Hello,
As every summer, I find myself reading a ton of extremely old books while visiting my parents, because my father has a huge book collection. By extremely old books I mean greek tragedies, latin treaties, old Norse sagas and other middle ages texts. In the other seasons I find the struggle of approaching those texts unbearable, preferring instead thriller, fantasy and other genre litterature, while in the summer I have far more time and a head more welcoming of thing. Plus they remind me my time as a philology student from a few years back, where the content/plot of the book is only the start of the analysis of such texts.
Anyway, one guilty pleasure I have is going to bookreada after the book is over and finding 2-3 star reviews of said text.
Am I the only one finding people giving 2-3 stars to Oedipus, a book of 2500 years ago, a tad ridiculous?
The entire metrics of literature have changed many times since then, except the desire to entertain and be entertained.
by beowulfviking
11 Comments
* invents literature *
2.5 stars!
I saw a reposted review the other day of someone reviewing a book set in the future (in the year 2020) and giving it a 1 star review because the author failed to make any reference to covid.
I think the important thing to remember when reading any review is that there’s an average intelligence, and half the population is below it.
No, I can’t rate books like this either. I can write a recension, but I can’t give stars (and I won’t even try).
I find them hilarious
2 atar reviews of classic literature are always my favorite becuade unlike “0/1 star boring it was lame” the two star ones almost get it
But fail miserably 🤪
Eh. I get it but if you’re looking for ratings and reviews then expect that. I think taking into consideration the time period is always a must, but just cause it’s 2000 years old, doesn’t mean it can’t be bad I guess. I love mythology personally. But it’s also fair for someone to express a different opinion, because old stuff isn’t always for everyone.
The star-rating system is fundamentally ridiculous.
One of my favourite things is reading one-star reviews of well-known masterpieces of classical literature. There’s one of Pride and Prejudice that says ‘just a bunch of people going to each other’s houses.’
I mean rating anything on a scale can be framed ridiculous. But all it does is convey how much you did/didn’t like something. And you can like and dislike and only sort of like more ancient or decrepit texts.
I loved the Canterbury Tales. That’s acceptable, right? Well, I also disliked some Shakespeare. Is that only acceptable cause they’re “new” relative to Oedipus?
I mean, did I enjoy/appreciate the experience or not? Why would it ever be silly to map that to a star rating?
Some people treat the rating system as a measurement of their enjoyment of books, not necessarily the objective quality of such books, and they have every right to imo (in fact some people here includes Goodreads itself as that’s how they explain their own rating system.)
Every star review is inherently silly. Trying to distill books down to a single number on a five-digit scale is utterly ridiculous. And yet…