An expanded on-line novel aimed at the teenage-slacker demo offers one too many penis jokes and pop-culture shout outs.
When the world faces the apocalypse in the form of “bratwurst poltergeists” and a demon-leader named Korrok from an alternate universe, it’s up to David Wong and his friend and video store co-worker, John, to save us. Well, who you gonna call? What started out as an online novel, John Dies at the End is being released to the unassuming public in updated and expanded form—consider this fair warning for the next time you’re surrounded by fire-breathing coyotes at the mall.
David and John start out as a particular kind of early-twentysomething Everymen. They have less-than-glamorous retail jobs, embarrassing cars, and a cache of infantile penis jokes. What distinguishes them from the rest is that, at a party one night, someone gives them a mysterious black, liquid drug that they dub “Soy Sauce.” Instead of killing them, like it does everyone else who takes it, the Soy Sauce gives David and John the power to see, hear, and do battle with Korrok’s army of paranormal followers.
At first, I was taken with the novel’s narrative voice. As Wong relays his story to Arnie Blondestone—who’s doing a cover story for American Lifestyle magazine on the author/narrator and his friend, his plainspoken storytelling was the one realist element I was able to hold on to while so many otherworldly minor characters and plot-twists were happening on the page:
“Let’s say you have an ax. Just a cheap one from Home Depot. On one bitter winter day, you use said ax to behead a man. Don’t worry, the man was already dead. Or maybe you should worry, because you’re the one who shot him… He had been a big, twitchy guy with veiny skin stretched over swollen biceps, a tattoo of a swastika on his tongue. Teeth filed into razor-sharp fangs—you know the type. And you’re chopping off his head because, even with eight bullet holes in him, you’re pretty sure he’s about to spring back to his feet and eat the look of terror right off your face.”
It doesn’t take long before Wong’s sophomoric humor starts to work against him. At the same party where David and John are turned on to Soy Sauce, they play in a band whose set list includes songs like “Gay Superman,” “Camel Holocaust,” and “Stairway to Heaven.” After the “bratwurst poltergeist” scene, the reader anticipates that they’re in for a ride where the craziest of things can and will happen, and it’s easy to forgive a few immature jabs.
But after 372 pages of juvenile humor, not even the narrative voice is enough to save this book. David becomes the butt of quite a few of John’s penis jokes, and the occasional gay joke—and long before the end of the book, there’s one joke too many. Having been exposed to Soy Sauce, David and John are taunted by Korrok in ways that no one else can see or hear. For instance, whenever they hear a song on the radio, they hear a twisted version of the lyrics. Such is the case when they hear R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion”:
“That’s me in the porno,
That’s me in the spotlight
Losing my religion
Tryin’ to beat a tight-assed Jew…”
Come on… really? Just how many bonghits did Wong do before he sat down to write this thing? How old is the author? Moments like these make it difficult to stay focused on the world of the novel, which already asks so much from the reader in terms of suspending disbelief. Limp Bizkit frontman, Fred Durst, even makes an appearance as an apparition, and the lyrics of that band’s song “Rollin’ (Air Raid Vehicle)” appear in what I assume to be their true form. It’s impossible to tell if Wong is being ironic or paying some kind of tribute—but at that point, I was pretty much done with John Dies at the End.
Crude humor, in and of itself, isn’t necessarily a problem. It’s just that we’ve already seen Clerks and Clerks II, Baseketball, and, for that matter, the Evil Dead trilogy. What’s on the page here has been done before, and done a lot better, despite the novel’s plethora of pop-culture references including awful ‘80s bands like Night Ranger. The story doesn’t generate much momentum, once a few inventive monsters have been dealt with. If you’re outside of the adolescent male demographic, it’s unlikely that you’ll get more than a couple of quiet smiles out of reading this book. But if you should end up with a copy, don’t fret—just give it to the first thirteen-year-old boy you see.
25 responses
It might be less frustrating if you reviewed online novels in their actual milieu.
Well, the review is of the hardcover book that Thomas Dunne Books published this week, not the online version. So I guess this *is* its “actual milieu” now.
You told it like you saw it.
What’s I find infuriating is that this David Wong guy isn’t even a real writer. He’s just jerk working in an office who decided to start scribbling without anyone’s permission. No MFA, no workshops, nothing. And then, of all things, he puts his “novel” on the Web where it found an audience through word of mouth breather.
In what may be the most unjust outcome in the history of publishing, the mere fact that people enjoyed his book lead to a print publication deal (two, actually) and a movie deal.
