I was reading Microserfs, a novel about coders in the 1990’s, when I suddenly had a great idea. What if I used technology to write down my thoughts and totally zany random observations while I was reading the book? Then I could post my e-thoughts onto a Goodreads review board and get all of the likes and +1’s. This struck me as very one point oh, so here it is. Random thought: Replace IBM with Microsoft, Microsoft with Apple, and Bill for Steve and you’ve got Microserfs for the 2000s. If Microserfs was a Jeopardy board the categories would be:-Pop culture references from the 90’s-Technology firms in the 90’s-Animals vs. Human Beings: What’s the difference?-Annoying Formatting that tries to be “clever”-THE FUTURE-Play Doh and Legos-The word “post-modern”-Mind Body DualismDouglas Coupland probably did some research but it’s clear he’s not much of a nerd. I am not a coder, but even I know that if a product is not ready seven days before it ships, our hero probably would not be wandering around talking to people or preparing to take vacation time. He would be sitting in his cubicle for 14 hour shifts, trying desperately to make the deadline. Realism!This is a random list of words that makes up my computer’s subconscious. Pretend they’re all formatted funny for no reason:-Manifesto Novices' Chase-Handyside v United Kingdom-Trimix-Randall Dougherty-The Basel ConventionHere’s a passage that makes no sense: “Abe is against the pure gung-ho-ishness of pure research. He says that Interval [a technology firm] reminds him of an intellectual Watership Down.” I read that book cover-to-cover and I still have no idea what this reference means. As I was coding on my Pentium 286, totally e-flaming all my net superhighway buddies, I realized that every one of the characters in this novel were getting significant others and getting in shape- they were getting a life. Dan was getting a life. Todd was getting a life. Susan was getting a life. Even Abe was getting a life. I didn’t care about any of them. It was just like an episode of Melrose Place. But then this startlingly banal observation was suddenly interrupted by an even more banal instant mail I got from my web e-mail servers. “What makes life worth living?” I was asked. Only one answer. Exclamation points at the end of paragraphs, of course!Here is a list of all the italicized words on one, just one, page of this book:-Remember (this counts as half, because for some reason the middle is italicized and the ends are not)-reels-just-he’s-his-dating-not-truly-me-harderI talked with Doug on the phone today. He said “This format is a great way to disguise the fact that nothing interesting is happening in this book.” I agreed. He said “In the future, we need to be one point oh. The future is like play-doh and our consciousness will be transferred into machines. I like buying stuff from Japan.” I sent him a wicked flame saying people don’t ever talk like this, and even if they did I would not want to hear them. I said to him that it kind of reminded me of Don Delillo. People were just standing around spouting philosophy one liners divorced of any context or meaning at each other. I told him I guess sometimes you get good stuff but most of the time it's a bunch of references and gibberish about machines, bodies, getting a life, and postmodernism. He broke down crying. Shiatsu massages!
Douglas Coupland’s Microserfs reads like a time capsule crossed with a nerds-only Breakfast Club. Focused on the California geek population who powered the late eighties/early nineties technology boom, the novel focuses so much on time and place that it could arguably be classified as historical. The CD-ROM and early internet references seem, like an AOL disc or heavy monitor, both quaint and annoying. Coupland transcends the period piece nature of Microserfs about 60% of the time, especially when he focuses less on era-only details and more on the way people interact with technology in concert with the way they interact with other human beings.Dan, the narrator, works at Microsoft with a stock ragtag set of programmers that, if the book were filmed, would consist of actors you had seen before but you weren’t sure where. When the smartest of the group hits on the idea of creating a CD-ROM with on-screen Lego-like capabilities the group collectively leave the womb of Gates’ company and leap into the venture capital funded 1.0 world of internet, um, I’m sorry, CD-ROM start-ups. Coupland’s staccato delivery, propelled by short, blogesque paragraphs, works well within the frenetic nature and outsider quality Dan and his colleagues embody. The characters are significantly meta; they know they’re geeks, they’re unsure of what they want, and they talk a lot about the pros and cons of nerd-dom. They bond over Star Trek references and analyze the fact they all buy their clothes at The Gap. The creative and financial risks and rewards of the classic “one big idea that could make us all rich” leads the friends, especially Dan to address their strengths, shortcomings, and whatever it was that carried them, for better or for worse, to programming.Coupland has mined this territory before. He’s comfortable (as in The Gum Thief) framing anonymous corporate settings as canvases that, in their bland structure, both impede identity development and provide the opportunity for one to step back and respond to the lack of stimuli. Dan’s hobbledehoy disposition is laced with strength and insecurity. He stitches his love of computers with the acquisition of his first real girlfriend and come to terms with the childhood death of an older brother. Does that make for an exciting book? No. But Microserfs contains some compassionate passages, especially when the nerds speak honestly, Breakfast Club style, both through email (which was probably still novel then) and face to face, or when Dan’s mother uses technology (don’t want to spoil it) to communicate from a far away place.I don’t love Coupland but I count on him for breezy, thoughtful novels when I’m in the mood for something between light and heavy. Microserfs lives up to that expectation but doesn’t attempt to rise beyond the characters’ pursuit of quiet self-acceptance in the anonymous Silicon Valley. As I was reading I thought of getting lost, near Seattle, in what seemed like an endless landscape of strip malls and Olive Gardens. The sterile, clinical environment does not preclude a desire for identity. Dan and his colleagues would understand that desire as they ventured from their innominate apartments into the suburban night, probably stopping at a 7-11, grabbing something to eat, and talking about where to go next.
