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).

All families are psychotic

To those of you thinking that I could read so fast a book, you're wrong, the first book(The Inflationary Universe) had to be reviewed almost a week ago, but I kept postponing it due to all sorts of factors. Even this book had to be reviewed yesterday, but I’m doing it just now.

So about the book: It’s great! Although at some points it seemed far fetched, I mean the adventures of the Drummond family seemed to be put at random, like creating a puzzle, but it was a nice style kept throughout the whole book, so I think it was a brilliant idea from the author. I enjoyed the fact that the characters were so typical and so sincerely described by the author, that I almost felt like I knew the persons, like I could have been, under the circumstances one of the family. This, to my opinion, is what made the book great. I’ve heard about it and finally read it to make my mind about it.

I hope to get to the honest way of telling my mind without a “veil” (the one we sometimes put when we don’t want others to know that some of the things we say are really cardinal to us, and the way in which they could react might alter our relationship with them).

It really felt like a picture of a family, a cute, puzzle –like family and the fact that they accepted each others faults and differences made the novel seem like a good thing to start a conversation around family dinners or around the holidays.

The events seem to succeed at a speed that can certainly make you want something more in your life, a kind of adventure movie. But I guess all lives are in their one pace, and sometimes moments can seem very full and excited, even if as a whole life seems to have an almost uniform feel. When those moments arrive I think that it might be best just to enjoy them and to be sincere with us about our reactions and feeling to them.