Goodreads / odyssey

librarything is trash, imagine the fat purple haired librarian that sits at her desk like jabba the hut and scowls at you as her life is gradually automated away.

that's essentially the people that use librarything.

Goodreads is absolute trash

Do you notice if there is a disparity in review quality between fiction and non-fiction? I figure fiction leaves room to be misread or misinterpreted and can more aptly result in plebby commentary.

>Rating out of 5 the Odyssey

This is where we're at now. This is what the unlimited progression of individualism has produced. A generation of teenagers who think they can just pick up a translation of the Odyssey and - without further research or reflexion - emit an opinion that will hold sufficient value for them to want to share it with the rest of the world.

Individualism has a role here, but it's only being enabled to this extent by the progression of communications technology. Or perhaps it's not being enabled, but you're simply able to see more of the people's stupid opinions than you were in the past. Putting an opinion out into the world doesn't have much gravity today.

The alternative is to disregard these review sites altogether. I honestly don't understand why some people use other people's opinions as barometers.

If it were not for individualism, the use made of the new communication technologies would be drastically different.

Tarkovsky must be an idiot for turning this into a movie. Andrea absolutely destroyed it.

>despicable Nestor
What did Nestor do wrong?

>I honestly don't understand why some people use other people's opinions as barometers.

because the majority of Veeky Forums is desperate for the mob's approval.

>Circe and Calypso
>hospitable
what

How do you feel user? How do you deem our progress? All the technology and work that has been done to this day, so (she) can spit out her worthless opinion on a text that is arguably the foundation of western thinking and on par with the Bible when it comes to influence. People like this are basically Thersites, badmouthing other people and things that are infinitely better and worth more than they are. Just there is no Odysseus around to slap em with a scepter.

>muh progress

Euphoric.

>women
What a meme, Mark!

b-b-ut lit told me reading secondary scholarly literature about mainworks is wrong!

>plot is cliche
This is how I can tell this guy is just spouting buzzwords. This isn't even his own euphoric opinion (I doubt he even spent one second of his life thinking about the bible properly), he is just seeking attention by using words he doesn't know the meaning of that he heard people with twice his IQ say.

But it is, in fact, cliché, and don't tell me it was new at the time because it wasn't.
Compare the New Testament to Diogenes Laërtius' Lives of the Eminent Philosophers

Jesus is born of a virgin? Plato also proceeded from a geriatric mother with an intact hymen.
Archangel Gabriel announces her the news? Plato gets visited by Apollo in person.
The son of Joseph is actually son of God? Pythagoras disciples think he is Apollo in person who came from among the Hyperboreans.
Jesus performs miracles, like curing the blind and raising the dead? Just like Empedocle who, also, resurrects a cadaver.
Jesus is good at performing predictions? Same thing with Anaxagoras, who can predict meteorites landings.
Jesus lends his voice to something bigger and more powerful than him? What about Socrates and his daimon?
Jesus converts people with his oratory talents and rethoric? All the antique philosophers act with a similar talent.
The relationship between Jesus and John, the favorite disciple? The same units Epicurus and Metrodorus.
The man from Nazareth speaks metaphorically and acts like an enigma? Pythagoras too.
He never writes, only once on the sand with a stick only to erase it immediately? Same for Socrates.
Jesus dies for his ideas? Socrates again.
At Gethsemane, the prophets knows a life-changing night. So did Socrates in a similar darkness at Potidaea.
Mary learns of her future in a dream? Socrates dreams of a swan and meets Plato the next day.
Pythagoras also does the whole resurrection thing, but slower. Where Jesus waited three days, Pythagoras waits for 207 years before coming back to Greece.

And that's not to mention the miracles attributed to Jesus seem to be an amalgamation of ones attributed to other Jewish prophets of his time.

>B...but muh hat meme
Start reading and maybe you won't have a kneejerk reaction the next time someone criticizes the Bible.

You're conveniently forgetting to mention the old testament in your list of "cliches".
Do you even know what the word means? Just because something mythical has been written about before once doesn't make it cliche. Half of your examples are complete bogus.

>Jesus converts people with his oratory talents and rethoric? All the antique philosophers act with a similar talent.
I guess human interaction is a cliche? Fuck off.

