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by Candy • Thursday, August 25, 2005 at 11:28 AM
Edit: Assume, for this article, that I’m talking in particular about well-written, entertaining reviews by people with a better-than-tenuous grasp on English and logic, and not poorly-written hack reviews, either positive or negative.
Via Paperback Writer, Cynthia Harrison quotes author and literary critic James Atlas on why we love negative reviews.
“Why is a stern critical denunciation so invigorating? It appeals, I think, to the punitive, grudging, envious impulses we generally suppress in our daily social transactions, gives expression to hostile, aggressive instincts through a sanctioned mode of discourse.”
I think the dude is reading just a bit too much into it. Oh, make no mistake, my sense of schadenfreude is very well-developed, as are my usual stand-bys, Bitchery, Hateration and pure, good-old fashioned Malice. But let’s face it, it’s not as if I suppress my punitive, grudging and otherwise eeeville impulses a whole lot. If I’m pissed at someone or think they’re a raging moron, they generally know, either because I tell them so, or I give them The Look--you know, the one that says “Wow, I didn’t know the extensive excision of so much matter from the prefrontal cortex would allow a person to walk and breathe as efficiently as you seem to.” (I think of The Look as self-defense, because before I developed it, someone would, without fail, come whining to me about the color printer being broken WITHOUT READING THE ERROR MESSAGE THAT’S DISPLAYED ON THE HUGE FUCKING LCD SCREEN. After the development of The Look, people actually come to me only when the printer is about to blow up, and not because friggin’ Tray One is out of paper.)
Ahem, where was I? So, I don’t love reading negative reviews because I can’t vent often enough. I love reading negative reviews because they’re usually funny as hell. There are few who can write a positive review and still keep it hilarious. One of them is Bam--just read her Linda Howard reviews. She almost (almost!) makes me want to pick up a Linda Howard, even the novels I’d read in the past that sent my blood pressure skyrocketing because I wanted to drown the hero and heroine in concentrated hydrochloric acid, but couldn’t, and instead I had to content myself with gnashing my teeth in the knowledge that an HEA awaited the protagonists instead of a slow and painful death. Mrs. Giggles does a pretty creditable job, too--of writing entertaining positive reviews, that is, not gnashing her teeth. I don’t know her well enough to judge her teeth-gnashing abilities.
Why are negative reviews so funny? Because comedy, my friends, is predicated on pain. Watching the crip-fight between Timmy and Jimmy on South Park is hysterically funny, even if it makes you feel dirty and wrong for laughing. Having Timmy and Jimmy set aside their differences and become friends? Not funny, even if it’s uplifting and positive and all that shit.
Think of all the jokes you know and love. The really, really good ones that make you howl with laughter. I guarantee you, almost all of them, from “Dopey fucked a penguin, Dopey fucked a penguin!” to “Did you really think I asked for a twelve-inch pianist?” are based on somebody’s pain, suffering and/or humiliation.
Even the fluffiest, most friendly and toothless Meg Ryan romantic comedies *crosses self for invoking the Name of Evil* base their humor on pain.
So in summary:
Pain = teh funney
Good things and fluffy kittens = adorable, sweet, uplifting, etc. but not really funny
And I have to admit, I like writing negative reviews better than I do positive reviews. The eeeville reviews are cathartic. The book has made me suffer through yea these many hours of horrendous prose. I can only dream of returning the favor. Positive reviews of books I really like are fun to write too; the snark is toned down considerably, but the excitement of “HolyshitthisbookisawesomeIneedtotellotherpeople NOWNOWNOW!” carries me through. The hardest reviews to write are usually the “meh” reviews--the B minuses, the Cs. Lukewarm feelings for lukewarm books tend to make for lukewarm prose.
So let’s hear it: do any of you love reading negative reviews as much as I do, even when it’s savaging a book you actually like? Why do you like it? Do you think my assertion that comedy = pain is full of shit? Have any evil, evil jokes to share? Have at it in the comments.
Edited to Add:
Here’s a perfect demonstration of what makes something funny:
This Craigslist rant? Not funny.
