Fun and games

[kikikimi]

Try reading the 1-star reviews of classic books on Amazon.
The more "Classic" it is, the funnier the reviews.
Poor Cervantes, and poor King James.

Comments

[danea.livejournal.com]

Ha! That's awesome!

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

I left a 3-star review, thus:

Disappointing.

The language is rather lovely, and poetic, although portions of the book do appear to resort to excessive synopsis. The third and fourth chapters, in particular, are guilty of this, with the third being a drab list of rules and regulations presented without elaboration, in a sort of authorial filibuster, and the fourth being a litany of tedious revenge fantasies. Some of the later chapters are quite interesting, and there's an lovely romantic interlude, but the tendency towards authorial filibuster doesn't completely disappear.

Also, the main character is a bit inconsistent, sometimes appearing kind and loving, while other times wrathful and vengeful. This dichotomy could be an interesting plot device, but alas the book never goes into detail about why the disparity exists. We are simply left to wonder at it, or just figure "that's how it is". Frustrating.

The book does suffer a bit from uneven editing, as well. For instance, there's a fascinating tale about a golden bull statue, which is unaccountably buried in between two tedious and nearly identical descriptions of carpentry. What's the deal? I admit that editing such a large work can be trying, but surely such duplication should be easy to avoid!

Overall, though, it's not bad. I am rather disappointed that the publishers chose to bundle the inferior and hackneyed sequel with the groundbreaking and innovative original, however. Really, if the sequel can't stand on its own merits, why include it at all?

[kikikimi.livejournal.com]

Anthologies aren't necessarily bad :)
But being the, "Most Edited Work in History," might be!