JPod
 | |
| Author | Douglas Coupland |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Will Webb |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Epistolary, Satire |
| Publisher | Random House of Canada (first edition), Bloomsbury USA (first edition) |
Publication date | 9 May 2006 |
| Publication place | Canada |
| 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) Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
| Preceded by | Eleanor Rigby |
| Followed by | The Gum Thief |
jPod is a fictional, coming-of-age novel by Douglas Coupland published by Random House of Canadain 2006. Set in 2005, the book explores the strange and unconventional everyday life of main character Ethan Jarlewski and his team of video game programmers whose last name all begin with the letter “J”.
jPod also became a CBC television series premiering on January 8, 2008, and ran until its cancellation on March 7, 2008, leaving the series with a permanent cliffhanger ending.
Plot
jPod is a fictional novel about six 20-something year old co-workers whose last names all start with the letter “J” and were assigned to the same undesirable cubicle pod in a Burnaby-based video game company after being alphabetically placed by someone in Human Resources through a computer glitch. Ethan Jarlewski is the novel’s main character and narrator, who spends more time involved with his work than with his dysfunctional family. His mother runs a successful marijuana co-op, his father would do anything to get a speaking role in a movie, and his realtor brother involves himself with shady people, including a Chinese gangster-business man named Kam Fong. Fong connects to all of the major characters – Ethan’s brother in real estate, Ethan’s dad through ballroom dancing, and even deals with Steve, the marketing executive at the company Ethan works at, when he becomes obsessed with Ethan’s mother. The team is required to insert a turtle character based on Jeff Probst into their skateboard game called BoardX when Steve decides to win over his son, who loves turtles. jPod is then drastically challenged and changed when Steve goes missing and the new executive replacement declares a new game development of an inspiring prince character who rides a magic carpet. The game is then renamed “SpriteQuest”. The jPodders, upset that they would not be able to finish their game, decide to sabotage SpriteQuest by inserting a deranged Ronald McDonald in a hidden room who destroys the game – creating a suitable game in their opinion. Ethan begins to date the newest addition to jPod, Kaitlin, and their relationship grows as she discovers that most of the members of the team, including herself, are mildly autistic. Kaitlin develops a hugging machine after researching that autistic people enjoy the sensation of pressure from non-living things on their skin. Douglas Coupland as a character is inserted into the novel when Ethan visits China to bring a heroin-addicted Steve back to Canada, and routinely bumps into Ethan and manages to weave himself into Ethan’s life. jPod finds itself in a digital world where technology is everything and the human mind is incapable of focusing on just one task.
Characters
Ethan Harrison Jarlewski (Ethan)
Ethan is the main character and narrator of the story. He is almost thirty years old, slightly autistic, and works as a video game programmer. Ethan is a pushover and has a tendency to involuntarily get himself involved in uncomfortable situations. His involvement may also be a result of his close link to his parents. Situations such as his mom’s grow-op, his mom’s affairs and lesbian tendencies, his dad’s affairs, and Kam Fong’s human- and drug- trafficking ventures. He also attempts to fix the lives of everyone around him. Ethan can be described as simplistic but he is occasionally sociopathic in his thinking. In the latter half of the book he is in a relationship with Kaitlin.
Casper Jesperson (Cowboy)
Casper Jesperson aka “Cowboy” is Ethan’s co-worker. He grew up in an agricultural area where his mom convinced him that all the cowboys had cancer and were dying because they smoked. Despite this, though, he smokes anyways. Cowboy is a sex addict and is always searching for more conquests. He is also addicted to cough syrup, specifically Robitussin. Because of this, he often has to be bailed out by Ethan at odd times after he gets “tussed up” and ends up having sex with multiple people. Cowboy also has an unhealthy obsession with death.
Brianna Jyang (Bree)
Brianna Jyang or “Bree” is another one of Ethan’s co-workers. She is promiscuous and sleeps with every guy she meets, but only once. Bree falls in love with a French man and makes several failed attempts to refine herself and her character in order to seem more appealing. Attempts such as changing the way she dresses, developing an English accent, and taking wine-tasting classes and other ‘cultured’ classes. Bree has brothers and a sister who are very bright. Her sister works at the World Bank, her older brother is finding a cure for Alzheimer’s and her younger brother played viola at the White House two years ago.
John Doe (crow well mountain juniper)
John Doe is Ethan’s co-worker. His birth name is crow well mountain juniper but he legally changed his name to John Doe. John was born in a lesbian commune as the only male member. He grew up without television, radio, pop culture, and other normal western cultural amenities and commonalities. In order to balance out his radical upbringing, John attempts to be as statistically normal as possible.
Brandon Mark Jackson (Evil Mark)
Mark is another one of Ethan’s co-workers. He has just recently joined jPod. Mark is relatively unnoticeable and similar to Ethan in personality. As a result of this, the adjective “Evil” was added onto his name in order to distinguish the two. Mark is your typical geek, is obsessively neat and has/had bedwetting issues. In addition to his job at jPod, Mark studies biological sciences in order to please his parents. He has a tendency to make radical, unsettling statements that add to his “Evil” reputation. Mark claims that the event that changed him as a person was his part-time job in the “beetling pit”. The “beetling pit” is where people feed beetles with dead animals. He requires everything around him and everything he owns to be edible. This is a result of being trapped in a U-Store-It place for four days without any light. Mark says that his apartment is like “Willy Wonka’s factory”. This meaning that everything in his apartment is edible.