We need to look into creating some sort of licensing or credential-awarding program as in other professions. Otherwise, this is just going to keep happening with increasing frequency.
It’s worth mentioning that the novel is not intended as a steady stream of jokes with a filler plot. Rather, it’s meant to be a horror novel that proposes an alternate view of/explanation for the ways things are in the world today. The least this reviewer could have done is reviewed it as an actual novel with literary ambitions. Instead, he sounds like he’s reviewing an article from Mad Magazine. It’s like reviewing Hamlet and blasting it for all the jokes about virginity. It may be true, but how could you get through the whole thing and then decide the penis jokes were the most important part?
“Come on… really? Just how many bonghits did Wong do before he sat down to write this thing?”
Come on. People don’t write sentences like this and expect to be taken seriously. You’re reviewing a book on the Internet. ‘Lulz i bet he wuz hiiigh when he wrote this!!!!11’ isn’t going to make the cut if you mean for your analysis to be taken seriously at all.
“What’s I find infuriating is that this David Wong guy isn’t even a real writer. He’s just jerk working in an office who decided to start scribbling without anyone’s permission.”
Yeah, I totally agree. People should be forbidden from creating art or having creative thoughts until they get permission from the government.
People should get that Ethan made a good joke is what people should do.
I think you might have fallen into the trap of reviewing the genre instead of reviewing the book. It’s perfectly legitimate to not like slacker comedies, but you aren’t going to tell your reader anything useful by saying “It’s bad because it’s a horror/slacker comedy cross over and I don’t like the slacker comedy element because slacker comedies are puerile.” They already know what genre it is, and they already know whether or not they like that genre. Give them something else to come away with.
Also, you are a terrible person for not liking dick jokes. Terrible.
You will get a lot of comments complaining about your judgement. Don’t listen to them.
I was a JDatE fan, and I think you made a good point, and you made it better than I could. This book didn’t deserve to get published, not twice at least.
Jason Pargin (the author’s real name) is a lazy writer who hasn’t written anything worthy of mention in the last six years and continues to milk his first and only book with a ferocity that would make George Lucas raise an eyebrow.
Your review was very good, and I’m glad someone is mature enough to say what you did.
You know what JDatE reminded me of most? Shaun of the Dead.
I loved both of those, and not just because I think dick jokes can be hilarious if well played. Both had just the right level of seriousness mixed with joking around.
A few specific points I’d like to address from the review.
The song names: Have you ever listened to truly bad, local death metal bands? Those names are some of the more creative.
Suspension of disbelief: Come on. It’s a book about two people who take a self-aware black sauce in order to see ghosts and hellspawn commanded by a slavemaster from another universe; in other words, it’s a fairly standard horror book.
I will concede that Jack has a point about him just camping on this book for a while, although he is currently working on the sequel to JDatE, or he says he is.
Finally, I’d like to say that I, for one, laughed when I read Ethan’s comment.
Ethan did make good point that Pargin is living the dream. He got his own book published, and well done to him. Many people don’t even get one book published…
Most people don’t re-release the same book four times though.
I think he should have moved on and written a whole new book once the Permuted Press version had been published. This way, he looks like he’s either burned out of ideas, or he can’t be arsed to think of any.
Either way, he’s bilking his fans for money without doing any work, and that’s what pisses me off more than anything.
Nobody of consequence:
You make some good points, but I think the main problem that Kenny had with this is that it just wasn’t his kind of style. JDatE is an aquired taste. If you don’t like the dick jokes and the silliness then the book just falls flat. If you aren’t part of it’s target audience then it just doesn’t have the same effect.
“I think he should have moved on and written a whole new book once the Permuted Press version had been published. This way, he looks like he’s either burned out of ideas, or he can’t be arsed to think of any.”
The first part of his sequel was already on the website and being updated when the Permuted Press version was published. It is also brilliant.
Here’s my late response to Ethan:
Yes, Wong is a new author. He, like most authors, sat there one day and had a story drift through his head. Just because his story did not involve and faun in a scarf or a hobbit and a dragon does not mean it does not deserve to be published. The idea that publishing and a persons right to produce a story should be regulated is moronic. 🙂 Disagree with JDatE all you want, but the idea that Wong didn’t deserve to have it published is just stupid. He had enough fans and dedication to the story, even if you’re too blind to see what that story was.
I think he put together a decent modern horror novel. It could use some work, but what authors first work couldn’t use some touching up? When we read JDatE we’re not looking for a story that tugs at our heartstrings and teaches us the deep truth of the human condition. We’re looking to be amused, scared, and entertained by a story that is brand new to us and concepts and ideals that we’ve never seen before. Wong does that just fine.
