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 Canada in 2006. Set in 2005, the book explores the strange and unconventional everyday life of the main character Ethan Jarlewski and his team of video game programmers whose last names all begin with the letter “J”.
jPod also became a CBC television series co-written by Douglas Coupland. It premiered on January 8 2008, and ran until its cancellation on March 7 2008, leaving the series with a permanent suspenseful ending.
Plot
jPod is a fictional novel about six young adults who were assigned to work together in the same undesirable pod at a Burnaby-based video game company. They were 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 grow-op, while his father would do anything to get a speaking role in a movie. His realtor brother Greg, involves himself with shady people such as Kam Fong, a Chinese gangster-businessman. 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. Later on Steve develops an obsession with Ethan’s mother. The team is required to insert a turtle character based on Jeff Probst into their skateboard game called BoardX. Steve approves this characters addition to the game because he's trying to please his son in a messy custody battle. jPod is then drastically challenged and changed when Steve goes missing and the new executive replacement declares that the game will be changed. Upper management decides to change Jeff the turtle, for an adventurous prince 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. They do this by creating a secret level where Ronald reaks havoc, thus 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 how 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. The Google-version of Douglas Coupland consistantly bumps into Ethan and manages to weave himself into the narrator'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.
External References in jPod
History of Chinatown
From 1890 to 1920, early Chinese immigrants settled in what was known as Shanghai Alley and Canton Alley. By 1890, Shanghai Alley was home to more than 1,000 Chinese residents. Much of the community's activities and entertainment evolved around a 500 seat Chinese theatre built in 1898. Over time these Alleys grew and spread out, becoming what is known as Chinatown. Today’s Chinatown is a destination for many Chinese and Asians from neighbouring cities and towns, providing a testament to the early Chinese’s struggles and triumphs in Canada. Mandarin and Cantonese are the mother tongues in 30 per cent of Vancouver homes, which makes Chinese the largest "minority" ethnic group.
Vancouver’s Multiculturalism
The city of Vancouver is made up of people from diverse cultures and backgrounds. Vancouver is the second largest city in Canada with a high percentage a visible minority and immigrant populations. In 2001, 49% of the city’s total population was of visible minority background, compared to 44.8% in 1996. In 2001, 45.9% of the total population were immigrants (defined as people who were not born in Canada). Vancouver has 14% of BC’s population, but it has 24.5% of BC’s total immigrants. The three most numerous groups of recent immigrants are of Chinese, Filipino and Indian origin. The classification of “recent immigrants” refers to those who immigrated in the last five years. The people of Vancouver also speak a multitude of languages. Based on the 2001 Census figures, 49.4% of the city’s population identified English as their mother tongue, while 50.6% identified a language other than English as their mother tongue.
Immigration
The number and proportion of Chinese entrepreneurs from Hong Kong and Taiwan who have come to Canada under the sponsorship of the Canadian Business Immigration Program have increased substantially over the past decade or so. This migration pattern is likely to continue, based on three interrelated factors. The first is the continuing globalization of the Asia-Pacific financial markets which leads not only to direct capital investment in Canada and to capital accumulation but also to an associated migration of agents and owners of capital (Wong, 1993; 1995, p. 470). The second factor is the continuing political and economic uncertainty in both Hong Kong and Taiwan which will contribute to continuing transmigration and trans-nationalism amongst many Chinese entrepreneurs. Finally, current Canadian immigration policy is gradually shifting toward an increased emphasis on economic immigration with a corresponding de-emphasis on family and humanitarian immigration. Chinese entrepreneurs have constituted approximately half of all entrepreneurial business immigrants to Canada since the early 1990s. They have contributed to the ‘Asianization’ of larger cities, such as Vancouver and Toronto, both culturally and economically. Their economic impact includes job creation and direct capital investment.
Illegal Immigration
There are about one million shipping creates that enter Canada through the port of Vancouver each year, and while some of these crates are known to be carrying illegal immigrants, finding one of them is nearly impossible. In January of 2000, however, Customs officers found two containers packed with illegal immigrants. The living conditions were dirty and unhealthy, with buckets substituting for toilets and little water and food to survive on. Since then Canadian authorities have been targeting containers suspected of holding immigrants. Investors estimate that international Chinese smuggling is a $10 billion business run by organized gangs who manage to stay well hidden from the international law enforcement.