Wow! Its like human thought isn't composed of volcanic eruptions of pure genius and it seems that thought is actually transferred from generation to generation and thinker to thinker.

Also your little comparison of presocratic and postsocratic thinkers with Jesus is pretentious and blatantly incorrect. How can you compare Christianity or the message of Jesus to anything that the presocratic philosophers interested in how nature works did. Even Empedocles, arguably the guy who is mostly into religion next to Pythagoras isn't as nearly obsessed with God or any questions that could be connected with Jesus. Do the Greeks have a concept of salvation? Do they feel the need to be saved? You just bunched together same biographical accounts that seem similar to you. Do you think the Bible only rose to such popularity and influence because the ancient texts were "lost"?
How can you compare the agonal spirit of the Greeks with anything that is remotely similar to the message of Jesus? How was anything Jesus said or did in the New Testament overused or mentioned in that form earlier. I'm a Greekaboo myself but you have to get from your high horse and stop tipping that Fedora of yours and acknowledge something that is indeed not so cliche as you think and undeniably important in the history of thought per se. The fact that you can find a amalgam of Stoic and Epicurean thought in early Christianity doesn't mean its Cliche or a ripoff or whatever you fedora wearers think. It's just the way the history of thinking works, people react to ideas, expand them and build them into something else.

Reddit is yonder way, fedora-friend. I hear contrived, copy-pasted comparisons between Jesus and other ancient figures are all the rage there.

I was talking about the plot but there are also metaphysical similarities. The body of Jesus eats symbols, but doesn't digest. The Messiah is never hungry or thirsty, he doesn't sleep, nor defecates, doesn't copulate, doesn't laugh. Socrates neither. Remember the Apology, in which Plato shows us a character who ignores the effects of alcohol and doesn't tire. Pythagoras too appears clothed of an anti-body, a spiritual flesh, incorruptible, insensitive to the effects of time, reality, and entropy.
Plato and Jesus both believe in life after death and the existence of an immaterial soul.

I don't see what you're trying to prove by showing theological differences. My point is the character of Jesus obeys the same genre as Homer's Ulysses, Tyana's Apollonius or Petronus' Encolpius. This is the methods you employ if you want to convince your audience of the exceptional aspect of your characters.

Do you really consider those adequate answers to literary examples? Unironically dropping the hat meme again? Why do brainlet think it works? Maybe people would take you seriously if you didn't start screeching as soon as someone attempts a reading of the Bible as a historical text.

>this is what reddit """"humor"""" looks like

I have plenty of rage-inducing reviews from goodreads

...

Thanks Veeky Forums, now I'm officially fucking mad.

What? You are cherry picking. Plato literally tells us how a mania comes over Socrates when he meets young boys. He lusts after them aesthetically and sexualy. Socrates admires Alcibiades; Alcibiades literally tries to seduce Socrates in the Symposium. Does this sound messianic to you? Just because Plato isn't intentionally stating how Socrates is taking a piss somewhere doesn't mean that he implies any divinity or Messianic character.

The cult of Pythagoras is somewhat different and maybe has certain similarities but I wouldn't stress it too far. Especially since Pythagoras is revered because of the secret knowledge which is about the world, as well as about the heavens above. Jesus is denying the world. Not getting into the Pythagorean take on the "Eternal recurrence of history", and all other things which could be pointed out as differences. Especially metaphysically.

Even if all of your points were factually right they wouldn't help your argument. A more modern version of your argument is basically that everyone who uses a similar approach in character development and psychological overtones after "Crime and Punishment" and "The house of dead" is falling into cliche since been there, done that. That is just not right.

If showing the prevalence of similar narratives isn't enough, then what would you consider a sufficient proof of a text being cliché?

I don't think its that easy to find a general rule. We could easily get into a argument over Aesthetics as well here if we try to explore a general rule which makes things Cliche. I would say banality and the over stressing of things that are available and know to anyone without any deeper analysis and/or meaning. Similar narratives don't seem to be the main problem, the Greek tragedians were using similar narratives that stem from myth all the time, yet no one tells them that they are cliche.

