Disgraceful Article by The Guardian

[pip]

The Guardian has today published an article with a critic labeling Terry Pratchett mediocre. The worst part of it all is he has never read any of his work.
So any paper who will print an article attacking a recently dead writer without any basis in the writers work deserves no respect whatsoever.
Frankly I'm disgusted with it.

 

[Tonyblack]

How strange considering the glowing praise the same paper gave The Shepherd's Crown and Terry's writing generally. There is a link to that review HERE. WARNING! It's a glowing review, but it is also FULL of spoilers. Do not read it if you haven't already read the book.

 

[pip]

I found it odd as the Guardian has generally been quite positive about Pratchett.
Article is as follows. I was too annoyed to link it earlier
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign ... ary-genius

 

[RathDarkblade]

How strange considering the glowing praise the same paper gave The Shepherd's Crown and Terry's writing generally. There is a link to that review HERE. WARNING! It's a glowing review, but it is also FULL of spoilers. Do not read it if you haven't already read the book.

It is indeed a very glowing review. I tried to skip the spoilers. I'll forget them soon. I was wondering where it said here that Terry was mediocre, and then I realised. D'oh! :doh:

I found it odd as the Guardian has generally been quite positive about Pratchett.
Article is as follows. I was too annoyed to link it earlier
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign ... ary-genius

Pip, I don't blame you for being annoyed. I read the entire thing (yes, really, despite gnashing my teeth several times). This guy is supposed to be an art critic? Really? I wouldn't trust him to tell me the difference between a van Gogh and a Rembrandt - or for that matter, between a stick drawing and a Rembrandt, or between George Handel and Arthur Sullivan, or Arthur Sullivan and King Arthur... well, you get the idea.

This comment stood out:

So a couple of weeks ago you were extolling the virtues of one Kim Kardashian and this week you're telling us Terry Pratchett is without merit?

'Jonathan Jones on art'? 'Jonathan Jones has a weekly brain fart' would be more apt.

Is this JJ for real??? :doh: Seriously. Read some of Terry's books before you judge. Is this how you write all your reviews, Mr Jones? If you were to review a Bach cantata, would you not listen to it before you judge?

Typical elitist rubbish. Not sure if it's typical for the paper, though. I gave up on the Guardian in the mid-80s, when a spokesman claimed: "Mr Hacker has singed the badgers' death warrant."

Good old Guarniad.

 

[Penfold]

To be honest, I think if that had been written about any other author (even E. L. James and Stephanie Meyer) I would still have been dismissive of the piece for the fact alone that he hasn't read any of the books. Basically, trolls could learn a thing or two about trolling from it.

I've also had a quick flick through the comments and think this one sums up the journalist (and I use the term loosely) nicely; "The ongoing rambling of a clickbait hack, commenting on his ignorance imagining it to be great wisdom".

 

[pip]

I found the Guardian generally ok for book related articles but I'm quite peed off with them on this one. I think you nailed it on the head better than I can Rath. Its just a ridiculous piece by an obvious elitist idiot.

 

[Tonyblack]

Time will tell whether JJ is right or not. I suspect he's the sort of reviewer who thinks that any writer who is popular must be mediocre because, they don't think the general public has a clue when it comes to Art. It's a pomposity that we see in some "high-brow" reviews. I always remember Tom Paulin's comment BBC2's Late Review that ended up proudly displayed on one of Terry's books.

I saw this comment when trying to find the Paulin quote and thought it summed things up pretty well:

Tom Paulin sneer ("selling thousands of copies - a complete amateur - doesn't even write in chapters") in an ignoble performance in which he discussed Pratchett on BBC2's Late Review. Some critics find it hard to stomach the uncomfortable truth: a popular artist brought wisdom and the numinous to the masses. (I'm assuming only Paulin was kept away by the excruciatingly stupid chapter complaint.) If Pratchett's books aren't literature, nothing is.

Full blog HERE.

 

[RathDarkblade]

Hmm. I doubt that time will ever tell that JJ is right - Time (as in the magazine) definitely won't.

JJ is the latest in a series of elitist snobs with their noses in the air and a broomstick shoved so far up their bottom that it's a wonder they can go to the lavatory. I have seen people like JJ try to take pTerry down as long ago as the early 90s and even in the mid-80s.

People tried to take pTerry down when Harry Potter came out, by getting him to dump on HP and Rowling. He famously responded with:

"What on earth for? The books are fine..."

Some HP fanatics I've met have even accused pTerry of plagiarising Rowling, because both the Discworld series and the HP series have magical universities and wizards. Ay-yi-yi.......... :doh: Sigh.

JJ sounds like someone with a bad case of sour grapes mixed with schadenfraude. When Homer Simpson's neighbour, Ned Flanders, had some bad luck and nearly went bankrupt, Homer responded by saying "Come on, Lisa! I'm just GLAD to see him fall FLAT on his butt!"

JJ sounds like he's thinking the same thing about pTerry - and to put it mildly, this is hardly an attractive quality.

 

[Penfold]

If he were to read them, I do wonder whether JJ would actually understand (or even notice) many of the social and political observations, parody, and commentaries hidden within the layers and depths of the books. My experience of intellectual snobs (for want of a better term) is that they hide behind this veneer to conceal their own shortcomings.

 

[Mixa]

Dear Mr Jones,

I find myself in the most intimate room of my house and I’ve got your article in front of me. Soon enough I’ll have it right behind me.

Yours Sincerely,

Mx

 

[RathDarkblade]

Nice job channelling Max Reger, Mixa! Please click the link to find the story behind that quote. It's a link to the wikipedia on the reception to Reger's work.

Just call me Research Rath, I guess.

 

[Mixa]

I heard that anecdote many times but didn’t know who had said it! Thanks Research Rath!

Mx

 

[RathDarkblade]

You're welcome! I've been writing stories for the past 20 years, and I've been doing research on various things for a long long time now, so I guess it comes as second nature by now.

*changes his name by deed poll to "Research Rath"*