Word: moderns
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...endearing trait is his straight-forward, bluntly honest voice--one might surmise that after thirty years experience with school-age children, the author's gift for clearing out needless discourse has been honed to a razor's edge. Simple diction, while vital for pedantry, has its drawbacks in the modern non-fiction market: every once in a while Kohl's hand can be felt patting the reader on the head, as if recruiting another kindergartner into his throngs of supporters. This is not to say that condescension (if it can be called such) is not totally displeasing; the smothering presence...
John Hurt's performance is the driving force of the film. Giles is a relic of a quaint English past; he is mystified by such modern forms of technology as the VCR and maintains a perpetually erudite air. Perhaps, it is a yearning for a freshness and energy in his life that fuels his obsession for the unsuspecting Ronnie. Hurt plays his role both intelligently and ardently; his emotions for Ronnie are poignantly tangible. At first, he appears as a slightly depressed man who after losing his wife a few years back is looking for a new interest in life...
Imagine if Ted Kaczynski were younger, hipper and had a brilliantly witty sense of humor. Imagine that instead of writing a lengthy manifesto on the ills of modern society, he chose instead to compress his belief system into simple, easy-to-swallow sound bites for mass consumption: "The future is fake" "Everybody's lying." "Stop breathing." "Progress is over." Rather than spreading his doctrine with letter bombs and threats of destruction, he might instead have devised a quirky, culture-savvy, pink-jacketed novel about the end of the world. He might very well have penned something like Douglas Coupland...
...both acclaimed for their caustic portraits of jaded twentysomethings, presents another foray into the minds of the hollow, the directionless, the lonely and the poorly-adjusted of the MTV generation. Through their offbeat, media-savvy voices, he opens up a philosophical debate on meaning (or lack thereof) in the modern world, on the detrimental effects of technology on society and the environment, and on the need to challenge the established system...
...tragically, Coupland crosses that line as well. His prose in this novel is infinitely better than his point, which as the novel progresses comes across more and more as a cartoonish attempt at profundity. While he does touch on themes that ring painfully true regarding modern views on death, technology, loneliness and lack of purpose, too often he mixes them with banal platitudes or smart-ass witticisms that reduce his ideas to the absurd...