When I was reading “Hey Nostradamus!”, I had a feeling that although this is a published book, it has some features that are quiet similar to a blog. For example, this book is composed by four different people form four different points of view (just like four different writers can compose one blog). All of them present very personal feelings and internal perspectives. The language they use is relatively simple compared to other novels we read such as “Vancouver Short Stories” and “The Innocent Traveller”. In addition, although the four people (Cheryl, Jason, Heather, and Reg) do not directly communicate to each other, the way they speak their story (such as retelling the story and giving another explanation or expanding the story) does give them a chance to refer to other’s narratives viewpoint.
However, although there are many similarities, the book, “Hey Nostradamus!” is still a published book which, by definition, is very different form a simple blog (because people will rarely do revision when they are blogging). Therefore, what a book can present will be more significant than what a blog can present. For example, “Hey Nostradamus” deals with lots of elements such as love, relationships, religion and the massacre which includes deep and philosophical meaning that needs a lot of space to discuss. (This kind of ideas cannot easily be dealing with in one blog). The ideas and meaning tend to be more profound and last longer and are discussed by people over time. Besides, the time frame the author, Douglas Coupland, uses is not commonly used in blogs. For example, in Cheryl’s part, the author doesn’t focus on one fixed point (i.e. the present, when Cheryl faces the massacre) but jumps to the past and into the future in order to present Cheryl’s thinking. The author also makes some prediction in Cheryl’s part like Cheryl’s knows that her writing her on binder about “GOD IS NOWHERE” will be left behind and that people will wonder about it. These perspectives are very different from the perspectives in an ordinary blog because a blog is usually focused on the present (like a diary, and the computer system will record the date) and its topic is often referring to one thing.
As a result, although “Hey Nostradamus !” was presented in a very special format and it’s style reminds me of a blog (like Heather’s part which was presented in a diary format), it is still quite different from a blog.
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I agree in some ways that the format of Hey Nostradamus is similar to a blog, but in some ways it isn't. Blogs are just a log of ideas published on a web page, you can express your thoughts, tell a story, or practically talk about anything. The format of Hey Nostradamus follows this general idea all the characters seem to tell a story. I think the text differs from a blog because it deals with large ideas such as religion and love. To me blogs are just ideas and thoughts, not a full length meaningful story with higher meanings behind it.
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