The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
I was thinking the other day: what would you do if you had a negative (and I mean really negative) opinion on a book but by chance happened to come across its author? What would you tell them if they asked you what you thought about their book?
Without the luxury of the internet or reviews or all the other ways we have of expressing a negative opinion on things without having to come into direct contact with their creator, we tend to be more insensitive with our criticism. The medium is the message… What is the message the medium of criticism conveys? That, perhaps, individual works of art can be analysed, praised or attacked as if they existed in a void – as if they weren’t created by people with flaws and feelings. I understand that criticism is necessary in a world as saturated with works of art as the one we live in, if only for us to be able to timidly navigate through this ever-expanding sea of creativity. However, I also believe it’s necessary to look at established institutions a little more, ahem, critically from time to time.
So: should we be writing criticism we wouldn’t be able to say it to the authors’ faces?
I’ll let you ponder that a for a sec.
…
Done? Great! At this point I’ll contradict myself, as I so happily and readily do, and say what I can say from the safety and isolation of my Goodreads account, albeit signed with my real name, a move I would predictably not make if I knew my review would be read by Kate DiCamillo and not get lost in the ego-stroking labyrinth of positive comments and reviews this piece of work has disappointingly received.
This, people, is one of the worst books I’ve ever read.
Terribly obnoxious, annoying, arbitrary characters; events I did not care about reading and that made me feel worse than before (what was up with the cauliflower ears? Come on!); an arrogant, didactic style of writing that’s pretending not to be so but which cannot help but seep through… I’d go on but it’s already been a couple of months since I read it so most of my vitriol has evaporated; that is, I can’t really remember more of the exact reasons I didn’t enjoy this book at all, but what I can tell you is that it managed to solidify itself in my memory as a bad reading experience, one that made me feel uncomfortable, a kind of uncanny sick inside. Maria did warn me, but I just had to sneak a peek at this train wreck… To not make this review longer than it should be, I’ll just say that I’d never read this to my child.
At least it had beautiful illustrations.
