Please tell me this is a joke.

[cynchick]

This makes me want to throw up. Check out #88. Yeah. It's really there.

Now I realize this is not a consensus of literary critics or scholars or intellectuals, but the fact remains that the everymen who were polled, in all seriousness, listed that book - an utter piece of no-talent tripe at best, a socially dangerous instrument of prescriptive propaganda at worst - as one of the best of all time.

I don't care if you liked this book, and I don't want to hear any of the defensive stock arguments about "entertainment" or whatever. I'm not going to go rounds with anyone about this stupid book anymore. Because if you seriously believe, in any context, that it deserves to be listed next to so many other examples of true literary epicness...well then we have nothing to say to each other.

In other rageworthy news, as I was getting onto the freeway to go to school this morning, there was a guy standing at the exit ramp with a ten foot banner displaying blown up pictures of aborted fetuses (the Planned Parenthood is right around the corner). I seriously wanted to get out of the car and punch him in the face.

Comments

[gothirishrose.livejournal.com]

Okay here's my take on #88: It's next to Umberto Freakin Eco. I met him when I worked at the University of Georgia. He has more creativity in his pinky than she has in her whole marketing department. Oops did I say that?

I don't hate those stories, but they do NOT belong on that list. Gah!

[me-ninjakitty.livejournal.com]

I only clicked on the link to be sure 88 was what I thought it was. LOL

[korinacaffeine.livejournal.com]

Yuck to both events of your day. :(

[cynchick.livejournal.com]

I would LOL too if it wasn't such a goddamned travesty.

[me-ninjakitty.livejournal.com]

I just find it sad I had to check

[nimblnymph.livejournal.com]

...Wut.

Sorry, but I have no words.

[strange_quark]

lol how sad is it I knew what book you meant before I clicked the link?

Eh, whatever. I never put much stock in "best novel" lists anyway. The one I see thrown about that was compiled by literary critics is far to heavy on Hemingway and Faulkner and way too light on female or minority authors for my tastes, for example.

As for the other thing, there are "I chose life" ads in the bus stops all around the hospital I work at. Would I could believe it was actually about choice and not about the anti-choice movement mocking our rhetoric.

[zelha.livejournal.com]

I knew what pissed you off even before I clicked the link.

I bet they polled a bunch of high-school girls, or simply a bunch of desperate, horny housewives that have nothing to do between making lunch, ironing and the soap opera prime time.

Sad, sad world. If I was compiling that list, I would have left Austen at the very end of it. Just me. XD

[cynchick.livejournal.com]

Yeah everyone seemed to know exactly what book it was before looking. Imagine that.

The thing that baffles me is that the list is made from an algorithm that compiles each individual voters top 10. Twilight is the only epically stand-out shitty book on the list, the only one that inarguably does not deserve to be there. The rest are all known classics with some legit merit. This list wasn't comprised by 100% silly tweens. So that means that someone out there, or several people, when making their top 10 lists, actually included classics like War and Peace in the same category as Twilight. Cognitive dissonance much?

[eldrfire.livejournal.com]

Ugh that's annoying, but the fact that it made it to #88 on the list indicates that its fanbase put in a good word for it but even with their inflated numbers it still couldn't beat out 87 other great books (not that all of the other books on the list are always that great!). Don't worry, 50 years from now it won't be on the list. Honestly I'm more annoyed that the DaVinci Code is on there.

[secretsheik.livejournal.com]

Oh good lord, WHY?! "All quiet on the western front" was far superior to this shit!

Ugh, I don't mind pro-life people who present a clean and logical argument, same with pro-choice people. Just keep things civil, people. Come on. Gah.