Better Summer Reading through Technology!
by St. Clair Carr, literary editor, NEW IMPROVED HEAD
A couple of years ago we introduced our amazing advanced book review compression technology, a breakthrough in literary criticism which allowed us to present in a single review 20 to 40 times the intellectual content of the typical book review in the Toronto Globe and Mail. As you may recall, with our patented technology we were able to assess the worth of any work of fiction or biography by analyzing only the first two paragraphs!
Not content to rest on its laurels, our Literary Research Department, under the able leadership of Emerald Ash-Borer, has continued to perfect this wonderful technology! We are proud to announce the release of version 2.0 of Fictionator™, our cutting-edge market-leading software!
Version 2.0 uses powerful literary algorithms to penetrate deep into a fictional work and extract only its essence! Fictionator™ is now so powerful that it can evaluate a book from its first sentence alone!
But the proof of the pudding is in the eating - let's start showing you how wonderful Fictionator2.0™ is!
We applied Fictionator 2.0™ to several books which you may be tempted to buy as summer reading. Here's what we found:
Of course, if Fictionator 2.0™ simply rejected every book presented to it, it would be no use at all. But some books did get its approval – The Human Stain by Philip Roth, A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, Hey Nostradamus by Douglas Coupland, and especially Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (which we selected because we thought Fahrenheit 9/11 has probably given people the idea of re-reading Bradbury's book). No matter what you think of science fiction, Ray Bradbury can write, so even if his book's a stinker you get some bravura writing out of it.
- Cloning Christ, by Peter Senese with Robert Geist: Fictionator 2.0™ had fits with this one. The first sentence is "The sweltering heat emitted by the sun's glaring rays had little bearing on his lean frame." Now remember, the first sentence is one of the most important in the book. After writing it you might have thought buddy would ask himself "Can a frame be said to be lean? Is heat really emitted by the sun's rays? What in the name of all that's holy do I mean by saying that heat has bearing?" But buddy didn't. If that's all the effort he put into one of the most important sentences in his book, you don't want to find out how much he put into the rest of the book, do you?
- Muriella Pent, by Russell Smith: "A checkerboard of yellow light on the carpet." What imagery!
- Life of Pi, by Yann Martel: "My suffering made me sad and gloomy." No kidding. Too bad the Giller Prize jury was too cheap to buy a copy of Fictionator™,eh?
- My Life, by Bill Clinton: This is one of the heftier books on the market at the moment, but it didn't faze Fictionator™. Its results screen read "Cliched irrelevance and cheap sentiment," which seemed a fair judgment to me when I inspected the book. But you can judge for yourselves – for last week's exclusive excerpt from the world's thickest free-standing autobiography, click here.
- Bill Clinton: An American Journey, by Nigel Hamilton: Fictionator™ was able to reject this one from its title alone.
- Another Clinton biography, First in His Class, by David Maraniss: The results screen read "BORING!! We know Mr. Clinton was born; that doesn't need to be the first thing you tell us!"
- Yellow Dog, by Martin Amis: The results screen read "Say what????," which is what I said after reading the first two paragraphs. Mr. Amis can write, even if he never seems to have anything to write about, so when he opens a book with a couple of unintelligible paragraphs you have to doubt his confidence in what he's written.
Our own further examination (that is, reading the entire first two paragraphs) of Fictionator™'s other choices found interesting, well-written passages which gave us reason to read on. In fact, I bought the Coupland for my own summer reading.
Advanced Book Review Compression Technology™ – another NEW IMPROVED service for YOU, our intelligent and discerning readers.
Books reviewed may not be typical. Critical statements refer to the first two paragraphs only. Critical principles described do not apply to technical works. American and other foreign editions may come differently equipped.Better Summer Reading through Technology! © Coolth, 2002
