(Roughly) Daily

As Matthew Baldwin demonstrates, the praise of professional critics hardly matters to the book-reviewing readers at Amazon.com…

The following are excerpts from actual one-star Amazon.com reviews of books from Time’s list of the 100 best novels from 1923 to the present. Some entries have been edited.

Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987)

“Morrison’s obviously a good writer, but truly, her subject matter leaves a LOT to be desired in this book. It’s raunchy beyond belief. People do things with farm animals that they shouldn’t. I couldn’t get through the first two chapters without vomiting. Some things you just shouldn’t put in your head.”…

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1951)

“So many other good books…don’t waste your time on this one. J.D. Salinger went into hiding because he was embarrassed.”…

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1939)

“While the story did have a great moral to go along with it, it was about dirt! Dirt and migrating. Dirt and migrating and more dirt.”…

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (1929)

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

More at “Lone Star Statements,” a compilation of the best of the worst… about the best. From @TheMorningNews.

Apposite: “The Strangely Beautiful Experience of Google Reviews“

* An English adaptation of the medieval (Scholastic) Latin saying “De gustibus non est disputandum” (regarding taste, there is no dispute)

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As we contemplate connoisseurship, we might recall that it was on this date in 1927 that Louis B. Mayer presided over the founding of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Anxious to create to create an organization that would mediate labor disputes without unions and improve the film industry’s image, he envisaged an elite club open only to people involved in one of the five branches of the industry: actors, directors, writers, technicians, and producers. He gathered a group of thirty-six industry leaders at a formal banquet at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, and presented them what he called the International Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Everyone in the room that evening became a founder of the Academy.  Between that evening (this date in 1927) and the filing of the official Articles of Incorporation for the organization (on May 4, 1927), the “International” was dropped from the name. Labor negotiations were also briskly dropped, leaving the organization to focus on promoting the industry.

In 1929, Academy members, in a joint venture with the University of Southern California, created America’s first film school to further the art and science of moving pictures. The school’s founding faculty included Douglas Fairbanks (President of the Academy), D. W. Griffith, William C. deMille, Ernst Lubitsch, Irving Thalberg, and Darryl F. Zanuck.

But their most recognizable venture into image enhancement was also born in 1929: the Academy held it’s first annual awards ceremony, bestowing the first “award of merit for distinctive achievement,”-what has become the Academy Awards– the Oscars.

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