This is not meant to be high fiction, this is not Gothic prose, this isn’t a Shakespearean comedy (that it should be noted were often an elaborate set up for dick jokes as well.) This book, honestly is much more easily relatable to my life than those are and to the lives of a large part of an entire generation. Dave finds himself in a world where nothing seems to make sense, horrible things happen around him (and he does horrible things,) and yet there is a continuous dark humor that pervades his existence.

There is little regard for cadence, and I myself find several of the transitions between ‘action’ scenes and more dialog driven sections rather tedious. It must be considered that there was a fair amount of time between the blog posts as well, time for the audience to have moved on to a different frame of mind.

I believe the original reviewer’s clash with the book had to do with trying to cling to realist elements. This is most definitely not The Snows of Kilimanjaro. If one was expecting it to be, it’s no wonder you were disappointed. Also, the fact that you didn’t get the Fred Durst makes it seem to me you take this site’s message to heart – culture over pop-culture. Those were references to how terrible Nu Metal in general, and Limpbizkit especially were.

Hey David, I’m totally with you on this. I think Wong is a fine comic writer and that his tastes are suited towards a certain demo and you know what? That’s totally cool. As you probably noticed in my comment, I didn’t mention the comedic elements in JDATE because I know that I may be missing a certain tone or certain references, whatever. Like you said, comedy is a really subjective art-form. If people read JDATE and find it hilarious then that’s awesome, I’m happy for them. I love a good dick joke too. Seriously, there’s no hate on this side of the fence. Wong knows how to execute a good comedic bit, even if it does get tiring after 100 pages. I think you make a load of valid points.

As for the “critical dissection” part – well, that’s one of the markers of art, that it can be critiqued and commented upon. And I came across this book in a bookstore – not knowing about its history or its author, I just read it like a normal book and was thoroughly disappointed, a disappointment that was compounded by coming online and finding reels of high praise for a deeply flawed work. The publication and fanboy adulation of JDATE – with its high-school prose, its cellophane-thin characters, its wonky dialogue and sub-Adams plot – does nothing more than re-affirm the publishing line, “well, he’s an internet writer. What more can you expect from an internet writer? You can’t criticize it like a REAL book, it’s just a bunch of blog posts. It’s just an internet book.”

I agree that a book cannot be critiqued outside of the context of its creation but, even within that context, it’s not beyond critique on the quality of its execution, nor is it excused from critique simply by that contextualization. (If that makes any sense…) So Wong published his book on the net: that doesn’t excuse the many faults in his work. If anything, it merely highlights them as thousands of other more talented writers that made or are attempting to make the transfer from screen-to-paper still struggle for legitimacy in the field.

Because – for authors who choose to take their work online now – the publishing scene is a lot like the movie scene in the 60′s: lit-agents or the house itself will go on the net, find something that will market and sell itself and boom, you’re in print. This formula tends to sway towards sheer numbers of units shifted and not some inherent quality in the work itself. And much like Blacula or Plan 9 From Outer Space, the only reason these works aren’t really being “critically dissected” isn’t because they’re beyond criticism; they’re beneath criticism. That’s a really staggering difference.

David Wong has nothing but my earnest wishes for his success in the future. I hope that he comes out with a sequel that will blow our collective mind.

That said, I also hope that his fans can divorce themselves from his online presence / personality / whatever and duly assess his book as if it was a creation independent of him, fully liable to and deserving of a discerning and critical glance.

All in all, I think that JDatE is a pretty awesome book, and given its history I can forgive its general lack of polish, because it wasn’t written by Douglas Adams, who would have rewritten about 10 or so times before release. It was maybe rewritten once or twice, and not even proofread before its first release. I don’t think this is a valid piece by which to judge Wong/Pargin as a writer, the sequel, which he seems to be writing in a much more deliberate and classical manner (read: not as an amalgamation of blog posts), will be more suited to that task.
In order for this book to be properly understood and critiqued, it must be taken for what it is, a story written not for profit, published without editing and targeted at the kevin smith/cracked.com/south park audience. Taken broadly, it is a collection of ideas, strung together into a plot, which hit upon themes and a sense of humor prevalent in internet culture. View it as a zeitgeist. Save the judgement of Wong/Pargin until he releases a work which is more primed for “critical dissection”

My honest reaction? The prose was almost unbearably bad, the pacing completely off-kilter and the characters were thin and obvious constructs. The plot was fairly clever and interesting but Wong just didn’t have the chops to execute it. I’m sorry: in my opinion, he’s just not a good writer. Technically, artistically, at all. At best, he could be described as ‘utilitarian’, and that’s sort of stretching the definition of ‘utilitarian.’

