Coupland gave Gen X its name and identified what are still seen as its signal traits: cynicism; irony; a melancholic sense of having been sidelined by the major forces in social history; and, above all, a mistrust of corporate culture in all its forms. (One of the novel’s chapters is titled “I Am Not a Target Market.”) “We live small lives on the periphery,” the novel’s narrator explains; “we are marginalized and there’s a great deal in which we choose not to participate.” On a revisit nothing stands out quite so painfully as the book’s ambient self-pity and whininess.