Biblioracle: Why a 1-star review convinced me to read the book anyway
When I became aware of the recently released novel, “Big Swiss” by Jen Beagin, I went to Amazon. While I never buy books from Amazon, I often use its database of customer reviews to get a sense of the vox populi regarding a particular book.
The book is brand new, so there weren’t a lot of reviews, but there was one that convinced me “Big Swiss” is a book I should check out.
That review gave the book one star.
Why did a one-star review persuade me that I should read a book? Because of the power of polarization.
Polarization is a significant problem when it comes to our national politics. Still, the polarization of opinion can be a very useful tool to orient your own tastes in a world where opinions are ubiquitous. It can be difficult to decide if a particular piece of media is for you.
This is particularly true when it comes to comedy, the core genre of “Big Swiss.”
I’ve been long interested in the truly polarizing nature of what some people find funny that others, well … don’t. The Academy Award-nominated film, “The Banshees of Inisherin” was described to me by someone as a “comedy,” and while there are a handful of rueful chuckles to be had, that movie is not a comedy.
In “The Banshees of Inisherin,” no one punches a theme park moose (“Vacation”) or tries to blow up a gopher destroying a golf course (“Caddyshack”), or evacuates their bowels in the middle of a street in a wedding dress (“Bridesmaids”), or starts a cafeteria food fight (“Animal House”), or has a bunch of cowboys sitting around a fire, passing gas (”Blazing Saddles”).
Some of you are thinking that this guy has a real taste for low comedy, and what can I say but guilty as charged — that is if you believe there is an important distinction to be made between high and low comedy. What I know is what makes me laugh, my personal proof in the pudding of something that claims to be comic.
There are many others who look at the movies I listed above and others like them and recoil in dislike, rather than roll with laughter, and that’s OK. It would be a weird world where everyone finds the same things funny.
In books, the comic is trickier, partly because it is relatively rare for an author to lean in fully to the comic, since comedy is often treated like a lower order, despite it being significantly tougher to pull off than tragedy.
The other part is that books do not benefit from the comedic performer’s delivery. The comedic voice must be contained entirely in the prose, and if the reader cannot latch onto it, the comedy may fly right past without notice, likely sowing some combination of confusion and resentment along the way.
I experienced this a few years ago when describing Charles Portis’ novel, “True Grit” as one of my favorite comedic books to an acquaintance, and being greeted with a look of total confusion, as this person thought it was a tragedy, as many bad things do indeed happen to the narrator, Mattie Ross, starting with the murder of her father.
I told this person to try the opening of the book again, reading it aloud, in the voice of someone recounting a great triumph, and lo and behold, the voice and comedy of the novel became clear.
As for “Big Swiss,” I’ve only read two chapters, but several times, Mrs. Biblioracle has already asked, “What are you cackling about?”
That’s comedy.
John Warner is the author of “Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities.”
Book recommendations from the Biblioracle
John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you’ve read.
1. “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn
2. “The Worst Hard Time” by Timothy Egan
3. “And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle” by Jon Meacham
4. “Blue Nights” by Joan Didion
5. “American Lion” by Jon Meacham
— Mary N., Aurora
I don’t usually pick a book as close to the subject matter as what I’m about to recommend, but Mary’s obvious interest in Abraham Lincoln makes me think she’ll find Thomas Mallon’s imagining of the lives of the couple who shared that box at Ford’s Theater particularly compelling. The book is “Henry and Clara.”
1. “Lessons in Chemistry” by Bonnie Garmus
2. “A World of Curiosities” by Louise Penny
3. “Standing by The Wall” by Mick Herron
4. “Herzog” by Saul Bellow
5. “The Master” by Colm Tóibín
— Joe F., Channahon
I think Joe will appreciate a novel told from the perspective of a man wondering whether or not the life he has lived has been a good one, “The Italian Teacher” by Tom Rachman.
1. “Dr. No” by Percival Everett
2. “Cloud Atlas” by David Mitchell
3. “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz
4. “Turtles All the Way Down” by John Green
5. “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn
— Betsy P., Chicago
For Betsy, I’m recommending the emotional crowd-pleaser novel of last year, “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” by Gabrielle Zevin.
Get a reading from the Biblioracle
Send a list of the last five books you’ve read and your hometown to biblioracle@gmail.com