I troll around the Craigslist “Missed Encounters” page because I’m hoping that one day, someone will post an ad looking for me. I’m not looking for a stalker or anything, but I think it would make me feel special.
Laura Kinsale said on...We were invited to dissent, and as usual I am a contrarian who dissents in the wrong thread. ;)
I am so not there with you on this, Candy. In your perfect demo of what makes something awesomely funny--while the rant is kinda meh, the reply strikes me as just out-and-out stupid. :\
I do have a streak in me that enjoys the humorous humiliation of others, but it tends to be confined to the lampooning of the opposite side of the political spectrum. Otherwise, I suppose I am cursed with too much ability to imagine myself in the place of the lampooned.
I do love humor...a perfect demonstration of awesomely funny to me would be that New Yorker cartoon with the dog at the computer, typing, “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” I suppose there is a certain lampooning in that too, but of a different nature somehow.
Perhaps someone can analyze the difference, I can only offer my take.
I hope we’re still tight, Candy, even though I’ve admitted this, my Dark Secret. I’m a humor wuss.
Heh, now that I’m started, I’ll mention another cartoon that struck me as hilarious--a Far Side with an alligator up in the witness stand, saying, “Of course I did it in cold blood, you idiot! I’m a reptile!”
Candy said on...Heh, yeah, what’s funny for one person doesn’t necessarily work for someone else. And the inherent *meanness* in pain also varies in humor, as well as whether we’re laughing WITH the characaters as opposed to AT the characters (or some amalgam of both). I have a really high tolerance for meanness in humor; I suspect it’s genetic, because my sister and I both laugh at dead baby jokes, even though she a) has a son whom she adores, and b) is a lawyer who specializes in family dispute/spouse abuse cases, and has encountered more than her fair share of abused, raped and otherwise traumatized children.
So whether or not something is outright mean or crude, I do think the foundation of comedy is pain of one variety or another.
Take Midsummer Moon, for example. One of the funniest moments--for me, anyway--is the scene in which Ransom touches the hedgehog, who promptly curls around his finger. Ransom’s attempts to talk it into uncurling had me in stitches. It’s not a mean scene at all, neither is it dirty nor crude; it’s not slapstick either. But the combination of Ransom’s pain and the silliness of him trying to talk to a hedgehog? Funny as all hell.
And re: the alligator joke (LOVE The Far Side): would it be quite as funny if “you idiot” had been removed from it completely? What makes the cartoon work really, really well for me is how the alligator is impatient with the prosecutor, above and beyond the punning of “cold-blooded.”
And one could argue that puns are inherently painful, heh heh.
Am I making any sort of sense at all?
Candy, if you haven’t read Shades of Twilight, though, you really should. Just to say you have.
I have, Bam.
I HAVE, DAMN MY EYES.
Don’t remember the incest bits, which is a blessing, I suppose.
Tonda said on...Schadenfreude is as close to I come as having a religion.
>:)
Now, there’s another word you English have filched from the poor, unsuspecting German language. ;-)
Ah schadenfreude...I was the lucky person who got to introduce this word and concept to a group of people as a “word of the day” recently and it warmed the cockles of my cold, wizened heart.
Anyway. I, too, have a point of dissent with Candy’s comment about comedy being predicated on pain. (How totally COOL is it that I get to say I agree with Laura Kinsale, y’all?) Or, to be more specific, I should say, I disagree that the majority of the kind of things I find funny are based on pain. I think comedy is based on the unexpected—most things that are funny are that way to us because the words or actions were out of alignment with our expectations with what should have happened or should have been said at that moment. Some things are universally funny with this measure: take, for example, the antics of a kitten or puppy or child where an expression on the face or accidental discovery on their part causes amusement to the audience, and the audience can be from anywhere on earth and language and culture are no barrier to everyone finding it funny. On the other hand, some things are funny only for certain cultures. In the western culture, one strain of funny is when the unexpected action or words go beyond our accepted social norm and speak of a truth that we might all have thought of, but would never have dared spoken of. It’s funny to us because it’s true and it’s unexpected at that moment, but also it seems not infrequently, that the final element in the equation is that is painful to the one not making the joke. This breaks a social convention: it’s not polite to speak ill of others or their efforts in an open forum, or so we’re told from childhood, so when someone does speak ill of others out loud where everyone can hear it, it’s unexpected and it catches our attention. If crafted properly, it can also be funny (to everyone except the person being made fun of, of course).
