A Space & astronomy forum. SpaceBanter.com

Go Back   Home » SpaceBanter.com forum » Others » UK Astronomy
Site Map Home Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

What Amazon doesn't want you to know.



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old November 12th 05, 12:20 PM
Margaret Shiels
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default What Amazon doesn't want you to know.

Gentle uk.sci.astronomy reader,

First, my apology for cross-posting to this NG. Be assured that this is
a one-off. It will never happen again.

My sole purpose is to draw your attention to what I believe are dubious
practices by Amazon.co.uk. I also believe that at stake here is freedom
of expression.

Amazon have rejected my reader review of a novel by John McGahern. In
the UK and Ireland it was published under the title, "That They May
Face The Rising Sun". In the USA and elsewhere it's entitled simply
"The Lake".

You may have read it. You may even have thoroughly enjoyed it.

That is not the issue. The issue is that Amazon refuse to publish my
review. First, they ignored it. When it failed to appear, they fed me
the excuse of their moderators being too busy to read it. Next they
insisted (three times) that it did not comply with their review
guidelines.

I copied their guidelines to my Amazon correspondent and asked her to
specify the guidelines with which my review did not comply. She replied
that she could not be specific.

When I threatened to expose Amazon on the net, they relented, and said
that my review broke two of their rules. (It did not.) But I amended
it, and you can read it below. You'll see that, although it's critical,
there are other reviews on Amazon.co.uk that are far more critical than
mine.

So what's going on? Have they done a deal with McGahern's publisher? It
would not surprise me; the book trade has became increasingly corrupt.
Why do you think that only a small number of books get reviewed in the
papers — and that they're the same books in each paper? Because they're
the best books at that moment? Think again.

Read the actual READER reviews on Amazon and see how they compare with
the newspaper reviews. You will read lines like: "I bought this book
because I believed all the hype. I was very disappointed."

We are being conned.

Anyhow, I dutifully submitted the amended review, with the assurance
that it would appear within 5 days. It did not.

The astute reader will understand that this could continue ad nauseam,
with Amazon trying to wear me down so much that I would give up and
forget it.

I won't. Free speech and free expression are at issue here. Amazon now
control something like 80% of book sales worldwide. They have killed
the small bookseller. Soon the medium-sized book store will follow, and
Amazon will have a monopoly.

At that point they can do anything they please. Try posting a very
critical book review then!

Sincerely, and my apologies again for the cross-posting!

Margaret Shiels

--------------------

[The review Amazon didn't want you to see:]

When MIGHT is right.

In his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, the apostle Paul wrote of
"those who are being lost, because they didn't receive the love of the
truth, that they might be saved. (2:10)"

What a shame that John McGahern didn't read his Scripture with a little
more diligence; had he done so, he might not have botched the grammar
in the very title of his book, and might instead have called it: "That
They MIGHT Face the Rising Sun". If the poor English had ended there
then all might have been well. As it is, when one gets past the title
page, it's all downhill.

The novel provides clear evidence that, once a writer's book is
denounced by the Catholic Church, all subsequent work will be praised
as literature. We need only think of the frightful Edna O'Brien....

And literature is what this book clearly is not, at least not when it's
read objectively, without the baggage of the encomia that have attached
themselves to McGahern over the years, like limpets on a whale's
buttocks.

It's terrible. I could not get beyond page 36. I tried; I genuinely
did. The lacklustre prose is indistinguishable from that of Alice
Taylor – in fact Taylor's outdoes McGahern's quite often. There is a
myth, no doubt put about by McGahern himself, that he overwrites
excessively, then prunes remorselessly. If that's the case, then the
out-takes of "TTMFTRS" must have been excruciatingly bad.

He has no style, plain and simple – indeed I'd have preferred "plain
and simple" rather than McGahern's weak and often cringe-making
attempts at style. The English language seems foreign to him. It's
English for Beginners, the vocabulary of the semi-educated. And one
would think, to read McGahern, that Peter Mark Roget had never drawn
breath. "Sure why use synonyms," he must reason, "when the one verb can
be made to serve every situation?" Everybody "walks" for example; no
sauntering, hastening, loping, striding or what have you. Clichés
proliferate, and inept ones at that: a bird drops "like a stone" (the
only time I ever saw a bird dropping like a stone was when my husband
let fall a frozen chicken in the supermarket).

All the characters speak with the same, dull, interchangeable voice.
Nor does the dialogue always ring true; at one point, for example, a
country person speaks the line, "None of us believes and we go", a
usage I've never encountered in rural Leitrim.

