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About the Book
About Suzuki Roshi |
Comments on Reviews about Crooked Cucumber |
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DC comments on the New Chan Forum review A letter on the San Francisco Chronicle review with my comments. 4/21/2000 - An intro to the Negative Blurbs Page - a demented aside Compare with Quotes on Crooked Cucumber, or, the Positive Blurb Page. There's a recent negative review of Crooked Cucumber on Amazon.com that is now sitting on top (though I shamelessly put it on the bottom of my reprint of those reviews - see Reviews list). But on Amazon.com it's the first thing that the prospective buyer sees, saying in its header: An Over-Glorified Account. The nerve! Anyway, it rekindles an idea I have been toying with. You know how, as with movies, books are promoted with blurbs which were the most positive comments that could be extracted from the reviews. Why not make a list of the most negative blurbs that can be culled from reviews and comments? You can see what I've done in this vein for Crooked Cucumber by going to Negative Blurbs. There are two types: real negative comments - even a good review will typically point to something the reviewer felt was lacking, frequently in the next to last paragraph. I list these real examples first. But there could also be negative blurbs created through the modern miracle of dot-dot-dot (...) journalism - and that's in there next - one scathing blurb after another culled ingeniously from each review I've received. I remember Mad Magazine putting together rave blurbs out of total put down reviews - something we all suspect when we see the real ones on book cover or movie ads. For instance, from the following imaginary review: "This book stunk. It is an abomination of extremely low quality.. When it goes out of print I'll say good riddance." The Mad professional blurb writer would come up with something like: "This book... is... extremely... good." [And please, if you feel the spirit calling you, go to Amazon.com and put another review, hopefully more sympathetic, on top of that one that now covers 11 other wonderful, thoughtful readers' reviews. They list the latest reviews on top. Bless you - and enjoy the Negative Blurbs.-DC] Compare with Quotes on Crooked Cucumber, or, the Positive Blurb Page. |
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