As for ‘evil reviews’, this is all relative for me. When I’m looking to spend a significant amount of time or money invested in something more “high minded” I’m looking for a review that’s fair and balanced and goes as far as it’s possible to go to take the work on it’s own merit without leaning either towards snark or fandom squee. If it’s a little less I’ll be spending, I don’t mind the snark or squee quite so much since it seems more in keeping with the subject under review (all depending on circumstance, of course).
Oh crap, now that I’ve posted I see I went and did something I laughed over earlier today… http://www.ozyandmillie.org/2005/om20050823.html
For me, the funny is in the timing, and the delivery. But above all, humor is predicated on truth. That whole “it’s funny because it’s true” thing? Completely the way to go. A book review that snarks at the work is funny when it’s true. Like Lord of Fire - how I guest bitched that the one orgy scene in the grotto was reminiscent of P.A.G.A.N.? Funny because it’s a true visual, not because we imagine poor Ms Foley’s feelings being hurt by the description.
Okay, I’d go on and on (since I’m working on writing a comedy and am therefore preternaturally focused on the subject of comedy lately), but that’s the basic point, and how I see it.
“Some things are universally funny with this measure: take, for example, the antics of a kitten or puppy or child where an expression on the face or accidental discovery on their part causes amusement to the audience, and the audience can be from anywhere on earth and language and culture are no barrier to everyone finding it funny.”
Yeah, but what SORTS of discoveries are funny? Usually the ones in which the puppy, kitten and/or kid learn What Not To Do, right?
There’s that cat video that floated around the Internet for awhile that was pretty damn funny, all about cat antics (I’m a crazy cat lady, yes I am), and while none of the cats seemed seriously hurt, most of the clips involved violence and/or pain and/or humiliation, like the fat cat bouncing into a tubful of water and zooming right back out again.
Again, the trauma doesn’t need to be severe--and really, once the trauma is severe enough, it isn’t funny. But usually, it’s there. That tiny kernel of pain.
But you’re absolutely right about the element of surprise being essential to comedy, too.
And of course, those who don’t find snarky reviews funny won’t agree with me at all :) .
<i>Funny because it’s a true visual, not because we imagine poor Ms Foley’s feelings being hurt by the description.
Ooooh, that’s a good point, too--the funny because it’s true thing.
BUT unless one were pretty sadistic, I seriously doubt that people find evil reviews funny and amusing because it hurts the author’s feelings. Dunno if you somehow inferred this from what I wrote, but I just wanted to make it clear, heh.
Robin said on...Okay, but why do we have to accept the proposition that nasty reviews are always so much fun to read?? I mean, have you ever checked out some of the pans on Amazon? Some of the harsher ones are just downright painful, not just because it’s hard not to feel empathy for the author, but also because they’re so often written BADLY and are totally uninsightful and uninformative.
Maybe it’s just easier to exercise and recognize wit and cleverness when it’s communicated in a somewhat negative context, if for no other reason than it feeds on the sense of differentiation that makes any of us feel unique or clever ourselves (or maybe we just believe it is). Judging from the reviews here, I’d say that people enjoy a great review as much as they do any review, and I think the key is in reading a well-composed, thoughtful, skillfully executed critique. I do think it’s easier to WRITE negative reviews, and maybe that reality bonds the writer of such a review and his/her readers, who also find it easier to complain than to praise colorfully.
I think it was Mark Twain who insisted that the best practical joke is the one that’s been played on you. I’m guessing that’s true, but ONLY if you’re into practical jokes in the first place. I personally hate practical jokes, and can’t help but take them personally for myself and other people totally unrelated to me who get pimped. I sometimes envy people who can play and receive practical jokes gracefully and wonder if they’re just better socially adjusted than I am. I can sometimes appreciate a very clever practical joke, especially if the victim is a good sport. But I have to enjoy it knowing that no one was harmed in the making of the joke—that it’s inherently not negative to the people involved.
