in January 2008 [2]
Contents |
[edit] Characters
- Ethan Harrison Jarlewski (known as Ethan)
- The book's narrator and main character. He becomes Kaitlin's boyfriend later on in the book.
- Casper Jesperson (known as "Cancer Cowboy" or simply "Cowboy")
- A coworker of Ethan. "Cowboy" grew up in an agricultural region and was told that the local cowboys were all dying of lung cancer because they were smoking. Despite this, "Cowboy" smokes. He abuses cough syrup and is a sex addict.
- Brianna Jyang (known as Bree)
- A coworker of Ethan. Bree claims that she wants to sleep with almost every man she meets, but only once. Her coworkers are not sure if she actually does this. She later admits that she doesn't and is very confused.
- John Doe (formerly named "crow well mountain juniper")
- A coworker of Ethan. John Doe grew up in a lesbian commune (apparently, his name was all lowercase because of this), and grew up without television, popular culture or music. Throughout the book, John tries to be as statistically normal as possible.
- Brandon Mark Jackson (known as Mark, later known as "Evil Mark")
- A coworker of Ethan. In the beginning of the book, Mark had only been in jPod for three weeks (hence his boring nickname). He has been spotted by coworkers to be a neat freak. His main oddity is the fact everything around him must be edible from his futon to his post-it notes.
- Kaitlin Anna Boyd Joyce (known as Kaitlin)
- A coworker and (later) girlfriend of Ethan. In the beginning of the book, Kaitlin had only joined yesterday. Eventually she develops a relationship with Ethan. She later makes a hugging machine.
- Kam Fong
- A Chinese smuggler of people and drugs. He is depicted as having no sense of humour. He abducts Steve in the latter half of the book. Kam is universally liked; Ethan's mother and father are particularly fond of him.
- Steve Lefkowitz (known as Steve)
- The company's head of marketing. Before, he worked at Toblerone, and apparently "turned it around" in two years. He introduces a turtle modeled after Jeff Probst named "Jeff", to send a message to his son, as he lost his visitation rights during his divorce. He eventually gets abducted by Kam Fong for stalking Ethan's mother, becomes addicted to heroin, and ends up working at a factory in China manufacturing fake Nike shoes. He is eventually rescued by Ethan.
[edit] Theme and plot
The Plot of JPod is, essentially, a series of smaller plotlines meshed together. These plotlines (in a somewhat chronological order) include:
- Development of a game, first named "BoardX". The game is later radically changed and renamed "SpriteQuest".
- Ethan's relationship with Kaitlin.
- Ethan's mother's marijuana grow-op.
- Various activities jPod does, like finding a stray digit in the first hundred thousand of them in pi, writing letters to Ronald McDonald or finding a stray word in the possible three-letter words in Scrabble.
- Ethan singing various karaoke songs at parties hosted by Kam Fong.
- An elaborate hoax by Kaitlin to fool her co-workers into thinking she was involved in a scandal for a diet involving Subway sandwiches.
- Kam Fong's various businesses in smuggling.
- Steve's abduction, and jPod trying to find him.
- Kaitlin's creation of a hugging machine.
- Ethan's trip to China.
- "Cowboy" creating an in-office cola dubbed "jCola".
- A deal with Douglas Coupland involving everyone but Ethan, as he was shoe shopping, and Ethan's various attempts to get in.
- Ethan's mother moving to a lesbian commune.
This technique has been described by critics as:
The themelessness, you see, is the theme. The arbitrariness, the shiny furniture, the slew of branding references, the clutter and irrelevance, the moral and emotional vacuity...[3]
[edit] References
[edit] Self-reference
Coupland appears as a character in this novel. According to Coupland, the character "is my response to Google and search engines and archives that never go away."[4] One reference begins in the beginning of the novel, where someone mentions he or she feels like a "refugee from a Douglas Coupland novel". JPod purports to be a print-out of the laptop diary of main character Ethan Jarlewski aquired by Coupland in seemingly unfair deals with the character.
[edit] EA
The company in JPod appears to be loosely based on Electronic Arts[5], which is the largest game publishing company and has one of its largest development offices in the Vancouver area. Mention is made of the reliance of the company's game on sports and other media intellectual properties, as well as a sister office in Orlando, both of which are characteristic of EA. Furthermore, multiple references are made to characteristic features of the EAC complex including multi-level layered walkways, the large cafeteria and air-conditioned meeting room, guarded escorts for visitors and laminated security passes.
[edit] The Title
The title is undoubtedly also a reference to the iPod, It may also be a reference to J-Pop, which Coupland has showed interest in in other books. J-Pod is also the name given to a family of orca that live of the coast of Vancouver, British Columbia.
[edit] Other
- "grind the molten bucket" is a reference to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 [6].
- "chunkylover53"[@aol.com] is Homer Simpson's e-mail address as seen in The Dad Who Knew Too Little.
- Lot 49 is also the lot in Thomas Pynchon's The crying of lot 49
[edit] Trivia
- Coupland will be exhibiting large-scale reproductions of some of the book's pages at a Canadian art gallery.[7]
- Dglobe, an idea in the book, is practically discussed here. It shares many features of OmniGlobe, which can be seen near the south entrance of the San Diego Natural History Museum.
