The One-Stars from the 100
Recently Time Magazine picked the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present. Now as these lists seem to come out about once a month and mean about as much as the prize in a box of cracker jacks we've learned to generally completely ignore them. In fact, we probably wouldn't have even registered this latest list if it weren't for this genius post on The Morning News.
Matthew Baldwin went through the Amazon.com reviews of the novels picked by Time magazine and selected the choicest quotes from many of the books one-star reviews, creating "a compilation of the best of the worst... about the best."
Some of our favorites:
About The Great Gatsby: "It grieves me deeply that we Americans should take as our classic a book that is no more than a lengthy description of the doings of fops."
About Lord of the Flies: "I am obsessed with Survivor, so I thought it would be fun. WRONG!!! It is incredibly boring and disgusting. I was very much disturbed when I found young children killing each other. I think that anyone with a conscience would agree with me."
About The Lord of the Rings: "The book is not readable because of the overuse of adverbs."
About Mrs. Dalloway: "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."
As big Woolf fans we especially loved that last one. Which ones did you like?
