The More You Ignore Me

by Travis Nichols

Praise for Travis Nichols:

"A rewarding experience. [Nichols'] sentences repeat and sit inside each other as a sort of Greek chorus that resonates throughout the book."—Chicago Sun-Times

"Nichols pulls the readers in . . . with breathtaking immediacy. . . . Off We Go into the Wild Blue Yonder is both original and haunting."—Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

Charli and Nico's wedding blog has an uninvited guest: a commenter convinced the bride is being romanced by the brother of the groom. To save her from a terrible mistake he adopts multiple identities on multiple message boards, sharing his fears for Charli, his outrage at being thwarted, and the romance, years ago in his analog past, that first attracted his meddlesome care.

Cranky, hilarious, and incisive, The More You Ignore Me takes on Internet etiquette, the distortions of voyeurism, and the incessant, expansive flow of words that may not be able to staunch loneliness, but holds out the hope of talking it to death.

Travis Nichols was born in Ames, Iowa. He attended the University of Georgia and the University of Massachusetts, where he earned an MFA in poetry. He is the author of the novel Off We Go intoo the Wild Blue Yonder (Coffee House Press) and two collections of poetry, Iowa (Letter Machine Editions) and See Me Improving (Copper Canyon Press). From 2008 to 2012 he was associate editor of the Poetry Foundation's website and editor of its blog, Harriet. He now works at Greenpeace in Washington, DC.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Travis Nichols was born and raised in Ames, Iowa. He lives in Chicago and is an editor at the Poetry Foundation. His writing has appeared in the Believer, the Huffington Post, Paste, the Stranger, and the Village Voice. His books include the poetry collection Iowa (Letter Machine Editions) and the novel Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder (Coffee House Press).

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[John Pappas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Travis Nichols’ dynamic new novel is a shocking and hilarious trip down the rabbit hole of the internet’s addicting and voyeuristic nature. Told in the form of a blog post at once menacing, accusatory, self-exculpatory and confessional, the story accumulates weight and speed as the damaged narrator, a man tormented by slights real and imagined, delusions of grandeur and real childhood traumas, unravels hopelessly and helplessly, spinning his tale into the void to any audience who will listen. At first, I wished that Nichols’ mostly unlikeable narrator was less superior, less self-aggrandizing – he seemed to possess an arrogance similar to Toole’s Reilly or Nabokov’s Kinbote without the comic ironies – but it is because he is so wounded, so damaged that he presents as he does. Ultimately, the narrative voice becomes captivating and entrancing, and the narrator’s wince-worthy denial and lack of self-knowledge encourages the reader to stumble after him in the darkness. Focusing upon the internet’s capacity to simultaneously connect and distance communities, the transformative power of anonymity and the nigh-planetary gravitational pull of voyeurism, Nichols gives the reader serious questions to consider about the democratic nature of the internet and the distortive perceptual lens provided by our technology.

(On a side note, this book makes me want to teach a course on Technology and Literature that focuses on the Internet, social media and communication technologies. What would you include on a hypothetical syllabus? I’d include this, Cohen’s Four New Messages, Bradbury’s story “The Veldt,” Battles’ story “The Unicorn,” and perhaps some of the stories/poems being written using Twitter (like Egan’s “Black Box”) to start. What else?)

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Travis Nichols' narrator is the Ignatius J. Reilly of the internet age.

[K LeMon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the idea more than the execution. I was very excited by the prospect of a Nabokovian unreliable narrator, but though Nichols certainly gives us that, the actual content of the book lacked structure and momentum until the last thirty percent. The transition from "blog comment" form to "novel inside a comment" form felt like a cop out, and it also felt like the Charli/Nico/Chris conflict in the present is usurped by the Rachil/Rico/Corn conflict of the past--which may very well be the point, but it still felt odd when this obsessive narrator did not return to his present obsession at the end of the book except to mention it in passing.

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think the strength of "The More You Ignore Me" lies in the well-developed voice of the narrator. As he tells his story, the narrator's thoughts and actions reveal misogyny and voyeurism, but also trauma and enduring pain from his childhood. The novel definitely plays with the idea of an unreliable narrator let loose on the modern technology of the internet. I wouldn't call this "hilarious," as the back cover claims, but it was interesting and quick.

[Anissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Interesting concept of a story however, I felt very confused and honestly got tired of the flashbacks. It was hard for me to follow the narrator’s train of thought, however that may be because I am not a psychopath. I felt it lost the beginning and more interesting story about Charli & Nico. I wanted to put this book down so many times but forced myself to finish it.

[Elliot Chalom · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. Read about a third of the book, got bored. The idea is good but the execution let me down. Just too meandering for me. I am not a person who needs plot in his fiction, but I just didn't care at all about the narrator (or the couple) so his ramblings left me wanting. Oh well.

[Jule · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a quite disturbing book about a man stalking the wedding blog of a couple because he believes the bride-to-be looks like his first love and deserves a second chance with her or a chance to set some past injustice right. And then he goes off to another forum to write a lengthy explanation with a lot of digression into his teenage years - which is what we get to read in book form.

I liked the basic idea, because this format would fit into our digital world. But it fell short due to being only one narrative forum post. It would have been much nicer and juicier had it been a back and forth of digital traces - posts, comments, emails, etc. Also, while he was sure creepy, I did not understand the reason for talking so much about an apparently mirrored story from his teenage years. Was the girl there his first love, or just a mirror? So, overall, this confused me a little, creeped me out a lot, but could have been even better.

[Charity · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 211 page blog comment. Easy to say that the Narrator is just The Epic Troll, but there is so much more going on in the novel. A dark comedy that does not hold back and places the reader in uncomfortable territory at times. While I found myself disliking the Narrator, having a gut reaction that he is a creeper with mental problems--I also found myself having empathy for him as his narrative unfolds and he becomes more and more unhinged in his comment on a cooking website.

While at times the Narrator is bitingly funny the more he loses it and digresses to the past (which is actually not a digression but serves as one) away from his issues with Chris the Best Man, the less funny it comes and the more you want to help this creepy, hurt, and disenfranchised narrator.

A dark comedy deftly handled by Nichols in an interesting format. Thought provoking.

[Mogie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I felt lost in this book, the narrator just flashback to his past, and wanted to give up from time to time. However, there were some insightful quotes near the ending chapters about how individuals will make choices and proceed with their life. Quotes are as the following: "A strong mind makes for simple choices. Simple, but not plain." and "Failure is, of course, scary, but so is success. With success comes responsibility, which weak people with no self-worth can’t handle, so they invent problems.” Overall, this novel has successfully reflected some points about social disorder.

[Denali · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were parts of this I absolutely loved and parts of this where I felt it kind of lost its way. There is a strong chance that quite a bit of this went over my head. I will say that in addition to capturing the spirit of the online troll and some very funny observations about people/blogs/weddings/wedding blogs/young love there were a few intricate little bits that were enormously fun when they clicked into place.

[Lorri Steinbacher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed more as social commentary than as novel. Having been involved in forum type communication in the past, I could identify the type of person the protagonist is. It is a sad and uncomfortable read, yet has some funny moments. If you have ever been mesmerized by a forum flame war and are looking for something different, this is it.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. The faint echo of an Ignatius J. Reilly for the Internet age was encouraging but the story's central conceit —that it's being told through (one person's) blog comments— never felt legitimately employed or fully-realized. After 90-plus pages the monotonous drone of the anti-hero simply left me disinterested and I had to put it down.

[Don Gochenour · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't think I've read a novel quite like this before, although it could be easily argued that this is more of a mega-poem than a traditional novel. Or at least I could argue that with myself. Nichols totally sucked me into the strange reality of the narrator and although I thought it lagged in the middle a little bit, I was captured by the second half of TMYIM.

[Dystopian · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was an interesting look inside that type of mind, but I found the book disjointed. The beginning was about him stalking the wedding site and the end was his past as a stalker/weirdo. There was no bridge and I found it awkward and strange that someone so obsessive would just drop something like that.

[Josh Puetz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Such a promising premise that petered out halfway through the book. Ultimately there is no resolution in the plot or character development, and one gets the sense the author wrote himself into a corner.

[Jane Ciabattari · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're had anything to do with internet trolls circa 2009 this novel is for you! I reviewed it for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

http://www.startribune.com/entertainm...

[Zack · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://www.examiner.com/review/the-mo...

[Kayleigh Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful book.. I couldn't even get half way through it within the month of renting it from the library. Don't waste your time

[Heather Craig Everett · Rating 1 out of 5]

Why on earth did I bother finishing this book!? Colossal waste of time.