PJAS 14 Spring-7
Julia Nikiel
Epic Fail: The Failure of the Anthropostory in Douglas Coupland’s Post-Millennial Prose
Polish Journal for American Studies, vol. 14 (Spring 2020), pp. 95-107
Abstract: The aim of the paper is to discuss the conceptualization of humanity’s planetary agency offered by a Canadian author, Douglas Coupland, in his three post-millennial novels: Generation A, Player One: What Is to Become of Us?, and Worst.Person.Ever. Exposing the egotism of what for years he has been calling humanity’s “Narrative Drive,” Coupland comments on the fallacies of the Anthropocene. Advocating the power of stories to act as models for approaching climate change in its hyperobjectivity, the three novels hint that unless people learn to story-tell-with other terran forces and agents, the anthropostory, which positions humans as the only active agents in a sequential narrative of conquest and destitution, is bound to come to an abrupt end.
Keywords: the Anthropocene, Douglas Coupland, posthumanism, extreme present, “Narrative Drive,” storyliving, making-with
DOI: 10.7311/PJAS.14/1/2020.07