Krishna
Hilarious real emails start off the book, with the now famous “I drew a spider in lieu of the $233 and odd that I owe you because I judge this to be of that value” email chain. Then there is a hilarious interchange about creating a logo for a new business that the founder expects to be the next Twitter.
Then it deteriorates to one liners from David’s family – his son’s utterances at various points lovingly collected and presented, for example. Then comes a tedious piece about monkeys which is not very humorous, nor very creative. With very little effort and imagination, one can write hundreds of these, and the author has written, literally, what seems to be hundreds of pointless musings.
And then David decides to publish all this junk into a book. It still would not fill a decent sized book and so what does he do? Decide to write just one or two sentences per page so that you get it to fill in enough pages for a book. Problem solved.
And the wise-ass comments on interminably long emails tend to get boring after a while.
The piece about the missing cat is mildly amusing but the one about the head lice is simply stupid.
And what about the “Internet” part in the title? Most of it is email correspondence. Probably made up. Does David think that Internet is all email? If it is because the contents of the book started off as a blog, that is a pure excuse for this title anyway.
Why do they all look made up? Because the insolent and stupid replies to their questions elicit unexpectedly puzzled responses from people trying to just do their job (impose fines, or collect electricity bills). In real life, the notes would have been ignored with just a warning that if he does not pay the fine, the services will be terminated or he would be evicted or whatever. Not interminable questions on why he has disguised the dog as a bear by putting a blanket on it or what a portal could be.
And incredibly, at the end of it all, they agree to waive the fees or verify meter reading or whatever David wants, without even his asking. This definitely could happen, in a juvenile mind’s daydreaming world. Chalk up another point for why I think it is all made up.
The entire book is filled with such frivolous babble. It may have worked on a website – not for me there either – but not as a book, unless you are already a dedicated fan of David’s website.
Also reminds me of the 12 year old goofs in exams which you can see collected on the Internet. From the minds of a twelve year old, some of these may be really funny – because of the context. From an adult writer? Judge for yourself. Here is a sample : “ So then suns are really clouds of light? Yes, and then they rain sunshine”.
And a bit of autobiography where we are treated to all the details of David’s first ever trip to the United States, which is another piece in the same, boring, mode as the rest of the book.
It does not deserve more than 2/10
– – Krishna