Eleanor Rigby
Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland
This entry will be proof that I should really write these up as soon as I’ve finished a book, and not a month later after I’ve already returned the book to its owner and forgotten whatever it was that I intended to write about it. (Unfortunately both of these things have happened, and the book does not seem to have made a lasting impression on my memory, even though it really only has been a few weeks since I read it!)
I think that this is probably my favourite of the books by Coupland that I have read so far. I still haven’t entirely made up my mind about how I feel about his writing, even though I’ve now read four or five of his books. I keep reading them because they come so highly recommended to me, and because I feel so ambivalent about the previous ones I’ve read. (This is precisely how I felt about Margaret Atwood until I read Alias Grace.) It’s not that I didn’t enjoy reading Eleanor Rigby but I don’t think that Coupland is my kind of writer.
I can’t quite put my finger on what it is about his books that I don’t like. I think that a large part of it has to do with his pessimistic attitude toward modern society that I don’t entirely agree with. I do believe that our society has its problems, but instead of feeling motivated to fix things after finishing his books, I just have an overall feeling of negativity. I found that Eleanor Rigby was actually better for that than some of his other books.
I realize that this entry makes it sound like I really didn’t enjoy Eleanor Rigby, which isn’t true. It’s more that it didn’t stay with me at all, and now my memory of it is vague and clouded, but I have no intention of revisiting it to clarify my feelings toward it.
