Shampoo Planet by Douglas Coupland

shampooplanet.jpgShampoo Planet
by Douglas Coupland

quotes and notes to self:

Not knowing yourself:
“Imagine you are sitting down in a chair and on a screen before you you are shown a bloody, ripping film of yourself undergoing surgery. The surgery saved your life. It was pivotal in making you you. But you don’t remember it. Or do you? Do we understand the events that make us who we are? Do we ever understand the factors that made us do the things we do?//When we sleep at night—when we walk across a field and see a tree full of sleeping birds—when we tell small lies to our friends—when we make love—what acts of surgery are happening to our souls—what damage and healing and shock are we going through that we will never be able to fathom? What films are generated that will never be shown?” p. 35

Not knowing others:
“At best, her thoughts to me are like a film projected onto a black wall—the images are clear, but there is never true whiteness.” p. 268

“I think of how people can betray me simply by not caring enough to hide the fact of how little they care.//I think of how the person who needs the other person the least in a relationship is the stronger member.” p. 53 (second part has been in several things I’ve read recently, including Still Life With Woodpecker by Tom Robbins)

p. 253 L.A. earthquake, car alarms (cf. Ask the Dust)

nice story?:
“Tomorrow, in another world, I will tell my mother about these flowers that grow in the Nevada desert, tricked into blooming by the false sun of nighttime nuclear explosions, in good faith reaching out for light, instead only pollinating the sterile sands, forfeiting the future of all flowers to follow.” p. 290

a mix of the better parts Bret Easton Ellis and Nick Hornby, with something more than the combination of the two would make. an odd combination of self-centered youth and youthful(?) wisdom. hippy and yuppy, aged and modern. not as good as Life After God, but better than most modern fiction.

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