What do You think about Microserfs (1995)?
A novel in journal form about a group of Microsoft employees who leave the company to found a Silicon valley startup.Douglas Coupland is what I think of as a zeitgeist writer. He captures the spirit of the times we live in by setting his novels in those places that history will look back upon as trend-setting, avant-garde cultures. Silicon Valley in the 1990’s is a prime candidate, if not the clear winner. Though it hasn’t lost any of its luster, Silicon Valley doesn’t hold the same power over mediatic senses now as it did then, simply because it’s now been around for a while.Reading about the 1990’s nerd culture is a nostalgic trip. If you were there at the time, and happened to find yourself in a field not too distant from technology and (here’s a 90’s term for you) multimedia, you find yourself nodding your head frequently while reading this, sometimes laughing out loud.The characters are a hodge-podge of geekism from the era. There’s a bodybuilder geek (two of them, actually), a suave marketing geek, a recovering anorexic, an ageing previous-generation IBM software guy, a hermit-like visionary, a geek mother, a closeted gay geek, a Canadian rough-and-tumble geek, and of course the narrator, a run-of-the-mill generic geek whose importance in the story is to be relatable, therefore not too extremely geeky.These characters find themselves living together in the Valley and forging their group into an extended family, discovering themselves and the world outside of Microsoft communally. The narrator is the quintessential flaneur in that he seems to be the kind of person who everybody confess themselves to, and as such becomes the eyes and ears of the reader as the author does a far-ranging show and tell of life in the 1990’s, tech and corporate culture, Seattle, San Fransisco and the Silicon Valley, Las Vegas, technology, relationships, mass media, gender, etc. It slides and hops from one thing to the next, through brief anecdotes and heavy interpretation from the narrator or another character delivering analysis in thoughtful a partes.The result is a lightly-toned, yet intricately weaved, information-heavy traversal of an economically ebullient period of history. It’s about technology, but it’s mostly about people and how they relate to it, how they tie it in with their past and their sociological makeup. The characters come to life fast and believably, and their diversity makes their commonality even more appreciable.Often touching, always (alarmingly) smart.Oh and, without giving anything away, I add that the ending blew me away. Nerds are people, too.
—René
For Microserfs, I am straddling these two reader-type extremes: those who know nothing about geektech culture, and those who 100% techie, geeky nerds. I am in between. I feel this is the right place to be, because the book evoked lots of "Yeah...it really IS that way, isn't it?" and "Oh those geeks!" Yet I'm not so into the culture that I feel it was misrepresented. I can't ever seem to attempt to write an approximation of some sort of "objective" review (lulz) so I'll just leave you with my idiosyncratic impressions: 1) I felt computer programmers in Silicon Valley in the 90's were really like how they were portrayed in the novel, and that made me happy and a little bit jealous that I was born in 1988, because the culture was presented so well. Almost like an ethnography. 2) Character Michael's short monologues were my favorite part, but looking back they were just simple summaries of theories I'm reading about all the time. I guess I liked ID-ing with someone so much. My other favorite moments were catching obscure references, though I know I didn't understand about 66 percent of them. 3) It may just be that I read this in San Diego, but this is what I would define as my perfect beach book. Juuuust the right about of thinking required.I also met a 30ish security guard who had just worked ComicCon, who showed me his 3-foot animatronic Lego robot, pictures of the garage he lives in (at his parents'), drawings of his comic/future videogame storyboard, etc. etc. etc. and I mentioned this book and he FLIPPED OUT. I had just started the book, so our conversation was a total emotional and contextual amplifier for my Microserfs experience. I'd pay for that kind of thing to happen during every book I'm reading.
—Jackie
I loved reading this book, set in the mid 1990s just before the internet highway exploded into mainstream America's workplaces and living rooms.I loved the voice of the main charactar, Daniel, who seemed like somebody I could have known in college or in grad school. I loved his description of the minutiae of the life of people who work 80 plus hours per week coding software and what their little diversions to keep sane said about them as people.I loved the philosophical explorations of computers (and tecnology in general) as extensions of our subconscious.I especially loved the very humanistic ending.And, for my friends who love Legos, I love the small yet important part that they played in the book.Well done, Douglas Coupland. Reading this book for the 1st time in 2010 showed me how ahead of your time you were in 1993!
—Molly
