A Good but Bad Novel

Not even two pages into the book I Hate the Internet, Jarett Kobek talks about a girl getting death and rape threats on the internet. This explains a lot actually considering some peoples goals in life is to shit on others ideas. While he does continuously say this is a “bad novel” throughout the book we must take a step back and try to understand if it actually is. It offers a story and gives characters so, why would this novel be considered a bad one? The novel does contain sensitive topics that most people would not like to speak on but … so does the internet. Kobek says, “This is a seriously mixed-up book with a central personage who never appears. The plot, like life, resolves into nothing and features emotional suffering without meaning”. It jumps around and at times does not make sense but comparing this to the internet they are similar in many ways.

So, can the novel in itself embrace and criticize the speed and superficiality of the internet while avoiding the exclusivity of literary writing? The plot focuses on characters whose lives are defeated by the internet and the novels sole focus is to analyze the plundering of the twenty first century. It is ironic that someone will make a book like this and eventually the book will land on the internet for users to read. What would Jarett Kobek say now to the younger generations using their iPad or iPhone to critique his book? I think he would laugh. Everyone says they hate the internet but then two seconds later they are back on it sharing more private information about themselves that we don’t need to know. If you hate the internet so much imagine life without it. Oh wait… you can’t.