Kaitlin Anna Boyd Joyce (Kaitlin)
Kaitlin is the newest member of jPod. She just joined a day before the beginning of the book. She is a student at Capilano and Kwantlen Polytech Universities. Kaitlin believes everyone at jPod is autistic to some extent. As a result of this belief she develops a hugging machine to help them cope with touch. She is considered the most ‘normal’ member of jPod. But this conflicts with the fact that she fabricates a complicated hoax revolving around her and the Subway diet for no reason other than to fool her co-workers. In the latter half of the book, she is in a relationship with Ethan.
Kam Fong
Kam Fong is a human- and drug-trafficker. He is your typical Asian businessman. Although an affluent businessman, Kam Fong is also an avid ballroom dancer. He is liked by everybody but admittedly has no sense of humour. Kam Fong often helps others out in sticky situations but he is also responsible for a significant portion of the chaos in Ethan’s life.
Jim Jarlewski
Jim Jarlewski is Ethan’s dad. He is an avid ballroom dancer. Jim is retired but he is also an aspiring actor. Despite his ambition, though, he rarely manages a speaking role and is stuck as an extra. Jim suffers from the occasional breakdown and a lack of confidence. He has an affair with Ethan’s former high school classmate, Ellen.
Carol Jarlewski
Carol Jarlewski is Ethan’s mom. Carol orchestrates a marijuana grow-op from her basement. She often draws Ethan into complicated situations revolving around her grow-op, including collections, and murder. She accidentally kills Tim the Biker by electrocuting him when he tried to “extort” fifty percent of her crop. Carol has affairs with various men, then she eventually switches over to women. Later on she moves to a lesbian commune.
Greg Jarlewski
Greg Jarlewski is Ethan’s older brother. Greg is a real estate agent who is involved with Kam Fong in human-trafficking.
Steven Lefkowitz (Steve)
Steve is the head of marketing and is in charge of jPod. He used to work at Toblerone chocolate company and turned it around in two years. He attempts to integrate a turtle named Jeff into jPod’s video game BoardX in order to reconnect with his estranged son, also named Jeff. Steve is in love with Carol and later on gets abducted and transported to China to work in a sweatshop by Kam Fong but gets rescued by Ethan. During this period, he gets addicted to heroin.
freedom
freedom is John Doe’s lesbian mom. She is responsible for Carol moving into the lesbian commune. She later on becomes involved with Kam Fong despite her radical lesbian stance.
Douglas Coupland (Anti-Doug)
Douglas Coupland is a character based on the author himself. He is the developer of Dglobe. He rescues Ethan in China but is a complete and total asshole and constantly frustrates Ethan. He is referred to by the author as “Anti-Doug”, an exaggeration of his negative traits (1).
Major Themes
Douglas Coupland uses the trendy Post-Gutenberg style to present the text as it would be seen had it been published on the Internet. As a result, there is a lack of censorship. The effect produced by this writing style suggests the overly censored nature of present society. The overtly sexual scenes and, in some areas of the text, lack of political correctness connotes to readers that society has become so “politically correct” that it is afraid to comment on its’ true feelings and beliefs, ultimately leading to, becoming politically incorrect. jPod also touches on the themes of self-acceptance and the journey which one takes to discover his or her personality. At the beginning of the text, the characters are hiding behind what they feel should be based on society’s view of the world; consequently, they are cynical and unhappy towards the world around them. However, as each of the subplots unfolds, the characters come to grip with their true personality traits, including their various forms of autism and family situations. This develops their personal growth making them stronger, open to one another, and able to take risks. The final result is each character’s happiness and sense of personal fulfillment exhibited at the end of the text by their courageous and moderately risky move of taking a new job working with Anti-Doug . jPod also exhibits elements of the classic literary theme of acceptance of each other’s differences. Each of the characters in the book has some type of proverbial blemish on personality. These “blemishes” range from a vindictive and sadistic nature (Evil Mark), and addiction to cough medications and sex (Cancer Cowboy), overtly sexual (Bree), or strange obsessions resulting from previous trauma or circumstances (John Doe, Evil Mark). However, the members of jPod learn these differences as the best parts of their personality, and learn to look for those particulars which they have in common to become friends. The last two part of the book are heavily focused around the prevalence of undiagnosed autism - especially highly functioning autistics. Each member of jPod exhibits a form of mild autism, yet can function fairly normally in their environment, while surprisingly being gifted gaming programmers. This is perceivably an attempt by Coupland to reduce some of the stigma surrounding the disease. The integration of autism into the text connotes to readers that the current social view of the illness is incorrect; it is not a mental illness which renders you incapacitated in all cases, it is possible to live with, there are many people who are unaware that they suffer from autism.
History of the Novel
Longlisted for the Giller Prize, this novel was one of Coupland's most eccentric yet culturally encompassing novels. Set in and around Vancouver, BC, the novel encompasses many aspects of Vancouver life.
The novel was written at the same time as Terry, a book about Terry Fox, a Canadian who ran 143 consecutive marathons. Coupland has said that "All of my more noble character traits went into that book. There was a tar-pit of ooze left over that wanted to go somewhere. JPod was it."[1]
Coupland exhibited large-scale reproductions of some of the book's pages at a Canadian art gallery.[2] As well, several different "hugging machines" have actually been developed with the aim of overcoming sensory integration issues experienced by persons with Autism-spectrum disorders.[3][4]
References
- ^ ”Generation JPod”. ’’The Jerusalem Post’’, July 7, 2006.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
taletwowas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Dr. Dean Edell (August 20, 2005). "A Hugging Machine To Help Autistic Kids". ABC-7 News. Retrieved 2008-09-17.
- ^ "A Vest to Hug You". Slashdot. Oct 12, 2006. Retrieved 2008-09-17.