To assume that everyone loves negative reviews because they’re negative, is, I think, a shaky premise, and perhaps one that’s meant to make us complicit in Atlas’ own subconscious yearnings and assumptions. Maybe he just needs to sublimate more effectively.
“There’s that cat video that floated around the Internet for awhile that was pretty damn funny, all about cat antics (I’m a crazy cat lady, yes I am), and while none of the cats seemed seriously hurt, most of the clips involved violence and/or pain and/or humiliation, like the fat cat bouncing into a tubful of water and zooming right back out again.”
I have a theory that sometimes we’re drawn to laughing at stuff like this as a way to demystify it. Recognizing the humor—which, IMO is dependent on a sense of fundamental safety to you and the cats—allows us to take something that would otherwise be somewaht traumatic and convert it to something we feel in control of or at least resensitized to (NOT desensitized, as we still have a response). And let’s face it, an excess of emotion usually expressed itself in either tears or laughter (aside from verbal articulation of yelling, which I think is anger, which is different). And these two responses are very closely aligned and related in many cases. But I think we feel more in control when our reaction is laughter, and that in the case of some things, we need to feel that sense of control over our surroundings (not in a maniacal way, of course).
I read a marvelous book once called The Comic Toolbox because I always doubt that people get my humor.
One of the key components of effective comedy is apparently to get the reader to empathize with the comic character, and according to this author, readers empathize with flaws, quirks and fuckups.
Some big horror writer once wrote in an essay that horror and comedy are essentially the same art turned on different sides. Each goes for the rush by exploiting vulnerabilities.
So there is the beginning of an actual thesis on Why Bad Reviews Connect and Make Us Laugh More Than Good Reviews.
I bet you all wish I’d eaten less sugar today.
Joyce
Okay, but why do we have to accept the proposition that nasty reviews are always so much fun to read?? I mean, have you ever checked out some of the pans on Amazon? Some of the harsher ones are just downright painful, not just because it’s hard not to feel empathy for the author, but also because they’re so often written BADLY and are totally uninsightful and uninformative.
You have a point. Not ALL negative reviews are awesome; however, all my favorite review pieces have been the kind that rip a work to shreds, and I just about bounce with joy when I see Mrs. Giggles or an AAR reviewer has assigned a really, really low grade to a book. I think the point I’m trying to make (not particularly well) is that, as a whole, it’s much easier to be funny and witty when writing a negative review. And THAT’s why I tend love well-written negative reviews better than well-written positive or lukewarm reviews.
“...and I just about bounce with joy when I see Mrs. Giggles or an AAR reviewer has assigned a really, really low grade to a book.”
Wooooo damn, can this be open to some misinterpretation.
Ahem. Let me clarify:
I bounce with joy not because I hate authors or whatever, but because I can be assured of some quality snark. And I like reading snark.
And JEA: vulnerability is actually a much more elegant and precise term than what I’ve been using so far (trauma, pain, etc.).
I have something to confess. I don’t know how to review a good book. I find it easier to rip a book to shreds. What kind of person does that make me?
You did fine with the Linda Howard books, I thought. Unless you (like me) separate books that are good vs. books that you enjoy reading.
And yeah, pinpointing what someone does wrong is so much easier than pinpointing what someone does right. It’s kind of like trying to describe how your car is running when it’s running well. “Er, the engine purrs? And there are no warning lights on? And all the instruments are behaving as they should?”
When something fucks up, though, there are a myriad of different things to describe. “So the engine is rattling--not loudly, and not like a loose rattle or anything, but this weird, muffled, trrrrrr kind of sound, y’know? And when I’m going over 60 it starts shaking really bad, like the whole car just shudders all over, and I see the RPMs shoot way, way up. Also, the windshield wiper fluid doesn’t work any more.”
