taking another book off the to read stack.

I am not the type for best lines, as I am not the type for best anythings. so I won't tell you what was the best line. Neither do I know. Had few good ones, though.

but the truest line probably is this (one of the corny ones, of course):

Our achievements make us interesting, Tyler, but it is our darkness that makes us lovable.

before you scoff at me for thinking this line holds a truth, get the book, read the context, mentally substract some ounces of pathos and then read what remains.

I still do not know whether I like the novel or not. the ending is strange (to put it mildly), the characters are well-crafted (albeit boring at times). the plot is banal, hence realistic (or vice versa). the book is full of witty observations, half of which are not true. at least not in my universe. coupland's style of writing has something that is vaguely enchanting (in a matter-of-fact way). I like his attitude towards his characters and that of his protagonist (Tyler) towards the world: coupland avoids the trap of boring cynism and still writes cool and somewhat detached. post-cynism, one might call this.

still, it is not one of the books that brought me forward on the way to whereever I am heading to. and it was not such fun that I would consider reading it again. but it probably gets an award for eliciting the most contradicting judgements in years. still something.

don't ever trust anybody who says he is uncomplicated. either he is a liar - which obviously is not a nice trait - or he is really uncomplicated, which is a mere euphemism for boring, if you ask me.

as popular lore holds: sleep, food and love are the only things we really need to survive. another strange property the three share is that you can crave them up to a point that your desire for them is the very thing that keeps you from satisfying it.

lucky me: it's only sleep tonight.