THIS IS NOT AN EXIT

Today I handed my dissertation in:

‘THIS IS NOT AN EXIT’

An exploration of the themes of gender, alienation and consumer culture in Blank Fiction texts American Psycho, Fight Club and Generation X.

A Research Project presented as part of the requirement for the degree of B.A. (Hons) English Literature (Specialist).

For the past few weeks, almost my entire life has existed around that essay. Around American Psycho and Fight Club and Generation X and gender and consumerism and alienation. Knowing that I will never again have to flip through Generation X attempting to find a fitting quote as to why the novel promotes the idea of escape from a consumerist society is the most major relief. But whilst actually having the 51-page essay bound and handed in was terrifying - it signifies a very near end to my course and also a huge chunk of my final mark so if I did poorly it's going to really pull my mark down - it was also one of the most gratifying things I have ever experienced. To have laboured over something and thought about something for so long and to finally have it there, finished, in front of you, was an oddly touching moment for me. Kind of pathetic, I know, but the topic I wrote on was something I really cared for and felt strongly about so it meant a lot to me. Fingers crossed now that the pain and (literally) sleepless nights and unpaid days from work and back ache from carrying sacks of books to and from the library and possible soul-poisoning from staring at my laptop for so many hours on end will all be worth it (and gets me at least a 2:1).

Scrape. Feel. Dig. Believe. Ask.

Ok, so I know that style blogs are the only blogs that ever get any kind of following, or ever really have anyone read them, but I'm using this to write down some of the things that I think (because, basically, nobody else will listen). Maybe every now and again a stranger will stumble across this and decide to read a paragraph or two, and maybe it will make them think about something a little different. Or maybe not.

The book that I just finished, Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland, was magnificent. For someone like me, who reads three books a week, to really be affected by something, is rare and really a special thing. Yeah, so it could have been 200 pages longer if only Coupland had been bothered to flesh things out a bit more. The characters could have talked more like real people rather than cliches. But the concept - the plot and ideas and questions in the story- was fabulous.

I'm not certain that I've ever finished a book with so many new ideas in my head. I'm not sure that I've ever questioned my own ideals the way I did when I finished Girlfriend in a Coma. It was sort of mindblowing. Beautiful, so sad, but mindblowing.

If you can get your hands on a copy of this book, please do. Read it. Appreciate it. It's only short; it's not complicated or full of obnoxious, pompous language. The questions it poses resonate more soundly now than they could have done when it was published 12 years ago. And they will keep resonating until something is done.

A few of my favourite quotes:

- Destiny is what we work toward. The future doesn't exist yet. Fate is for losers.

- At twenty you know you're not going to be a rock star... by twenty-five you know you're not going to be a dentist or a professional... by thirty, a darkness starts moving in - you wonder if you're ever going to be fulfilled, let alone wealthy or successful... by thirty-five, you know, basically, what you're going to be doing the rest of your life; you become resigned to your fate.

- Nobody believes the identites we've made for ourselves. I feel like everybody in the world is fake now - as though people had true cores once, but hucked them away and replaced them with something more attractive but also hollow.

- If you're not spending every waking moment of your life radically rethinking the nature of the world - if you're not plotting every moment boiling the carcass of the old order - then you're wasting your day.

(P.S. The Smiths song of the same name is also beautiful.)