Woohoo, how’s that for some Bad Analogy action?
Some reviewers on Amazon are morons, the I Don’t Get My Grammar Straight But Love Trashing Books as well as the OMG tahts teh best book EVAH ones.
Some of the reviewers on Amazon are morons, the I Don’t Get My Grammar Straight But That Books Sucks ones as well as the OMG tahts teh best book EVAH!!!111!!3 ones.
Sorry, stupid software that told me I didn’t post and then it was there anyway. :mad:
You know, Linda Howard speaks very fondly of you.... And how you could not like the MacKenzie men is a continuing mystery.
“I just about bounce with joy when I see Mrs. Giggles or an AAR reviewer has assigned a really, really low grade to a book. I think the point I’m trying to make (not particularly well) is that, as a whole, it’s much easier to be funny and witty when writing a negative review. And THAT’s why I tend love well-written negative reviews better than well-written positive or lukewarm reviews.”
I made a similar point in my rambling post, and I agree that clever writing trumps almost everything contained within (I mean, who among us isn’t seduced by powerful political rhetoric, even against our better instincts). But reading Jennifer Crusie’s blog has made me more aware of the value of wry humor and the important role compassion plays in knowing how far to go in the evisceration process. In other words, I think the funniest people are those who know how it feels to be on both sides of the blade and who can gague the exact point at which enough becomes too much. It’s all about relatability, IMO—the creation of connections and commonality on numerous levels simultaneously. Actually, I think one of the reasons I can get into a wickedly funny critical review is because it taps into the diappointment I feel when I read a bad book; in a weird way, it validates what I value. So it’s my own vulnerability that’s exposed, and, IMO, embraced through someone else’s pain, not my socially unacceptable aggression. In other words, I think that Atlas has the whole thing inside out and reversed.
Oh, and Candy? I do think you’d like Howard’s book To Die For. It really does break a lot of Romance stereotypes, IMO. The heroine is one of the most emotionally healthy and independent women I’ve ever encountered in Romance. There’s a scene in a movie theatre that has to be one of my favorite all-time scenes in Romance, and it probably doesn’t involve what you think it does.
As for Bam’s review of After the Night? I don’t think I’ve ever read a better summation of Howard’s heroes than this one: “Gray does not have any scenes with Faith that we don’t find out what his penis thinks of the situation.” I love this line because it captures, IMO, the central problem I have with many of Howard’s heroes—that what is primarily a totally self-centered reaction is somehow sold as a LARGE measure of sensitivity and love. Again, another reason I loved To Die For—no talking penises AND a heroine who wouldn’t fall for that trick anyway.
talking penises
snerk!
I’m such a child.
Toothless Meg Ryan?
Hmm. That might be an improvement.
And another thing. Men’s penises do not talk for them. Oh, they spew nonsense at times, but we don’t listen to that. A penis is a tool, hence the slang, “You tool.”
Me? I let my balls do the thinnin’ around here.
I think humor is hard, and defining it is even harder. Perhaps to find something funny there must be either a measure of comeuppance (is that a word?) or identification. We laugh when the bully falls on the banana peel, or we laugh at Charlie Chaplin because part of us identifies with the Little Tramp and his travails. Or some of it may be looking for role models of how to act when we’re the ones who have fallen on our bum. On the other hand, the funniest negative review I’ve ever read was the one on AAR where the book got an F minus “for the poor horse”.
I have no clue what schadenfreude means.
Anyone?
--"Me? I let my balls do the thinnin’ around here.”
Power in numbers or kind?
--"On the other hand, the funniest negative review I’ve ever read was the one on AAR where the book got an F minus ‘for the poor horse’.”
I loved that review, and it was definitely a case of identification!! Good points in your post, Susan. Candy’s definitely onto something, isn’t she? I think the fact that she’s so funny in her own prose just reflects your insistence that what’s funny depends on the context and the form, especially when you’re talking about humor that incorporates negative elements.
---"Toothless Meg Ryan?
Hmm. That might be an improvement.”
