Player One

Player one is an analysis of identity, time and perception that takes place in a cocktail lounge that exists within the dawn of the apocalypse that is written in a novel which is derived from a series of 5 lecture.  In Canada.  Partially as a result of the intention of the book, and the unconventional means in which the novel was composed and delivered, many have noted that the book contains many elements and characters that are oftentimes lacking in believability.  This is a characteristic that I at time had difficulty dealing with, but eventually began to add some sense of mood and significance to the book.  The premise here is this romantic idea that when the world as we know it is ending, we will not be concerned so much with the fires that lie outside our doors, but instead the state of humanity, identity, and meaning of self worth and value.

            Taking for a moment about identity, I must mention the title of the novel, and it’s significance.  Player one is one of the narrators of the novel, and omnipresent overseer of the novel’s events who contributes at the end of every of the novel’s 5 chapters to summarize and prepare the reader for the next novel.  The character, if you can call it that, is described, or compared to the protagonist of a videogame one of the other narrator plays.  It is by comparing the other (human) narrators of the novel that we are further allowed to analyze the paradigms of the non-omniscient beings. 

            Aside from Player One, Coupland also uses the environment and unfolding situation at the times of the character’s convergence to add meaning to, and delving into the entities, and identity crisis of the characters.  The setting of the novel is a cocktail lounge inside a hotel airport, as riots and explosions begin to unfold as a result of skyrocketing oil prices.  The events preceding the cocktail lounge allude to the events that will come; two character meat in a chatroom called the Peak Oil Apocalypse chat room.   The lounge itself serves as the optimal stage to operate on the identities of these character’s, as it is by nature an environment that suggests transition, and imbues very little inherent identity in any of the characters.  The novel heightens this sense by closing off the outside world, giving this space devoid of identity a prisonlike feel, suggesting a void of nothingness outside the confines of the lounge.  In this way, the characters are forces to look at themselves honestly, knowing that their identities are shaped by their past and outside life, but in the context of a universe that is nonexistent outside the present time and location.