Can you pick the classic novels from the one-star Amazon reviews?

[PaulB]

http://www.sporcle.com/games/NotThere/great_novels_bad_reviews_ii

 

[Spinney]

13 - some of them were pretty obvious, though.

 

[swee'pea99]

15. :smug smiley: (tho' TBH, any reader shouldn't have much difficulty).

 

[Spinney]

I think if I'd read all of them I wouldn't have had to guess a few.

 

[swee'pea99]

I certainly haven't - and wouldn't...I'd rather stick a needle in my eye than read Moby Dick, eg - but most have pretty big giveaways: you don't have to have read Lolita to know enough to tally it with the description, or to have read Clockwork Orange to clock the Beethoven tag.

 

[Yellow Fang]

12/15 - good quiz.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

15/15 - pretty obvious in all cases.

 

[asterix]

Having only read 'The Great Gatsby', 'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Wuthering Heights', I was happy to get 13/15.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

I got 16, so nah to all you nobbers that only got 15.

 

[Boris Bajic]

15/15 in 4:21

I hadn't read Naked Lunch, but it was the penultimate question and obviously not Moby Dick.

I thought they were too obvious for a quiz. Many of them are just as most readers would describe the books, but with added invective.

But... since when has Camus' L'Etranger been known in translation as The Stranger? I once read an interesting piece on translation and it included the kerfuffle the publishers faced with that title. I recall reading that the word 'stranger' was absolutely not the meaning that Camus wanted to convey, despite being one of the dictionary translations, while Outsider was but was not.

 

[Leaway2]

13

 

[swee'pea99]

It's been published in translation under both titles - indeed, the Wikipedia page on it begins:

The Stranger or The Outsider (L’Étranger) is a novel by Albert Camus

In truth, it's one of those words that has no precise like for like equivalent in English. I'd certainly go along with Camus's reported preference for 'outsider', in conveying the original as accurately as possible.

 

[Saluki]

14/15

 

[GrumpyGregry]

But... since when has Camus' L'Etranger been known in translation as The Stranger? I once read an interesting piece on translation and it included the kerfuffle the publishers faced with that title. I recall reading that the word 'stranger' was absolutely not the meaning that Camus wanted to convey, despite being one of the dictionary translations, while Outsider was but was not.

Since at least the mid-70's when I first read it

Anyway, we know a song about that don't we children...?

 

[Hover Fly]

15/15, and I have never,read a work of fiction in my life, since I stopped being compelled to do so by teachers.