When I think of Cliche I think of things in the vein of: "Students take trip together and meet unspeakable horror/serial killer"; "girl drops book guy helps her with it and falls in love". Yet I would argue that any deeper narrative that is not cliche but built around these things is possible, if done by the right guy. There is another whole level of cliche when we talk about sociology. But yea, bla bla. Basically, case to case study, and certainly not the Bible compared to anything.

>and certainly not the Bible
Why exclude it?

>"Students take trip together and meet unspeakable horror/serial killer"; "girl drops book guy helps her with it and falls in love"
Well yeah but obviously those are contemporary ones, the only way to assess what a cliche would have been at the time is literary comparison.

librarything is fine too.
i don't really like ui of gr

I'd exclude the Bible because I don't think its cliche. Not even when compared to obvious influences as the mythology of the old east and Greek philosophical influences.

If literally comparison is your method of choice you still wouldn't be able to prove that the Bible is a cliche on that merit since there are influences, but nothing of that which the Bible puts into a whole has been overused or overdone. It is arguable if you could find something in the ancient Greek cultural production that has been done too much. The sample is to small, the literacy as well, the whole intellectual discourse is limited. If you look at the word itself, its gaining popularity only in the mid 19th century. Also, I'd argue that the Greek agonal spirit was fundamentally opposed to something we would deem as cliche today.

>The Messiah is never hungry or thirsty, he doesn't sleep, nor defecates
This is heretical within orthodox Christianity.
>clothed of an anti-body, a spiritual flesh, incorruptible, insensitive to the effects of time, reality, and entropy.
So is this.

That's actually funny though, the end sentence is a bit too overtly euphoric, but apart from that it's all sharpexhalethroughthenose tier

>blacked out

Op, is this you?

How is that not messianic?

That is what cliché is though, you seem to have the mistaken view that if something isn't copied word for word or to your arbitrary degree of similarity, it's not cliché

>the Bible isn't clichéd because I don't think the Bible is clichéd

I explained it in
Read the whole discussion or fuck off.

Just being incredibly incredulous about things, saying "look, this tiny bit doesn't exist in Greek lit so it's not clichéd and similar narratives aren't an example of cliché (even though they clearly are) ", saying "only these things are clichés, the things in the Bible aren't clichés, because I say so" is not explaining

>incredulous

Then do tell us how the Bible is cliched, if my argument is not persuasive enough.

It uses similar narratives, development and themes.
explained that nicely, and your weak post back contained very little arguments, and the arguments that were there were weak and are summarised

Do tell me, are the three great tragedians cliched, since you can't deny that they use a similar narrative, a MUCH more similar narrative than anything in the Bible compared to any influence, Greek or Eastern.

The Cambridge dictionary defines cliche as: a >saying or remark that is very often made and is therefore not original and not interesting

So lets look at the Bible as a whole, the eastern mythology that was used as inspiration (great flood ect.), and the Greek philosophical influences which are mainly seen in the New Testament (mainly stoic, some epicurean) are, lets repeat, narratives that were overly used, or anything that you could put into the definition of the Cambridge dictionary or any other valid definition of the word cliche? Do you seriously believe that? Have you even read the Old testament, which older Veeky Forums is similar? The old eastern myths sure as hell are NOT, when it comes how the Bible is written (not talking about the actual themes). The New Testament is clearly influenced by Greek philosophical thought, but is it a cliched copy of Greek lit and philosophy...? Nigger please.

Do answer my question about the Greek tragedians first please.

I don't listen to audio books and I get the need for having to cut parts - but it still seems like a pretty valid complaint. There are audiobooks without any cuts.

>muh clicheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
who cares if you dig it

The thing that really annoys me about people reviewing "hard" or inaccessible books is that they always build themselves up as intelligent and highly achieved in academia before blaming their inability to understand a work on the work itself. When I cannot understand a work, and my poor comprehension is a result not of poor writing but of literary complexity, I will accept that I am not at a level of academic or literary ability to read the book.
Finnegan's wake - as of yet I cannot understand it. Is Joyce a shit pretentious writer because I don't know what he is saying in the book? Fuck no, I am just not well read and academically practiced enough to read it. There are many books which I can't understand, and I am more than happy to accept my inability to understand is a shortfalling of my own - not the books.
Why are people so afraid of accepting their own weaknesses? How can you grow as a person if you so desperately find fault in external objects to avoid self criticism.