Has anyone noticed how bitter many of her characters start out in her so-called Romantic comedies? I can’t figure out if it’s a function of her as an actress or an anti-feminist statement about the character of independent or ambitious women and the way LOVE makes them all sweet and soft and generous (you know, girly)?
schadenfreude is a German word that means taking delight in the pain of others.
I love that they have a word for that.
Taking delight in the pain of others? Is that like sadism? Or is it only meant in a mental way?
Thanks, Beth. I’m halfway to embarrassed to admit my ignorance.
But what the hell.
Candy, I get what you’re saying. And I admit to a certain guilty amusement when I read snarky reviews. But I always feel a little ashamed of myself. Maybe it’s the writer in me - and I get a bit of the cringe factor going, knowing exactly how that writer must feel.
Stef2 I was trying to find the song Schadenfreude from the Avenue Q play, but my blasted computer won’t download the software to play it (*&^!!!%), so don’t know if this will help or not: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000BZK1R/qid=1125031079/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-8741792-1579830?v=glance&s=music&n=507846
Scroll down to song 17.
Anyway, schadenfreude is a bit less severe than sadism. It’s more like laughing at the person who flails about wildly on the ice, doing their damndest to avoid falling, and careens into the nearest large object.
Reading all of these opinions on what makes teh funny has had me thinking about this much more than I anticipated. I still say not ALL humor is predicated on pain, but I do acknowledge a large portion of it is.
Also, I think that part of what draws people to the snark is that there’s generally a joie de vivre to it that comes through to the reader that’s hard to match with a more “straight” prose style.
The things I learn here!
Thanks so much, fiveandfour. Not only do I have a new word, I’ve just figured out how to hear bits of a song on Amazon. Who knew?
Jesus, I’m always kidding about living under a rock...Mother of God! I really do!
CindyS said on...Stef2, I went and looked up the word on Dictionary.com so no, you don’t live under a rock....or maybe we both do.
Humour is very personal. I know this because three our of my four family members have the same humour. Three of us will be on the floor while the fourth is yawning. Yet at the same time, my brother can make my mother laugh without even trying. (Yeah, my mother is the odd one out).
Physical humour - American Home Videos - I’m sorry but if I catch one of those montages on people falling, or animals doing their animal things, I can have tears streaming down my face because I am laughing so hard. Now maybe it’s because I am a klutz and have been there before but my God, physical humour gets me everytime.
Gross humour - nope, makes me gag.
Snark - I love it. Probably the closest to what I am in real life. My husband calls it mocking because when I get going, look out. Stupidity is sure to have me snarking. EG. We are in the Bay home store and they have a clearance section with bright signs about how their prices have been slashed. Swear to God this is what was there. Original price. 999.00, Clearance price. 989.00. I was so loud my husband steered me out of the store. “You call that a sale? What do you think I am, an idiot? I wouldn’t give you a dime for that piece of crap....Well, you see what happened.
Oh, and Doug’s comment had me LOL! So yeah, I do think humour has the element of the unexpected but if we’re just talking about reviews - snark away!
What I don’t like is people who feel the need to assign movtives for those who write negative reivews. “Oh, they’re just jealous or a wannabe or they’re just mud wallowers” Uh, no, your book sucked and I wasted long hours of my life that could have been used to watch grass grow.
Okay, enough from me.
CindyS
SB Sarah said on...I was thinking about Candy’s post on the subway this morning, because the subway car was covered front to back with advertisements for Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 4 on DVD.
I have watched exactly one episode, so I am by no means an expert, but I didn’t think it was all that funny. And to be completely honest, I haven’t figured out why - though I have a gender-humor theory based on the fact that all the men in the room were laughing till they cried while I and two other women in the room lost interest. I am sure I am wrong about this but perhaps it’s a unique brand of dude humor. But that’s irrelevant to the discussion of humor as pertains to reviews.
There’s a fine line for humor with me, speaking purely for myself, because I hate it when people are mean - yet I have one of the meanest senses of humor. I can say some horrible things about people and while I never do it outloud except to Hubby, when I do he wets his pants laughing. But I know how hurtful it would be to have someone say that to my face so I keep my mouth shut. Meanwhile, it’s all Carrie Fisher/Don Rickles in my head.
