Opinions, in the words of the estimable Charles Barkley, are like #$%holes -- everyone's got one. I've known this for some time, and I try to respect what others say, no matter how crazy or ludicrous the opinion. Perhaps it's my training, but rather than resort to ad hominem or ad baculum assaults, I try to defeat the other opinion through reasoning or facts.
Sometimes, however, opinions take on a provocative, almost belligerent, tone. Take, for example, the following that was posted on Amazon for one of my reviews by the legendary Martin P. Bradley:
Read this over and see if it makes sense:
"It really is what the title implies: an examination of War and Politics."
Er...when you go food shopping do you buy a box of Cheerios expecting to find Tootsie Rolls inside?
What a worthless review!
Of course, to paraphrase what Barkley said, he has his own opinion as I have mine, and he's entitled to it. Nevermind that my review of the book simply said that the title of the book was dead on and that I expected more about the actual war and less about the politics of the situation, and I didn't even flame the book. I gave it a middling rating and left it at that.
Not to be outdone by himself, Mr. Bradley has apparently turned into my harshest critic, because he found another of my reviews that irked him even further:
Read this over and tell me this reviewer doesn't sound like a fool:
"I think Hemingway has the fame he does because of his life and not his works..admittedly, I haven't read all of them."
Ironically, I gave the book I reviewed, Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, four stars out of five. The entirety of my review is this:
I think Hemingway has the fame he does because of his life and not his works. This is my favorite Hemingway novel (admittedly, I haven't read all of them) and I give it four stars because it deals with Spain and I like the plot. Even so, Hemingway thought he spoke Spanish, which he decidedly did not. Early in the novel, while discussing the procurement of horses, someone says something to which another character says "Less bad." I don't know if that's Hemingway, a translator taking this from a Spanish edition or what, but "menos mal" does not translate to "less bad." It's "all right," "better yet," or whatever phrase makes sense. "Less bad" is just wrong.
I agree with those who question Hemingway's putative brilliance. I think his life is far more interesting than any of his works that I've read. Still, I enjoyed the plot of this novel.
Now, I never held myself out as a Hemingway scholar, and I qualified my review by saying that I had not read all of Hemingway's works. I actually admire and enjoy Isabel Allende's works but I haven't read all of them. Does that make me unqualified to comment on one of the ones I have read? Furthermore, there's nothing foolish about what I wrote. One can disagree with it, but to launch into a personal attack for my remarks is, in and of itself, foolish.
Mr. Bradley has taken it upon himself to be my personal critic. He uses the anonymity that the internet provides to assail me and belittle my reviews. As I wrote back to him, he obviously has an axe to grind and too much time on his hands. At no time did I attack anything he wrote, directly or indirectly, so why he should feel so emotional about my reviews mystifies me. I don't hold myself out as either a professional reviewer or a literature scholar. I gave two opinions that he found disagreeable. So be it. I write those to give people interested in the items another opinion from which, together with other opinions, they can decide whether to watch the movie or read the book. That Mr. Bradley disagrees with me is of no consequence. That he does so like a cowardly bully is telling.
Mr. Barkley was right about opinions. What he failed to say is that sometimes the opinion and the person giving the opinion can be described using the same word.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
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