McGahern cannot write characters that engage me. Because all speak with
the same voice, it was difficult to choose between them, and as a
result, no one character held my attention.

His narrative is even worse than his dialogue: "His eyes glittered on
the pot as he waited, willing them to a boil." Classic Alice Taylor,
that. I flipped through the pages and chose passages at random. There
were no fine words or interesting turns of phrase that merited a
mention. In fact, all I found was mediocre writing, hardly better than
anything a schoolchild could write. And the syntax! Even that infamous
torturer of English syntax Anita Desai could do no worse than: "The
Shah rolled round the lake with the sheepdog in the front seat of the
car every Sunday and stayed until he was given his tea at six."

The dust jacket quotes the Observer; evidently it hailed McGahern as
"Ireland's greatest living novelist". Whoever wrote that should hang
his/her head in shame, and apologize at once to ... well, to everybody
really; such poor writing as this does Ireland no favours.

If I am wrong, and there truly is a great novel lurking between the
covers of this book, then why on earth bury it beneath such dreadful
prose? I honestly tried to allow this novel to grip me, but it failed
dismally. Should I have persevered simply because it was written by
"the finest Irish writer now working in prose"? The hell I should! Two
out of ten, and that's being generous.

  #2  
Old November 12th 05, 01:10 PM
Jim Attfield
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default What Amazon doesn't want you to know.

On Sat, 12 Nov 2005 11:20:02 +0000, Margaret Shiels
wrote:

Gentle uk.sci.astronomy reader,

First, my apology for cross-posting to this NG. Be assured that this is
a one-off. It will never happen again.


Pathetic excuse. Well, it won't happen to me...

PLONK!
  #3  
Old November 12th 05, 05:54 PM
DT
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default What Amazon doesn't want you to know.

Ha, rejected by Amazon!
The phrase 'sets a low standard then fails to achieve it' springs to
mind.
To be more constructive, never let your ego fool you into thinking that
the right to free speech includes the right to be listened to.
Perhaps you could post further evidence of your desire to publicise your
own foolishness to a literary group in future.

Hope this helps,
Denis
--
DT
change nospam: n o s p a m
v a l l e ys
  #4  
Old November 12th 05, 11:20 PM
Chuck Taylor
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default What Amazon doesn't want you to know.

My sole purpose is to draw your attention to what I believe are dubious
practices by Amazon.co.uk. I also believe that at stake here is freedom
of expression.


Oh my goodness! You are absolutely right! It is a giant
conspiracy! After all, the UN charter states that for other
people, "freedom of expression" merely means they are free to
express their viewpoint, but not that anyone else has to
listen, support or publish that viewpoint. But the UN charter
clearly goes on to state that for Margaret Shiels, it also
means everyone else has to publish at their own expense
whatever Margaret writes. I am certain that is written into
the constitution of every civilized nation on earth!

Of course, with that understanding, I am now about to break
the law in every civilized nation by putting you into my
killfile, which means I am stopping you from being published
on my computer.

How unlawful of me!

Clear Skies

Chuck Taylor
Do you observe the moon? If so, try
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lunar-observing/

If you enjoy optics, try
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ATM_Optics_Software/
*********************************************

  #5  
Old November 12th 05, 11:31 PM
Mark McIntyre
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default What Amazon doesn't want you to know.

On Sat, 12 Nov 2005 11:20:02 +0000, in uk.sci.astronomy , Margaret
Shiels wrote:

Gentle uk.sci.astronomy reader,

First, my apology for cross-posting to this NG. Be assured that this is
a one-off. It will never happen again.


Great. Please don't spam us with irrelevant stuff.
--
Mark McIntyre
CLC FAQ http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html
CLC readme: http://www.ungerhu.com/jxh/clc.welcome.txt

----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----
  #6  
Old November 13th 05, 07:35 PM
bloostar76
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default What Amazon doesn't want you to know.

Maybe it was just too long for them to fit it on the page? I got bored by
the 4th sentence!


 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Deep Impact Kicks Off Fourth of July with Deep Space Fireworks [email protected] Policy 149 August 26th 05 05:16 PM
Book deals David Amateur Astronomy 1 March 10th 04 05:28 PM
Books cheapskates can afford (was Books lunatics hate) Rusty B History 4 August 4th 03 06:44 AM
Books cheapskates can afford (was Books lunatics hate) Rusty B Policy 2 August 4th 03 01:59 AM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 10:23 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 SpaceBanter.com.
The comments are property of their posters.