By Kerryn Goldsworthy
I Hate the Internet
Jarett Kobek
I Hate the Internet, a novel about the crimes of our age.Credit: Greg Bakes
Allen & Unwin, $27.99
This is a turbo-charged, spittle-flecked, multi-directional spray with a message that is pretty much what it says on the cover: a savage and entertaining satire on the obsessions, delusions and deceptions of the internet age. The plot, such as it is, concerns Adeline, a middle-aged comic-book writer with a trans-Atlantic accent whose intellectual property has been stolen by rapacious techno-capitalists, and Ellen, a younger woman whose life has been wrecked by a vengeful ex plastering intimate photos of her all over the web. But these women are really just pegs on which to hang an assortment of satirical points. In its intellectual energy and its world view, Kobek's writing is reminiscent of all sorts of people: Kurt Vonnegut, Michel Houellebecq, David Foster Wallace, and even Joseph Heller. This self-proclaimed "bad novel" is not the easiest read in the world but it is very sharp and sometimes very funny.
