Belief and Doubt in Hey Nostradamus!

Belief and doubt are a major concept in Douglas Coupland’s Hey Nostradamus. The title of the book, Hey Nostradamus means “Hail Our Lady” which is a spiritual request to a higher form of belief. The cover portrays an image of a person kneeling, possibly in prayer, or reversed, a question mark. This is directly related to Coupland’s concepts of belief and doubt. Kneeling symbolizes a person’s faith in God, while the question mark represents an individual’s uncertainty. The front cover of the book represents doubt and open mindedness, both essential for belief.

Hey Nostradamus is divided into four sections. Each section is narrated by a character that represents a stage in the hierarchy system of faith; heaven, purgatory, limbo and hell. When the character Reg is first introduced in the book, the reader is given the impression that he represents hell because he is not open minded and arrogant at times. For a number of years, Reg held strong religious beliefs towards God and believed that he gave him a mission, which would explain why Reg was always so distant from his surroundings. After the shooting when Jason was considered to be a hero, Reg was jealous that God had favored his son in granting him with a mission and not himself. After the death of Kent and the disappearance of Jason, Reg’s only two sons, he begins to have doubt in his faith and has a confession for all his weaknesses. Reg undergoes a change and begins to see the world from a different perspective. Coupland uses the character of Reg to display his concept that when a person has strong religious beliefs, doubt needs to be considered as well.