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nuncstans was the most recent person to post that article about Amazon.com reviews of literary classics. While it was funny So I looked up Ulysses and marvelled:
A brilliant work of literature or load of crap?
First of all I tried to like and understand this book.
I have read 200 pages of something that is really boring because some people kept on claiming that it is brilliant. At the moment I don't find it nessesary to read it any furder.
But here are the conclussions I have made.
Why this book is interresting:
-The stream of consience idea is great, really. I love it.
-I also love the idea that he descided to write about some of the things no sensibele writter would have ever written about. Like how Bloom went to the toilet or mastrubated.
Why this book is a load of crap:
-Way to long (I have nothing against long books and I have read quite a lot of books and I love Homer, Dante, Shakespear, Milton, Orwell, Huxley, Poe, Bulgakov, Plato, Swift, Nietzsche, Dickens, Asimov and many more so I do know a bit about litterature) this book should have ended whit the third chapter.
-It lacks a plot. I am not saying that there has to be a overlingly complicated story behind it but it should have some directionlines.
-The languege. Joyce seems to want to point out the whole time how good he knows English and that is very irretating.
-It has no real meaning. I know that people have looked for one but all they have come up whit where some things like it is an epic of the body (well describing how someone goes to the toilet could hardly be discrived as epic. The also spoke about the complex intriging monologs and the praise of the mind (well the just say a lot of things and never seem to be able to think in a straigt line for longer than 3 min. And finally the the so cold new light that Joyce shines on myths. The mostly bring up Odysseus whit this one. Well people seek for Odysseus in this book because Joyce told them to do so.
-Almost anybody could have written this book.
I would also like to point out that when it was released all the people who love this book now (writters and proffesors) hatted this book. If it had never ben forbidden it would have just been forgotten like it perhaps should.
I would like also to say that I didn't stopt reading tis book because it was to difficult but because it was borring. For after all I have read Paradise lost in the orriginal and I do find it difficulter to read that this one.
Perhaps it is just so difficult to read because it is borring has anyone thought about that?
(Excuse me for my English.)
Der, I like stories!
This is one of those books that "smart" people like to "read." Well if being smart means liking this, count me out! I don't know if it's modern, post-modern or what: but I know this much, I'd rather just curl up with "Bridges of Madison County" for a good cry! I don't understand why such a 'great' author can't seem to come up with a straightfoward plot that makes sense. I'd like to have seen Leopold patch things up with Molly, am I right? I mean, let's get down to brass tacks: don't we all hate those intellectuals who consider this one of the century's 'finest works of literary craft'? I mean these are the people who put "Citizen Kane" in the top ten...and totally ignored "Life as a House"! (No offense, but Orson Welles is no Kevin Kline!) Unless Oprah puts it on her book list, I won't be picking this one up again, that's for sure.
...
whoever listed this as number 1 was smoking too much crack - since i can't afford a nine-month crack habit, i guess i'll never be able to truly appreciate it.
This novel was OK, but I didn't feel like it was speaking to me. Then again, I was reading it in a VERY dark room, and I didn't pause for lunch. This is a long book.
Not Enough Suspense
The author kept getting bogged down in details instead of moving the storyline along, because we don't need to know everything about the characters, just enough to keep reading until the climax of the story; if you compare it with something like the Hunt for Red October you'll see what I mean, there the author knows to advance the plot and doesn't waste his time and ours. Here there is way too much information when all the reader wants is to solve the plot and find out what happens. I expected it to be a lot more fast-paced because of the reputation.
Also, where was the editor? A book shouldn't be hard to read but there were run-on sentences and bad grammar in some places.
...
I'm contemplating traveling back in time and murdering James Joyce, in the face.
For Ulysses to be any worse of a book, it would have to break into your house and defecate on your bed.
Bonus: Some reviews of Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun
darkness, imprisoning me all that i see, absolute horror
i havent read the book or seen the movie but the song "one" by metallica is based off the book. after hearing the song and watching the extended music video that shows clips from the movie, i really want to see the movie or read the book. i got a general idea of what its about and thats all i need to tell its an awesome story.
Not that great
I was excited for this book when I got it. After reading the first hundred pages or so the first day I put off finishing it. Why you ask? Nothing ever happens. He lays in the bed and thinks about his life. It is an interesting concept, but I would prefer to take out about two hundred pages of the author's ranting about war. A good short story at best.
horrible
I hated this book. It was disturbing reading about things like these, cause it never crossed my mind that war could affect people like this. sure I knew people die and get wounded and stuff, but reading about how it actually happens was too much. I read it once for my English class, and I am never picking it up again.
...