When you limit yourself to only elitist literature that has specific standards it must live up to, you severely limit yourself. There are way too many good books out there for you to prance around that elitist mantra 🙂
Oh wait, were you joking? I feel foolish.
Gotta ask the reviewer, and I may be branded a troll for this, but … Christian much?
It is the general air intolerance in the review that makes me ask…
You must have forgotten being a human instead of an elitist reviewer droid.
I don’t know about you, but I had some pretty wicked nightmares while reading JDatE, and that has to signify an excellent horror book. None of that Goosebumps/Twilight garbage.
So, you sir, can suck it.
As told by a 17 year old girl. (:
Jack, what I think you don’t realize is, this came from a series of short stories. Fans wanted more, that’s what he gave them. You mention him re-releasing it four times, which yes he did, and no most people don’t do this. But It’s obviously not about money. Even when the Permuted Press version was published, it was STILL hosted online for FREE. Meaning anyone who wanted to read it could and not pay a single penny. Only when St. Martin’s Press decided to publish it did he take it down, and that’s probably only because a big time publisher isn’t dumb enough to sell a product people can get for free. He’s working on the sequel, on top of his job at Cracked. (Oh no, more infantile jokes! How will I ever survive in such a savage world as this?) And the reason it was republished by St. Martin’s is because obviously the book had been out of print with Permuted for a while. When people (i.e. his fans) are willing to pay 200 dollars and more for his book because you can’t get a new copy, doesn’t it seem much nicer to offer it to them at a reasonable price and have much more available to anyone who actually enjoys the book? The point of the matter is, fine, I get it, it’s not your type of book. But don’t poke jabs at the author who has provided fan service out the ass for the people who actually enjoy the book. Let’s see any other author out there publish their book online for years. I bet you’ll be hard-pressed finding one. Not that I’m saying he’s the only one.
Jack, what you REALLY don’t get is that he hasn’t “re-released this book four times.” As in, he has not gone begging to publishers, asking them to publish his awesome book because it totally deserved better than what it got, guys.
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!
This review was very good. It’s obvious (from the patronising nature of your replies) that several of the people posting in defence of JDatE are PWOT moderators, and all of you guys suck. Pargin is a boring has-been who, ironically, was funny before he made his living from comedy. Now he seems limited to threatening people in an online forum and deleting comments that disagree with his point of view. Fun guy!
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.
I sat down and read through JDATE a few days ago.
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.
i actually had not heard of the book, aside from a couple of mentions on cracked.com, before a few days ago when I bought it. I have to admit, I really enjoyed it, I don’t get night terrors, like apparently some people have. I actually really don’t find it remotely frightening, though not even horror masterworks have scared me in pulp, so I am not the guy to ask about that. What is really shocking is how both sides refuse to try to understand one another, a human flaw which is actually skewered a number of times in the book.
On the one hand, you have the JDatE fanboys, who refuse to believe that some people don’t find sophomoric humor funny, and further that it is perfectly fine for people to not have their same sense of humor. Then to take it a step further, practically as an insult to your person that someone could enjoy this book, is incredible.
On the other hand are the haters, who think that anyone who laughs at a dick joke ever is a mouth-breathing Neanderthal who shouldn’t be allowed to procreate. Comedy is an art form guys, and as such is subjective, stop trying to demean everything that has bathroom humor in it because it doesn’t appeal to your existential Wes Anderson humour tastes. I personally agree with the reviewer on this one, Wong uses the dick and fart jokes pretty well for a while, but a number of them fall pretty flat. While I never actually got totally turned off of them, there were a few that were stupendously bad enough for me to invent an entirely different scenario by which to replace them in my mind (i.e. the fart rocket that launches Shitload into the air. Seriously?)
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”
“On the other hand are the haters, who think that anyone who laughs at a dick joke ever is a mouth-breathing Neanderthal who shouldn’t be allowed to procreate.”
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.
We see you: http://www.cracked.com/forums/topic/55970/bad-jdate-reviews2121
JDATE is absurdist, above all else, and base cult comedy after that, and a horror novel last. Anyone who doesn’t laugh at absurdist humor or ‘dick jokes’ or who has never wandered onto 4chan will probably hate the horror novel beneath. It’s much in the same vein as much of Simon. R. Green’s work, particularly the Nightside series.
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.
Click here to subscribe today and leave your comment.