When speaking on reviews, though, it’s hard. For example, I’m reading a book by an author whose last book I kind of liked, but this one features a heroine who is so inconsistent and so almighty goddam stupid at times I want to shake her by her earlobes. However, when it comes time to write the review, do I want to bust with the meanness and let out everything I thought? Honestly: no, because I imagine myself on the receiving end of that review and cringe.
Mean and sensitive. It’s a crapful combination to be. Does this mean I’m an unreliable reviewer? I don’t think so; I do temper my snark with fair critique so as not to be a total asshole, but since I know authors read this site I’m not busting out with the unfair savagery when I don’t like a book. It’s not censoring myself, per se, but I am conscious of how much I unleash.
CindyS: If I can get serious for a moment, humor is all about the unexpected. That’s why telling the same joke over and over again never works. (Sorry, but I never found Steve Martin’s “Well, excuuuuse me!” funny after the first time.) What humor requires is that the author look at the world askew.
That said . . . Sarah: Carrie Fisher and Don Rickles in your head? Eeew, girl. Eeew.
<object.
Yes that; and it often has the aspect that the victim deserves what he gets. We have this large well in front of the New Town Hall, and of course, on warm days kids and dogs use to play in it. There sits this old man near the well and instead of looking for a quieter place, mutters and mumbles - quite audibly - about badly educated kids and dogs who make, you know noise. Next thing this beautiful Collie plays a bit in the water, walks directly towards the mutterbutt like a King, and shakes himself. And believe me, there’s a lot of water in a Collie fur.
Schadenfreude, anyone? :-)
Or the politician who preaches all the time that society goes down the river because people cheat on each other, and then it turns out he has a mistress. Hänänänäää ;-P
Pardon the self-linkage, but this post got me all prompted to compile a list of my best, most nitpicky reviews here. And rereading them again was FUN.
I do have to admit that my best and most fun reviews to write are the ones where I’m all, “Okay, why on earth did they do THAT in the plot? It doesn’t make SENSE!” I love nitpicking so much that it almost makes me want to join a book club so I’d have people who had also read the book to bitch about it with. (Except I don’t join book clubs because those folks don’t want to read the stuff I do and vice versa.)
Even more fun are bad movie reviews. (Yes, I do own that Ebert book.) My favorite one ever was written by a guy I used to work with about Nutty Professer 2, in which half the review (which took up most of a page) could be summed up as, “I can’t POSSIBLY tell you how bad this movie is,” only repeated ad infinitum. Damn, I wish I still had a copy of that.
A Smart Bitches Testimonial. (Or, How Smart Bitches Makes the World a Better Place.)
After thinking about what makes things funny so much yesterday I had a totally amazing dream last night that involved laughing till my abdomen hurt and tears streamed down my face. Can’t remember today what was so damned funny in the dream, but boy did I wake up in a good mood this morning. Thanks Smart Bitches - you’re the best!
That’s even better than having an orgasm in a dream! WOW.
You are welcome!
Just to make it clear to anyone who had doubts, SBs is verra educational. It’s an odd coincidence, but I just read a magazine article that had the word schadenfreude in it. Yesterday morning, I’d have wondered, what the hell does that mean? Today, I’m better educated.
Now I don’t have to feel guilty for reading SBs instead of writing.
Stef, always anxious for any reason to procrastinate…
What I don’t like is people who feel the need to assign movtives for those who write negative reivews.
Oh, me too, Cindy. Isn’t reading a shitful book motive enough?
Mean and sensitive. It’s a crapful combination to be.
That’s why I enjoy being mean and self-centered, mwaaaahaaa.
