25 January 2013

Young critics don't want unrealistic stories

Cynical-C Blog collects one-star reviews from Amazon and assembles them in a feature called "You Can't Please Everyone."  Herewith some one-star reviews of Animal Farm.
Of all the things I have ever read! What a terrible and unrealistic story. I mean, how can animals talk? I have a parrot that talks but not in complete sentences. And besides the pigs run the show in this and if it really happened the cats would run things because everyone knows that cats are born leaders. Anyway, I wouldn’t reccomend this book to my worst enemy. I read this book to my nephew, Simon and he started crying and now he is afraid of pigs and horses because he says that they will rise up and establish a totalitarianist state and will rule over us. Ughhhh! It gives me a head ache.

Perhaps the worst book I have ever layed eyes on. I can’t stand this kind of unrealistic plot, (whose ever heard of pigs giving lectures about politics). If I weren’t having to read this for English 10 I could be digging into a true classic and my holidays would be much more enjoyable.

Its is so annoying to see liberals writing books in politics, and i dont care who they attack- Liberals hate everybody else. Stupid guy had to express his feelings and whine about Russia. Okay Russia was bad, but this is just annoying. I didnt learn anything new, and even if i did i probably wouldnt care. A kid who reads this is going to be shocked at what he reads, no magic, just boring old crap.

7 comments:

  1. "no magic, just boring old crap".

    Welcome to life, kid! I guess Orwell at least got that part right.

    How old is this kid, and how has (s)he happened to be reading "Animal Farm" without someone first explaining even the basics of the concept of satire?

    We read it in grade nine, and I seem to remember most of us getting it, even if some needed a little prodding. But then again, we also had the luxury of having previously studied at least a little world history...

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  2. It's obviously a trolling or probably ironic review.

    It's mostly believable, but whoever is able to write "establish a totalitarianist state" has obviously understood the book then the review makes no sense anymore...

    Anyway, I always found the pigs "running the show" very appropriate. As we say in Germany: Wherever there is a trough, the pigs will assemble.
    Smart animals.

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  3. Wouldn't be surprised if they were actually adults....


    whose[sic} ever heard of pigs giving lectures about politics

    It happens multiple times a day, my child!

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  4. Yeah, I declare ironic voice. Nobody as stupid as this person purports to be would bother to read past the first chapter.

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  5. Interesting to note that Orwell wrote to a friend telling him that his American publisher had turned down the book because they didn't publish children's stories.

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  6. When I was around 10 years old, I had just finished the last book in Walter Brooks's wonderful Freddy the Pig series and was wandering disconsolately around the library (my parents let me take out any books I wanted) looking for something else to read. I don't remember whether it was in the children's section, but I spotted Animal Farm, looked through it quickly, saw it was about talking animals--including pigs!--and was thrilled that I could continue to feed my Freddy addiction.

    Ugh. What an awful experience. I kept expecting for all the things that were so obviously going wrong to straighten themselves out in time for a happy ending.

    I was depressed for days.

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  7. After my head finished exploding and I'd reinserted the resulting goo back into my brain-pan, I got to thinking: there probably doesn't exist a man alive who needs to read Animal Farm MORE. Plus, be dragged bodily to the slave camps in Magadan, Siberia, and then be forced to read a decent biography of Orwell. And lastly, somebody needs to give him a blood-pressure pill. But heck, maybe he was just kidding! If he was, BEST JOKE EVER.

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