The classics are not for everyone
April 30
I read The Great Gatsby while I was still in high school. Truth be told, I didn’t really like it all that much, but I suspect I may have been too young to appreciate it. When I came across Nikki Greenberg’s wonderful graphic novel some years later, I was completely hooked (Daisy as a delicate dandelion head holding her small, fluffy dandelion baby and calling her a ‘beautiful little fool’ was sheer brilliance). Sadly, not everyone shares my feelings (perhaps this was due to an absence of fronds and tentacles?) and for a while now Cynical-C blog has been doing a compilation of one star Amazon.com reviews for several of ‘the Classics’. Be warned, while hilarious these rants are vicious, angry and not afraid to use CAPS.
Here’s a small taste:
The Great Gatsby
Man, what self-indulgent rubbish.
“I am so rich…I am so observant…My friends are so rich…My friends have great parties…Gatsby is so rich…Gatsby is so neat…”
So it’s a great story about the Jazz era. It wasn’t that great an era.
If I wanted to read about lame, rich, full of themself people going to parties, I’d pick up People magazine.
To Kill a Mockingbird
Looking for a sappy, cliched, novel to read? One predictable as most young-adult books and more degrading than harlequin romances? Well, To Kill a Mockingbird is your book.
Moby Dick
This book is HORRIBLE! Classic, my eye! I would love to know what’s so great about this book. I have seen better writing in a Hallmark card! Boring! Give me a good ole copy of Elvis and Me! A true story that really tugs at your heart strings! I sleep with that one under my pillow! Keep Moby Dick away from my bed!
Lolita
1.) I’m bored 2.) He uses too many allusions to other novels, so that if you’re not well read, this book makes no sense. 3.) Most American readers are not fluent in French, so to have conversations or interjections in French with no translation, is plain dumb. 4.) Did I mention I was bored? 5.) As with another reviewer, I agree, he uses a lot of huge words that just slow a person down.
The Hobbit
This is a prime example of what happens when Star Trek and Star Wars dorks pick up a book. They see the word “wizard” or “dragon” and get all gooey with excitement and think it’s great literature.
And what’s this thing about hairy feet?
JA
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Comments
30 Apr 09 at 10:21
Have you read Joseph thingy's Netherland? Post-9/11 book about NY and cricket which constantly references the Great Gatsby.
Such a relief that you're writing a blog that comes up in bloglines!
...30 Apr 09 at 15:08
Joseph O'Neill? No I haven't yet, but a quick google reveals this very nice quote from the NY Times: 'the wittiest, angriest, most exacting and most desolate work of fiction we’ve yet had about life in New York and London after the World Trade Center fell.' I would be interested to see how he works Gatsby in.
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