Generation X: Tales for an accelerated culture

Andy, Claire and Dag are three friends chosen to be the exponents for their generation. Maybe they aren’t everyone’s prototype of a young generation that used to be between 20 and 30 about two decades ago. The book was written in 1991 and it’s composed of a series of stories that these three friends tell to each other in their quest for an existence which could offer a perfect balance between their needs (mostly to discover what they want to do with their life) and a convenient way of living.

They choose to work and live in a region of Florida, Palm Springs, where they feel free to judge others for their life choices. Of course, the author presents them with a perfect human need to accomplish something of their life, but in the end they do manage to evade falling in the category that they genuinely despise: that of the yuppies. I mean, they evade to a different world only to be sure that they can forever evade their need for a secure job, a house and a family that could fall into the prototype of some realization, and they seem to think that their evasion might just help them achieve that (I think it’s a great solution to their existential problem).

Some critics consider the book to be written in a way that resembles The Decameron and I can certainly see the resemblance there, but, to me it seemed more like the life story that these characters where creating in order to voyage to a different stage of self realization. Maybe it’s just a way of clearing the past and emerging ones true values in life and the beliefs by which that persons stands but it seemed a lot more plausible than to think that they were telling stories just to cushion themselves from the outside world.

I like the way that the three characters choose to stick to some values, even though I might not entirely agree to all of them.

I enjoyed the book and felt that I might begin to understand other people, but it might well be just an illusion given be the writing style. Anyway, I can hardly wait to read a book about my generation, which some call Generation Y(although X sounded better and had an feminist appeal – chromosome X).