a way of organizing the universe

January 1994 was a long time ago. Over 12 years, on my last check ... A large chunk of my life and an eternity in terms of the technology that has appeared in that time. By January 1994, I was already on my second Macintosh, a Mac clone, exciting for its color monitor (my first Mac was a Performa 200), though without the elegance of Macintosh design.

January 1994 was also when a just booming magazine, Wired published the beginnings of a short story, by the already-famous author, Douglas Coupland. It was his quiet little research exercise, looking into the suddenly hip world of "geeks" and "nerds," computer programmers and soon-to-be dot-commers. The story was called Microserfs (reviewed in the NY Times, appropriately enough when it arrived in book form, by Jay McInerney [whose most recent book The Good Life, is, dare I admit it, fabulous ...]). Written in journal form, with notes and scribbles and playful text, it told the tale of the lives of a group of six of these twenty-something computer programmers, and their world working at the Microsoft "campus" in Washington State.

It was a heady time for the West Coast. There was the (by now mainstream) Seattle music scene, Silicon Valley, and the legitimization of Generation X (a term coined by Coupland in his 1991 novel of the same name).

In my searching, I came across an reminiscence of the book that offered the very compelling point that Microserfs would never have been published as fiction today (considering Coupland's own research for the book living on campus, etc.), and that it would more than likely be printed as a "memoir." I'd guess that this certainly would be true considering the prevalence of everyone's "life story" on my local bookstore shelves ...

But, even when it was first published, Microserfs, in its diary form, was a pop-culture time capsule; a letter to future selves. It is easy to dismiss the book with a Grinch's heart as all surface and shallowness, however, to do so would simply be wrong. For Coupland has always insinuated his characters with a need for the divine in the pop. In Microserfs, there is "Bill," the obvious stand-in as lord god of the company and his disciples (who leave the flock), the main protagonists (though I would stop at calling Daniel, the narrator, a Jesus figure, despite his martyr-tendencies, I believe he is simply a gentle soul) move forth and break down corporate structure for community and modern-day family. Despite their technological success and social failure, they cannot but recognize their need for love and companionship--in its most traditional sense--amidst the existential crisis they experience within their technological minds. For all its clever graphics and (now) quaint descriptions of cutting edge work environments (email! smileys!) it remains one of the most human and touching novels I've ever read.

And more than Generation X, I've always felt it recognized and defined my world and society that I grew up in. There is the necessary evil; working for the aforementioned corporation, a place that exists only to create product and print more money; the way that work has changed so much in the past few decades, encompassing our lives to the extent that it is also the hub of our human interactions and opportunities for relationships--in this case Daniel's physical and emotional connection to Karla, and how it gives him the desire to create something new (something "1.0"). The book is also a testament to how prescient Coupland was about technology and how it would change us and the world. It's incredible to flip through the pages and see how much Coupland recognized with regard to how it might liberate people's ability to communicate with one another and provide a completely new outlet for thought and creativity.

So, it's all the more distressing that his most recent novel, JPod, comes at us from an entirely opposite realm. In it, Coupland returns to his technogeek characters in a loose update of Microserfs, though, tellingly, JPod, and the characters who inhabit the book, lack the innocence and searching natures of their previous counterparts. It was a bit sad, really, to see this loss of curiosity coming from Coupland, as, no matter what he has written (and whether it has been enjoyed by me or not), what I have always been struck by is his sense of the spiritual, his joy at the wonder of every day life (it is the ability to do this that I appreciate most from others, and allow me to continue to aspire to it). The eternal possibilities of man and machine and that which lies beyond them both. In Microserfs, it is our physical form that fails and technology that saves both the spiritual and intellectual--reviving hope. In JPod, it is all cynical word play and razor jabs at our current society, with none of the curiosity.