Criticism stings, and harsh criticism stings more, but when it’s accurate (or what I perceive as accurate), I appreciate it. The one short story class I took, besides being memorable for the weird stories that one girl wrote about hot high school girls getting it on with their math teachers, was an excellent object lesson in Not Taking Criticism Personally. After getting over my “But the story I wrote was so AWESOME!” stupidity, I realized my classmates made excellent points: my fiction prose style tends to lean towards overblown, the motivations for the characters in my stories were often muddled if not outright contradictory, etc. And on re-reading some of those short stories now, I am in awe at the restraint those classmates showed, because seriously? Bucket. Of. Shit.
...humor is all about the unexpected. That’s why telling the same joke over and over again never works.
Yup. And it’s also why explaining a joke to someone when they don’t initially get it rarely works.
(And I’m one of those horrible people who will wrestle the joke-teller to the ground and make ‘em EXPLAIN TO ME the joke if I don’t get it, even though I know that at best, I’ll go “Oh yeah, that was pretty amusing.")
Oh, and touching once again on schadenfreude: I think the best definition of it would be “What I felt when I found out that Rush Limbaugh was addicted to oxycontin.” Now, drug addiction is not really a laughing matter for me; I’ve seen up close what it can do and has done to people close to me, and the brother of one of my best friends blew his brains out partly because of his meth addiction. But I made an exception for Rush, and felt a spurt of unkind glee when I heard the news.
Jennifer, thanks for the link. Awesome!
And fiveandfour: you’re welcome, and thank YOU for providing many awesome comments on this site.
white raven said on...Candy said: Criticism stings, and harsh criticism stings more, but when it’s accurate (or what I perceive as accurate), I appreciate it.
Exactly. When you and Sarah critiqued my fiction, a lot of it stung. But it was dead-on in its review of the shortcomings. And once I got over the initial flinch factor, it was very funny.
I like snarky humor in a review, even when it’s directed my way. Where you two didn’t cross the line was taking personal potshots. That’s when it becomes the evil review, or no longer a review, just a flame, and I’ve never seen that happen in a book review on SB.
I think snark or sharp, cutting wit can be very funny, and is usually refined to an art form by those who can also snark at themselves. Twain, Wilde and Voltaire come to mind.
When I review a book, I review only the book. I barely even mention the author. If you read any of my reviews, you will see that I will snark on the characters, the situation they find themselves in, the dialogue, but never the author… but I could be wrong on that. I think there might be a review for a Susan Napier book where I called her names. Hmm.
Shit, I take it back. I make fun of the authors, too. Man, I’m going to hell.
Re: the alligator Far Side, Candy, I agree that the “you idiot” or “you fool” (I forget which it was in the actual cartoon) does add a bit of punch and rhythm and characterization of the gator (heh). But if it said, “Of course I did it in cold blood! I’m a reptile!” it would still be funny. Whereas if a human were on the stand, who said, “Of course I did it in cold blood, you fool!” it wouldn’t be funny at all. So I’d say in that case at least, the source of the humor is not in the snide attitude or humiliation of the unseen prosecutor. That’s just a little frosting.
I agree with those who said that one source of humor is the unexpected twist on our expectations, and that’s the kind of humor I personally go for pretty much every time. I do think it is more difficult, and therefore more rare.
Another kind of related humor is taking the logic to its extreme conclusion. That’s usually what makes me laugh at the bookcover commentary here; you guys are good at noticing some small weirdness and then spinning it out to the end of its logic, and that’s funny.
It’s fairly easy for snide or nasty humor to degenerate into easy potshots, so I set the bar a lot higher with snide or snark, myself. For me, if you are gonna snark, you’d better have a twist that really does make it funny, or it’s just self-indulgence. (This being the universal You.) The proliferation of blogs has made me even more picky. Seems everybody out there has decided to “liberate their snark” and as usual, when the whole herd is doing something, most of it is pretty mediocre quality. ;)
“I have something to confess. I don’t know how to review a good book. I find it easier to rip a book to shreds. . . .Shit, I take it back. I make fun of the authors, too. Man, I’m going to hell.”
Oy. Bam. How’s about I send you 2.99 plus shipping and maybe a reasonable bribe and in exchange you toss your unread copy of my book?
Oh, no no, Kate. I’m reading YOUR books. :)
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08.25.05 at 12:44 PM |