VERBAL MASTICATION?

I just finished reading the Douglas Coupland book "Hey Nostradamus!" It was an interesting, quick read that unfortunately meandered and lost steam at the end. Coupland is a Canadian writer best known for his book "Generation X", a term which became a mid-90s media catch phrase to refer to every single young adult at the time. However, the first novel of his that I read was "Microserfs", a surprisingly heartwarming story about a group of Microsoft employees/slaves trying to become more human in the increasingly pervasive world of technology; the blend of character development and witty pop culture references has made it one of my favorite books, sort of a "Catcher in the Rye, Version 2.0 for Windows".

I've since read two other books of his, so I decided to check out his website for the first time last night. I'm not sure what I expected; maybe I was secretly hoping he was a normal guy who is just really good at acute observations about the struggles of modern life. In any case, I was blissfully unaware of anything but his novels, and after checking out his "art", I now wish that I had stayed that way. Among his "sculptures" are "hand-chewed" US $1 bills, a Gideon's Bible, and a copy of his "Generation X" book, all fashioned into nests and attached to tree branches.



All I can say is: WTF? I guess you have to accept the fact that anyone who has a brilliant creative mind is going to be a little "out there", but that's a little too freaky for me. Seriously, how does one get to the point where they decide to eat their own writings (of their own free will)? Now I'm going to think twice about picking up another one of his books.

In a not wholly unrelated story, I also picked up James Ellroy's "My Dark Places", an upbeat, whimsical novel about his, uhm, mother's unsolved murder (yeah, it's a regular party). On the cover it has a sticker that says "Signed By The Author", which is kind of cool, but I didn't take it seriously since it's a library copy. But sure enough I found the initials "J.E.", hastily scrawled in blue ink on the first blank page. Maybe it's just me, but I thought that was rather odd.

Which brings this question to mind: can I order a Douglas Coupland novel that was "chewed and regurgitated by the author"?