Book 50: Microserfs

Microserfs
Douglas Coupland

It's been a while since I've read a Coupland book, and I think that it's good to get them in reasonably spread out doses; while his sense of time and place is absolutely impeccable, his books can feel a bit repetitive and listless. This, I think, makes Microserfs a perfect read for this, my first full week of classes in graduate school. There is a general sense of listlessness amongst Dan (the narrator of this computer-based journal) and his comrades, but Dan has a fundamental sense of what is important, expounding on complex and important philosophical ideas in between describing hilarious anecdotes regarding his work at Microsoft and, later, a friend's start-up in Silicon Valley. Coupland's indisputable strength is his ability to firmly situate his characters in their era and have them become both representative and starkly individual; these are not hasty stereotyped sketches though each character showcases a different facet of 20somethings in an era not quite out of Windows 3.x. Coupland uses his characters to define different aspects of the newly forming dot-com bubble and increasingly wired Internet age, not only on a group of young coders but through the eyes of Dan's parents as well, both of whom seek meaning and relevance in an increasingly digital world. Coupland's gifts are displayed in dazzling technicolor in Microserfs, which is by turns funny and poignant, but which never tries too hard at either and which ends up doubly successful at both. The book isn't too plot-heavy, but it is engaging and will keep readers laughing and thinking as they, too, ponder life in a new, dawning age.

Grade: A