Dunno, it seemed possible that some of them might have a point.

Maybe we should try to mix up some of them? For instance:

“The book is not readable because of the overuse of adverbs.”--The Sun Also Rises

" I find no point in writing a book about segregation, there’s no way of making it into an enjoyable book."--Gone With The Wind

"I guess if you were interested in crazy people this is the book for you."--The Lord of the Rings

I liked the one wishing for Virgina Woolf's non-zombification.

My favorite: "If the book was written differently I probably would have found it enjoyable."

And, yes, some of them did have a point. The review of "The Sun Also Rises" was right on.

1984 (1948)Author: George Orwell

"This book isn’t as good as Harry Potter in MY opinion, and no one can refute me." Taste. Right. Sure.

I'm behind this point, unless someone can convince me otherwise:

3) Most American readers are not fluent in French, so to have conversations or interjections in French with no translation is plain dumb.

Same goes for Spanish, Greek, Russian, German, Latin, or whatever. Especially in works of philosophy, where it often just seems like pomposity.

Michael, while I'd agree that recourse to non-(commonly used in english) phrases from other languages w/o translations is generally bad. But that surely doesn't apply to Lolita, where it's fairly important to establishing Humbert's character, the text is purposely obscure in many ways and being written by an unreliable narrator who wants it that way, a lot of the book is prose-stylizing anyway.

Michael, if the author's target market is "most American readers," I'd take your point. But if that's the goal, why in the world is philosophy his subject?

Obviously, languages vary. In some cases, a foreign language may be better suited for the expression of a particular sentiment.

For example, in the introduction to his translations of poems by Georg Trakl, Robert Bly noted: "The silence is the silence of things that could speak, but choose not to. The German language has a word for deliberately keeping silence, which English does not have. Trakl uses this word 'schweigen' often."

You know, I have to agree with them about The Grapes of Wrath. On the other hand, I think anyone who doesn't like The Sound and the Fury probably didn't pay close enough attention to it.

It's an unforgiving world, and each of us is a hangin' judge.