Jesus breaths? So does Sophocles
Did He die? Guess what, my grandfather did too
Jesus has put in a cross? Well, there were 2 guys beside him already!

>He fell for the Finnegans Wake meme.

Like, it was just the first piece of difficult literature to come to mind so I decided to use it, but you get what I mean right? And really Fin Wake has immense literary worth, don't overlook it just because it is infamously difficult.

How do you know if you admit that you can't understand it?

It's like the reviews I saw on that ironic weeb bible yesterday.

Based on academic perception, and my previous experiences with Joyce I will easily presume that it (or really any other part of the literary canon I am unable to understand for that matter) has at least a respectable level of literary merit until I am able to read it for myself. I will always take that stance over the
>LEL you fell for the fannypack woke meme ecksdee
stance. Does that mean I will disagree if someone who actually has read it brings into question its literary merit? Fuck no, I am just making a presumption based of fairly reliable factors.
I don't think it is wrong to make assumptions over the quality of a work based off of these factors, it is only wrong if you try and assert your assertions within the context of a literary discussion of the work (which is why i disagree with people giving negative reviews of the nature outlined in my first post when they dont understand a book).

I do not mean to preach a mindless acceptance of literary merit, but just an educated expectation.

good post

Just introduce them to the term "chunking" from cognitive psychology. That's essentially what many people's complaints are that you've raised (I imagine you'd be familiar with people's complaints about "word salad"). To interact with the text you've got a whole bunch of concepts that reference other concepts in a web of inter-relationships. So as you say, it's a matter of understanding the chunked together elements that themselves are related to other chunks.

Derrida's use of term "differance" is somewhat similar (another web-like structure of ever changing meaning related to other meanings), but those same sorts of people tend not to be persuaded by such terminology.

>Since I have such a great interest in greek literature
Lmao how can they be serious, what greek literature could she even be familiar with after 1 starring the Iliad

How much of a cunt do you have to be to call the Bible cliched. That is way to foundational of a work to be called cliched like we are critiquing the latest fantasy novel

Circe turned some of his crew members into pigs; Calypso imprisoned him on his island and intended to force him to marry her. Both were semi-divine beings.

Odysseus has every right to be proud as he was one of the commanders that led to Troy's destruction, and as for his comrades, he tried to keep them safe as best he could: he managed to get them out of the Cyclops' cave, ffs. Then when he reaches the Phaeacia and listens to the song of the bard about the very war he had consummated, he weeps in a very poignant passage of the Odyssey. He fought with the men this bard was singing about. THEY ARE GONE AND IT BRINGS HIM TO TEARS IN REALIZATION, YOU STUPID BITCH.

>servant and wife
>easy to deceive and manipulate
How? He comes back to reclaim his wife from the suitors and has to ensure his cover isn't blown because the suitors noticed that his wife is strangely more cheerful than before. The servant discovers who he is because of his scar and protects his identity.

>the Iliad is much better literature
THEM'S FIGHTING WORDS, BITCH.

So why shouldn't it be used as a criticism about it? A computer from 10 years ago will be called slow, why shouldn't a story with outdated elements not be called out on it? Just because they are reasons for this aspect sucking, doesn't mean it sucks any less.

>person has read the book
>person has shared their opinion on it
>this is somehow an issue
It's not like you have to value their opinion.

The point isn't that "book x is bad" but exactly "Andrea found book x bad", you as a reader of her opinion(s) can decide whether it helps you or not. I honestly don't get whether this board is getting more and more braindead or whether this thread is a fucking ruse.

>muh don't like don't read
On this site we mock people for their retarded opinions, and we have fun doing it. Go back to the other place if that strikes so much of a chord with you.

Come on man pretty sure shes talking about the Percy Jackson series

>person read the book
>had an opinion about it
>it's retarded because Veeky Forums told me too
Now that's pathetic.

You're joking right?

