Eugene David<br>...The One-Minute Pundit

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

I have my doubts about the usefulness of Amazon.com's reviews (I've written a few myself) as they're a bouillabaisse of the tasty (rarely) and the inedible (mostly), with the frequent stomping of fanatics' feet and spelling and grammatical errors galore. Still we reviewers are capable of wisdom, though we may not know it. I came across this compendium of 1-star reviews of famous books, and while some are stupid, a few have the nugget of truth in them, as in:

Lolita (1955)

Author: Vladimir Nabokov

“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. And it’s not for theatrics either, it’s just huge words mid-sentence when describing something simple. Nothing in the sense of imagery is gained. 6) Also, to sum it up, it’s a story about a pedophile.”

Mrs. Dalloway (1925)

Author: Virginia Woolf

“The only good thing to say about this “literary” drivel is that the person responsible, Virginia Woolf, has been dead for quite some time now. Let us pray to God she stays that way.”

The Sound and the Fury (1929)

Author: William Faulkner

“This book is like an ungrateful girlfriend. You do your best to understand her and get nothing back in return.”

The Sun Also Rises (1926)

Author: Ernest Hemingway

“Here’s the first half of the book: ‘We had dinner and a few drinks. We went to a cafe and talked and had some drinks. We ate dinner and had a few drinks. Dinner. Drinks. More dinner. More drinks. We took a cab here (or there) in Paris and had some drinks, and maybe we danced and flirted and talked sh*t about somebody. More dinner. More drinks. I love you, I hate you, maybe you should come up to my room, no you can’t’… I flipped through the second half of the book a day or two later and saw the words ‘dinner’ and ‘drinks’ on nearly every page and figured it wasn’t worth the risk.”

How do you find these reviews?

P. S. Has anyone noticed the unfavorable reviews get fewer "useful" votes than the favorable ones? I've never figured that out, unless people like to be flattered.