I would not read this book again if you threatened to throw me in a pit of scorpions, mad cows, rat poison, mentally deranged elephants, math professors, sharks, Disney characters, and hydrochloric acid. Think about that. It is THAT BAD! I struggled through every chapter. The only good thing I got out of this was some opinions if I ever decide to be a anti-war maniac. You know, the ones that live in a cardboard box on the porch of the white house. The ones that protest to the first lady about how nobody remembered the alamo. That's how dedicated you have to be to survive reading this. The only reason I read it was that I had to for school.... Suffering through this book was my hardest project ever.
...
I don't care for a book that follows a character that just sits there and feels sorry for himself.
Rather read it than write a paper.
I think that this book was wrote bad. I think that the author was unable to think of things that interested people so instead he decided to bash American patorism. The book tried to tell us that war was so bad and that you never get credit for it. He continually cares nothing of the metals that he recieved for his actions. All I have to say is that he should live in Bosnia where you have no choice and you get no credit.
I could go on, I'm sure, but now it's your turn. What are the best (and by that, I mean the brain-searing worst) Amazon.com reviews you can possibly find?
EDIT: This has to be one of my favourites (I'm sure you can guess the book):
"There've been times when the sun was in my eyes, and yeah, that really irritated me. Sure I didn't kill anyone but... oh shoot, I'm scared now and I dont know why."
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-25 08:42 pm (UTC)This makes me think of Jean Teasdale, that cheesy columnist from The Onion.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-25 08:51 pm (UTC)Whatever, I still think it's funny.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-25 08:53 pm (UTC)Hahahahaha. Also, I love how most of the reviewers managed to think the main character's name was Johnny... hilarity.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-25 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-25 08:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-25 08:59 pm (UTC)I wonder at the percentages of people who get into Trumbo because they're metalheads. I had the opposite happen -- I got into Metallica because they wrote a song about Johnny. And was horribly disappointed a few years later when they came out in support of the first Gulf War.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-25 08:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-25 09:02 pm (UTC)"Wah wah wah, I have to walk ten miles in the snow to get to school and my pa doesn't think girls should be educated. And I'm having sex with my uncle! And maybe a bear! Woe is me."
Never mind; I do that now.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-25 09:11 pm (UTC)Speaking of Trumbo, if you haven't seen it yet, you should check out the masturbation letter for some completely unrelated hilarity.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-25 09:22 pm (UTC)The reviewers trashing Johnny Got His Gun should quite obviously have their limbs and face blown off, then see how much they like the sound of war.
I don't care for a book that follows a character that just sits there and feels sorry for himself.
Um... no, they're right, he should have gone and become a motorcycle stunt team rider or something, obviously.
STUPID PEOPLE HURT MY BRAIN.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-25 09:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-25 10:00 pm (UTC)Probably comparable to the percentages of people who picked up Steppenwolf because of the band.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-25 10:18 pm (UTC)The only good CanLit I know about personally is Margaret Atwood...and that's somewhat debatable.
Tell me some good CanLit. Please. I really don't want to be biased against your country's literary tradition ;).
no subject
Date: 2005-10-25 11:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 12:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 12:40 am (UTC)Gah - is this some kind of clever pomo joke? No? didn't think so.
Don Quixote
Date: 2005-10-26 01:17 am (UTC)---------------------------------------------
in this book, however, our heroes become simply the butt of everyone's jokes. they become entertainment for everyone they meet. it makes the story cruel and even sad. these two characters need to be laughed with, not at.
ow.
Date: 2005-10-26 06:24 am (UTC)Re: ow.
Date: 2005-10-26 06:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 02:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 02:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 02:29 pm (UTC)My rule is usually that authors not born in Canada, live in a major city, or who are French-Canadian have a chance of being decent. It's a massive generalization, but it does tend to cut out a lot of that farmhouse incest crap.
I find about 10 percent of Atwood's stuff good and maybe 25 percent of it readable. I also like Michael Ondaaje (born in Sri Lanka), Marie-Claire Blais (French-Canadian and weird as fuck), Barbara Gowdy (from Toronto), Nalo Hopksinson (oops, ), Gwendolyn MacEwen (mainly a poet/playwright, and from Toronto), and Rohinton Mistry (born in India). Lots of people seem to be enamoured of Mordechai Richler (from Montreal, very emphatically) but I could only really get into his children's books.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 02:32 pm (UTC)ZOMG SEQUEL!
no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 02:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 02:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 02:39 pm (UTC)Not that anyone who doesn't understand Joyce is stupid; it took me forever to read Ulysses and I am intimidated by Finnegan's Wake. But if you don't get it, why advertise the fact on the internet?
Re: Don Quixote
Date: 2005-10-26 02:39 pm (UTC)Re: ow.
Date: 2005-10-26 02:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 02:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 02:42 pm (UTC)Nor does everyone who understands Joyce have to like his work.
Off Topic
Date: 2005-10-26 04:36 pm (UTC)Re: Off Topic
Date: 2005-10-26 04:44 pm (UTC)Re: Off Topic
Date: 2005-10-26 08:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-27 12:53 am (UTC)Thanks for the list!