Am I a sellout on Goodreads?

After hearing me gripe and moan about a particular book (one that shall remain nameless until the end of this blog entry), my husband was outraged to discover that I’d given it four stars on Goodreads.

“I give everything four stars,” I told him, “except for books that really wow me like the Savage Detectives.” (Of course, the Savage Detectives later broke my heart and had me in furies, but I still came back around to it like a co-dependent lover and I gave it five stars because I loved it and railed against it in the way that only grand passion can inspire.)

But he had touched a nerve, and it made me take a long, hard uncomfortable look at the ratings I was handing out. Was I really selling out on Goodreads, throwing stars at books that didn’t deserve them? I went and looked at what other people had to say about the book I’d not exactly liked. Here was one of the harsher reviews: “I’m afraid this book gets one star, a rating which I’ve so far reserved for The DaVinci Code.” Ouch. I’m not sure I’d go down to one star, but I guess I could have been tougher on it. Except that the book had brilliant writing in it, was hugely ambitious, and, in general, was thought-provoking even though in many parts I disagreed with certain choices. I guess, also, I have to admit I admire this writer a lot and don’t want to feel like a jerk one-starring a literary demigod.

All of this reminded me of the time years ago when I reviewed movies and I had given a favorable review to a Japanese movie in which nothing happened except a guy looks at the ocean. (I sincerely hope that my memory is off and this is not the one where he looks at the ocean and is also deaf and rarely talks, but, alas, IMDB research reveals it to be so.) There was more to it - he looked at the ocean *and* had a surfboard, but in any event it was not exactly the compelling drama I had implied it to be. Two friends of mine were so incensed they came to my apartment directly from the theater, ready for some film critic smackdown. (Gary and Cate if you ever read this, I know I was wrong, I still feel your pain, and, in my defense, this film was a Takeshi Kitano anomaly.)

Okay, if I could do it all over again, I would give that movie about the possibly deaf-mute ocean-gazing Japanese guy one star. Maybe I should post nothing to Goodreads but stinkers so that I can slash and burn like the second coming of Dale Peck. Then again, maybe I’m right about the four stars. Jonathan Lethem, you write an awesome sentence, you’re smart. Hats off to you, man.

The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Flat-out ambitious in a way that reminded me strongly of “The Corrections,” language sometimes mind-blowing but sometimes so stylized it got in the way of my connection, and a great (great) relationship at its core between these two kids Dylan and Mingus. Still, for all that, I feel a slight reservation, a coolness, so that I cannot give it a total rave. Possibly I got more fascinated by a secondary drama - centered around the idea of Jonathan Lethem writing this book and making certain choices and wondering why he did some things and awed that he had the guts to do others.

But here’s a great line (one of thousands) that made me think of my friend Chris. This is upon hearing Rick James’s “Super Freak” at the first party of the year at Camden College (a thinly veiled Bennington) after Dylan’s escape from Brooklyn:

“That easy appropriation of dance-floor funk was a first taste, for me, of something I desperately wanted to understand: the suburban obliviousness of these white children to the intricate boundaries of race and music which were my inheritance and obsession. Nobody here cared - it was only a danceable song.”

View all my reviews.