We’ve written before about the occasional hyper-critical comments on certain blogs, but such comments are like valentines compared to what some Amazon.com customers heap upon The Rolling Stones, The Godfather, The Diary of Anne Frank, and other standards. The Cynical-C blog lists the most caustic of these every day. (HT: Very Short List) [%comments]
The Art of Trashing the Classics
TAGS: blog comments
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My daughter called me dumb the other day. I told her, “say that to me again and there will be consequences.” It is just condescending and inappropriate. I admit to have bought a hard cover book the other day because a well known tv news person recommended it. And I thought that it might be a book that I could relate to. But having read a bit of it I see that –It is no classic and I am wondering why it was recommended, That said, I do intend to finish it off and continue to remind myself that its author tried— but just did not succeed this time round. As far as I can tell, great work takes time and when one looks at the body of work of any individual– how much of it is classic and how much build up to that point i.e., not classic at all?
Not all classics are “great”. Pacing, the stereotypes and misconceptions of the time, or simply the filmography used can be disconcerting. I will admit that many works are worth more for historical value (it was there first, but not best) than they are enjoyment or edification.
Which doesn’t really matter, because these reviews are mostly all sarcastic =)
Dear SteveAK
You raise an interesting question- what makes a book great? Now if I could just figure that one out? Perhaps, the concern should not be with greatness in writing–just with doing an adequate job. I do know one thing though, Great books are the ones that I keep reading over and over again and continue to find new food for thought each time. So in that sense, great books live on. Not too long ago, I reread Romeo and Juliet. Had not read it since hight school. This time, I was looking for a better understanding of why the two families were at odds. The book then took on a different dimension.
I want to take some time out to give michael malta a virtual smack over the head, here.
Despite the correlation between intelligence and the amount of children a couple has, to think that it’ll have some monumental effect on society is folly. If it did, we wouldn’t have had a society with steadily increasing complexity because let me tell you, people didn’t start out smart.
There’s two major things wrong with the theory the story you describe (and similar works, such as the Mike Judge film ‘Idiocracy’ which is quite amusing if you get past the premise) – firstly, it’s a misunderstanding of evolution to assume that because dumb people have more kids then all their kids are going to be dumb. Genetic drift will ensure that there’s some genetic diversity in those kids, and some of them will end up being significantly smarter than their parents. Most of the dumber kids are going to find themselves, by necessity, in higher-risk scenarios, and so I wouldn’t be surprised if the numbers worked out that “dumb” families passed on their genes to a further generation only a smidgin more, if not at the same rate, as “normal” families.
Secondly, the environment a child’s brought up in has been proven to influence their intelligence, and kids these days are bombarded with much more stimuli than kids 50 years ago. They’re going to be more functionally intelligent than kids from 50 years ago, even though genetically nothing’s changed. Diet, too, has an effect, and we have far more flexibility in our diet than our ancestors did, which would arrest any slide backwards.
some brilliant reviews, guess some might have been tongue in cheek.
this one on spinal tap was unbelievable,
‘Okay, seriously, who the heck are these Spinal Tap fellas? I’m an expert on music (I studied the art form for four years, know every artist of the last 40 years, and scored an A+ on my math test…which really doesn’t have anything to do with music, but it shows you that I am intellegent), and have never heard of these guys before.’
Maybe the “great” books are considered great because there wasn’t much competition? I don’t know much about publishing, but I would think that far fewer books were published back in the 1800s, so “The Scarlet Letter” rose to the top of the heap because so few books were around.
If it were published today, with so many more options, it would sit on the shelves and collect dust.
Haha, the This Is Spinal Tap reviews are fantastic.
My generation thought the Beatles were good.
Their stuff is pretty bad, even by pop music standards of any generation.
It was bad even before Original Paul died.
Must have been something we were smoking.