>every review posted ITT, with the exception of 2 or 3, was written by a woman
Really makes you think, doesn't it?

It's retarded because I think it's fucking retarded, kiddo.

>unironically thinking wrong
That's even worse.

>>it's retarded because Veeky Forums told me too
No these are comically ignorant reviews. If you can't immediately appreciate how bad they are then you should really leave this board because who knows what other kind of stupid shit you are posting

You're missing the point of a review.

Fine then. Prove to me that "Andrea's" review of Solaris has some merit to it. I bet you can't because you've never read Solaris.

if story doesn't express modern views it should be taken in as a pro and not a con

The entire point and promise of a review is to give you the opinion of the reviewer, it gives you Andrea's view on the book with couple examples how she formed her opinions. Promise and purpose fulfilled. The only thing one could criticise about it, is that it doesn't offer you anything to perceive the book in an new light or learn anymore more than her opinion to round up the picture a bit.

You're coming at it from some silly expectation that a review is supposed to offer an objective perspective, which it never does and attempts tend to fail even harder than something as obviously subjective as the shit here.

>because you've never read Solaris
I've read quite a bit sci-fi shit when I was a kid, I honestly don't even remember where I read this one.

>the Iliad is much better literature
This part's true though.

The problem isn't that Andrea can't think. The problem is that Andrea doesn't know what thinking is; she confuses it with feeling.

Yes, but her opinion is based off a misreading of the book (how it happened astonishes me frankly). Second, just because it's an opinion does not exempt it from criticism.

I disagree. Although I prefer Achilles' code of honor, Odysseus is more relatable.

The difference is pretty nuanced actually, and our understanding of the processes is still too limited. Wouldn't go there, user.

First, no, they are based on her reading of it. Just because the author meant something else, is absolutely irrelevant. The point of a review from Andrea is what Andrea thinks about the book reviewed, not what the book says, that's what the summary and the book itself are there for. Misreading a book for a review is close to impossible, if you see that 50 Shades as a post-ironic marxist critique about capitalistic exploitation of the lower classes and women, the intent of the writer might've not reached you but it'd be still a perfectly valid way of perceiving it.

Second, of course, just it's a bit trickier to criticise opinions like that. If Andrea got a name of a character wrong, it's easy to correct her. When it comes to interpretation of the character actions or the author intentions, it'd be just guess vs guess, just better supported on the anti-Andrea side. Say, you got stabbed in the dick, that objectively happened, but whether you feel good or bad about it, and whether the person who did the stabbing did it by accident or not, that shit is up for grabs.

>First, no, they are based on her reading of it.
First, yes. She misread the book: Circe and Calypso did actions which warranted Odysseus' discontent/dislike.
>Just because the author meant something else,
No, if an author writes something and you interpret it wrong, you are wrong. If you base your opinion off of things that are factually false according the narrative, then you are an idiot. Simple as that.
>just it's a bit trickier to criticise opinions like that.
Yeah, it can be, but here it is clear-cut. Andrea is a moron who is functionally literate.
>but whether you feel good or bad about it, and whether the person who did the stabbing did it by accident or not, that shit is up for grabs.
No, it isn't. I know what I feel and I can express my displeasure to someone. On whether the stabbing was intentional or not, I would have to know the scenario to determine whether someone did it accidentally or not.

>Circe and Calypso did actions which warranted Odysseus' discontent/dislike.
But the writer(s) failed to get the point across to Andrea, which is what her review points out. If I write a brutal rape story and my audience interprets it as a wacky romantic comedy, why would they be wrong, if they found it really funny and romantic instead of how I intended it? If a part of a test audience didn't get the vague ending or some reference, while another part did, it only means that the movies intent didn't reach them all.

Also Circe and Calypso literally did nuffin' wrong in the context of the world either way. Odysseus himself was the biggest dick across the story, and then there are his bits from Iliad, come on. Dude was lucky as fuck others weren't as horrible as he was. But in the end this all means dick, since the point of a review, once again, is to offer us a perspective from the reviewer. If you had a 5 year old reviewing War and Peace, you're going to get a perfectly valid and accurate review about War and Peace ... from a 5 year old. If the kid thinks Prince Vassily was a nice guy, then he was a nice guy for the kid and the intent of the story is irrelevant when talking about a review.

