Matthew Trenda - Literary Criticism

 

 

That afternoon in 2008, I found myself staring at my laptop screen reading an email informing me that I had been banned permanently from the book website, Shelfari, which was a competitor at Goodreads at the time. And if I'm honest, it was the right decision. [audience laughter] I was an undergraduate in 2008. And in my British lit class, one of the books we had to read was Pride and Prejudice. I hate that book. [audience laughter] I think if Jane Austen was a good writer, she'd be a Brontë sister. [audience laughter] 

 

To make matters worse, you might recall that this was the era when our society was salivating over all sorts of Pride and Prejudice adaptations. There was a movie where the guy from Succession woos Keira Knightley. There was a book where Elizabeth Bennet slays zombies for some reason. It was Pride and Prejudice everywhere. You can imagine my suffering. [audience laughter]

 

Now, before I continue a little about me, I am a rule follower. If there is a rule in place, I am going to follow it, because my number one goal in life is to never be a burden on anyone else. [audience laughter] All of my report cards said I was a pleasure to have in class. I never tasted alcohol until I turned 21. When I'm out on public land, you better believe I'm leaving no trace. [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause] 

 

So, it was extremely out of character when I logged onto Shelfari and created a new post on the Pride and Prejudice discussion page [audience laughter] without first reviewing the community guidelines. [audience laughter] But my hatred compelled me. [audience laughter] I said I hate all these snobby characters, especially Elizabeth Bennet. She is rude to her family, she does not support any of her friends and she even admits she only liked Mr. Darcy after she saw him his big house, which makes her a class traitor on top of everything else. [audience laughter] No, none of the characters in this book deserve happiness, especially her. [audience laughter] 

 

My post generated quite a few responses. [audience laughter] Most of them aggressive, but there was one that I found particularly insulting, posted by a user called Mr. Litman. And he said, “Please ask your parent’s permission before you post anything that stupid on this page again. [audience laughter] Maybe when you develop critical thinking skills, you can rejoin the discussion.” [audience laughter] Now, obviously, I wasn't going to take that sitting down. So, before I responded, I stood up. [audience laughter] I could feel the blood rush to my head. My heart rate was increasing. I could tell that I was is becoming angry online. [audience laughter] 

 

If you're unfamiliar, common symptoms of angry online include typing in all caps, refreshing a page every 30 seconds or so, [audience laughter] and of course, staying up to the wee hours of the morning to argue about a topic that does not matter. [audience laughter] Please ask your doctor, if any of that sounds familiar. [audience laughter] So, anyway, there I was in my power pose. And I accused Mr. Litman of being old and too comfortable in his echo chamber. And thank goodness I was here to provide a new, correct perspective on this 200-year-old disgrace of a book. [audience laughter] Well, friends, I'm afraid that was merely the first skirmish in what would become an all-out war with Mr. Litman. Territory was gained and conceded throughout the evening, and our battles even spread to the other pages. 

 

I saw that he'd made a post on the Wuthering Heights page that Emily Brontë was the weakest of the Brontë sisters. [audience laughter] So, I responded to that, saying, “Why am I not surprised you're also wrong about this, you waste of skin?” He in turn found my positive review of The Great Gatsby and he said, “Of course, you like a book with a simplistic narrative where nothing happens. [audience laughter] It's probably a fine mirror for your own life.” [audience laughter] Oh yeah, we were exchanging shots and our war was being fought all over the site. I'm not going to go into detail on every post, but I think you all deserve to know. Mockingbirds were killed. [audience laughter] 1984 became an even worse year and all was not quiet on the Western Front. [audience laughter] The Shakespeare pages, dear God. [audience laughter] 

 

Despite the horrors of war, up to that point we had managed to avoid vulgarity. But back on the Pride and Prejudice page, that was about to change. I finally got Mr. Litman to crack. He posted in all caps, “WHY DON'T YOU JUST SHUT UP?” And then, he invited me to perform a very intimate act in a rather crude way. [audience laughter] But I was still standing and I said, “At least someone might walk away from that experience satisfied, a feeling denied to anyone who has to read Pride and Prejudice.” [audience laughter] It was my sickest burn. [audience laughter] After that, I closed my laptop and I finally went to bed, comfortable with the knowledge that I had won. I figured I'd let him know that I would be willing to negotiate the terms of his surrender, the next day. 

 

The next day, I received the email from Shelfari. [audience laughter] It seems multiple people had reported me, and after review, it was determined that I had violated a number of the site's bylaws, and as such, my account was permanently banned. All my data, hundreds of books, all my posts, all my reviews gone forever. And that sucked. I was devastated. But I've had things deleted before. What really left me distraught and what stuck with me all these years, is that lost to the world was the only documented evidence of me breaking the rules. [audience laughter]