‘Northanger Abbey’ – Jane Austen

A must-read for fans of the gothic and witty social observations

‘Worst. Person. Ever’ – Douglas Coupland

London, August 2018

Overview

Raymond Gunt is the main character and as claimed, the worst person ever. As a favour from his equally unpleasant ex-wife Fiona, Gunt gets work as a cameraman on Survivor and recruit the homeless man he’d attacked the day before as his slave PA.

Emerging from Coupland’s mind and engineered by the farcically monstrous Gunt, the characters easy ride in Kiribati is hit by a series of disasters, one of which (naturally) may signal the end of the world.

Thoughts

I’ve not ready everything by Douglas Coupland, but recall that he wrote himself into either Generation A or JPOD. He created himself as the beginnings of Raymond Gunt. The novel is prefaced with the note that it was as early attempt at biji (a Chinese genre roughly translated as a notebook which contains anecdotes and observations). The novel is littered with lists, definitions and descriptions that appear as chapter endnotes.

I wasn’t sure that to expect with this – probably a good thing. It was much funnier than anything I’ve previously read by the author and very acidic in tone. The storyline ran with that merciless humour, enabling events that if dealt with with a modicum of seriousness would toppled the entire thing.