>I can express my displeasure to someone.
Who said anything about displeasure, maybe you just discovered your new fetish?
And depending on the scenario, it wouldn't be enough to tell the intent either way, even if you could read the mind of the dick stabber.

>there are only 7 reviews in here with identifiable gender
>half of them are women
>half the population of the world are women

really makes you think

ITT:
>6 female reviewers
>2 male reviewers
>1 unidentified gender
Not exactly 50/50, huh?

You can always tell when someone's a pleb when they say "I just didn't want to let this book defeat me"

I've heard this line of thinking over and over again and I just don't get it. It's like they think the book is actively plotting, conniving and fighting against them.
It's as though they regard books as mortal enemies that they must slay. When instead they should be approaching them from a want of knowledge or even enjoyment.
I can only imagine that when they finish a renowned novel they take more pleasure in being able to say that they've read it than in anything actually in the book.

They're right about the Illiad though.

On one side the marvelous parable of Alien visitors to us having a Roadside picnic and leaving stuff behind; seeing man as the Ant that is picking up the pieces after such an event. Ignore that shit. Who cares about that. Here is the real issue:
WHAT, THREE FEMALE CHARACTERS? NOT FEMINIST ENOUGH REEEEEE

Good post, user.

>What, there is some deeper meaning?
>A philosophical background to your work?
>Why won't something happen?
>Why doesn't this read like a Karl May novel?

How do the Brothers hold up to Crime and Punishment?

You're an idiot and I'll explain why. These reviews are not laughable because they rate masterpieces badly; but because they do so while displaying an impressive lack of understanding of the historical context and of the book point itself. As simply as taking an ironic text as a literal one, or criticising the portrayal of slavery of an author from 2000+ years ago.

It's respectable to rate anything poorly; but understand the book and its context, and then give your reasons.

Slightly worse than Crime and Punishment for me, still marvelous. Also one of the most important texts of D., especially for parts as the "The Grand Inquisitor". Its really hard for me to decide but on purely personal ground I prefer Crime and Punishment because I like Raskolnikov as a character more than any other of D. characters.

>historical context and of the book point itself.
Is irrelevant for the enjoyment of the material. Most victorian novels got inflated world-counts because of the way authors got paid, should people just ignore that Dickens puking out paragraph after paragraph without saying anything? If a book has a certain flaw (which is all subjective either way) there might be an explanation for why this flaw exist but it doesn't take shit away. If you ended your novel in the middle of a sentence because you run out of time, it's an incomplete ending and people are right to complain about that.

>Is irrelevant for the enjoyment of the materia
No.

You conflate feeling for thinking.

It's certainly not irrelevant for the enjoyment of the book. You can't enjoy a parody as a parody without any knowledge of the thing it parodies.
If your review boils down to «I got bored», that usually tells more about you than about the author.
It's not like we're saying such reviews should be banned, everyone is on their right to put up a review; we're just saying they're shit.
Once again, I'm not arguing against the criticising of old masterpieces. What you said about victorian novels tends to be true, and see, that's an argument that can be valuable, it's not: «the use of the N word offends me».

>t. women

>don't like reading about slaves
>book got slaves
Yeah, that's going to be a fun read because it's historical correct.

>You can't enjoy a parody as a parody without any knowledge of the thing it parodies.
Sure, and there is nothing wrong writing a review about how you didn't enjoy it because you didn't get it, since well, you didn't.

>If your review boils down to «I got bored», that usually tells more about you than about the author
As long you can tell why you got bored, it's a pretty good review. Besides, all a review can tell you is about the persons opinion of the book, even if you try to be objective and include reasons for why this happened and why that was acceptable, it's still boils down to reflecting the personal opinion of the reviewer. Only when they overstep their line and pretend it's somehow objective they fucked up

Someone who is afraid of naked bodies, won't enjoy a naked painting, they aren't supposed to since it's not for them. There is no piece of art, no matter how well done that can be enjoyed by everyone, why would it be an issue to point it out, as long the reviewer doesn't bitch about how naked bodies are objectively unenjoyable?