Just because he jumped from internet blogger to published author doesn’t mean that he gets a artistic free pass on his delivery. Look at Zack Parsons. That guy realised that a website and a book are two entirely different modes of delivering a story to the audience. That’s why you can read a Zack Parsons book, relate the narrative voice to the Parsons you know off SomethingAwful, all the while still enjoying a really good book. Parsons has talent, style, he has fun with his prose and it shows. He has complete and confident control over how you, the reader, will experience the concept that he is relaying to you.

Comparatively, JDATE reads like a million other bound-and-pressed blogger archives that publishers are so fond of printing at the moment; it has very little to do with the quality of the text and everything to do with the fact that there’s an established online fanbase willing to lap it up at mark-up. Wong bumbles through yet another sort-of description of an odd thing, but every description feels samey and boring, yet another in a long line of things-that-Wong-has-described. Wong has picked up a few writer’s tricks but employs them with an absolute lack of finesse; he often makes light of the innate futility of describing the indescribable but fails to understand that a writer would fill that flux in narrative with something far more interesting than the negation itself. His dialogue – at its strongest – never allows you to forget that this is the transcribed conception of ONE man’s view of a conversation.

I’ll stop here because this is starting to get absurd. I just wanted to illustrate the difference between the fanboy’s reception of the novel – which is what you’re bound to find if you type JDATE into Google – and a critical dissection of the same are so dissimilar that it sounds like we’re talking about different works.

Would JDATE have been released if Wong didn’t have that fanbase? Fuck no. Jesus holy Christ in heaven, NO. You’re kidding yourself if you think otherwise. From a lit agent point of view, from a publishing point of view, no. MS’s like JDATE turn up all the time. The only exceptional thing about it is the amount of people willing to pay for it before it even hits second draft.

The internet has opened up a lot of doors for writers. Is JDATE a success story? Eh, depends on your definition of “success”. A guy put something up on his website, the crowds liked it, it got printed. A publisher bought a text with a guaranteed market and made a lot of money, which is always nice. Was anything really added to the wider corpus of horror literature? Eh, not really. Outside of the internet, JDATE’s really nothing new.

What has happened to Kenny Squires’ review – which, we all have to admit, was just a middling, semi-critical glance – is pretty indicative of the darker side of internet publishing. That fanbase that initially sold the book have flooded the comments section, questioned the motives of the reviewer, generally insulting everyone that dared point out a few flaws in a really fucking flawed book and just generally acted like idiots. Critical discourse is the peer-review of Art: I point out something I dislike, you point out something you like, we both find a new understanding of the work in question. Here, if I point out something that I dislike about the work, you all sharpen your knives like I’ve just shat on your holy altar. It’s a book.

I have no opinions on Wong or Pargin or whoever like a lot of people in this place seem to. I don’t care. What worries me is looking up JDATE in Google and finally no really critical, in-depth reviews of the work at all. That’s really worrying.

And the worst part of it all: by Borgifying against bad review the fanboys aren’t hurting anyone other than Wong himself. No one IS a great writer; you become a great writer through trial, shit and storm. Every writer who has ever struggled to get published has his rejection stories. Surrounding Wong in a sycophantic froth does nothing but ensure that he’ll keeping churning out novel after novel like JDATE.

And that genuinely saddens me cause – some day – he might be really, really good at this. He just needs practise.

Also, while Ethan’s post was moronic (so he should receive some kind of special recognition because he was just taking a stab at the whole author thing?), the number of people here who don’t understand sarcasm is astonishing. None of you should be allowed to have an opinion on anything.

Each time, a publisher has approached him and been like, “Wow, your novel is really good and a ton of people read it. Also, the last time it was published, every single copy was snapped up. Can we publish it again?”

I mean, all I can think of is that you thought that Pargim should have turned them down so as to keep you happy. I mean, these people all but shoved a large bundle of money in his lap. I mean, who wouldn’t take it?

All this can be discovered by doing an absolute minimum amount of research on the book. Also, the first one was not out for six years in book form. It was on a blog, then published less than two years ago. Pargim didn’t realize he could make money off of it until recently. He hasn’t been milking it forever. The book just started.

Also, if you read his blog, he’s posted part 1 of a possible sequel and talked about how he’s writing the sequel now. I mean, Jesus Christ, man, how about Google searching before shouting about how you’re pissed because the author hasn’t deposited a shiny new book in your lap right NOW!