Troll book review on Amazon

This post is about a review on Amazon that is so clever you can hardly figure out that it's trolling.

But first, the book is introduced on Ace of Spades Sunday Morning Book thread. Way at the bottom, second to last item.

Someone else made a comment. Then Oregon Muse comments. I think. These paragraphs are in separate boxes.

Reading Neil Postman's Entertaining Ourselves to Death, which has been on my reading list since I was young. 

It's really quite good. The first half is dedicated to the exploration of the effects the medium used for information transmission in a society has on that society as a whole and the mental habits and reasoning practices of its constituent members. The impact of the spoken word, the written word and of the image are explored, and the utility of memory and the way community is construed and truth perceived as a consequence is described and evidenced. 

Highly recommended. Goes far beyond an analysis of television to an exploration of how we conceive and organize thought and orient to the world.

Then Oregon Muse writes. I think.

Originally published in 1985, Neil Postman’s groundbreaking polemic about the corrosive effects of television on our politics and public discourse has been hailed as a twenty-first-century book published in the twentieth century. Now, with television joined by more sophisticated electronic media—from the Internet to cell phones to DVDs—it has taken on even greater significance. Amusing Ourselves to Death is a prophetic look at what happens when politics, journalism, education, and even religion become subject to the demands of entertainment. It is also a blueprint for regaining control of our media, so that they can serve our highest goals.

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business 

I clicked on the link. The book is rated 4.5 stars with 510 reviews.

That's a very good rating. Naturally, I read all the bad reviews first. Only 4% one-star reviews. Apparently the book is used in high school and colleges and the kids forced to read it view it as outdated. Their reviews are shallow and a bit clumsy. They are poor students. You can tell children are writing. "Boring" and "Outdated" and "So last century" and the like. "The speed of the reader made it hard to follow."

What? Maybe that was an audio book. I don't know.

"very difficult to read quickly. longer than normal sentences, larger than normal words, a lot of fluff and extraneous items. had to read for a class, and honestly, the way in which it was written bored me to tears. sorry!"

[sic] all over the place.

"worthless read, worse drivel I have ever read, written at the teenage level"

So then, very different perceptions. Very different levels of intellectual grasp.

Then this gem:

As a teenager being forced to submit to reading the torturous boredom and monotony that is this book, I say this was a waste of my summer vacation. My fellow classmates also agree with me. After picking up the pieces of my kindle that I threw across the room in frustration at having to read this horrendous book I say I have no love for this "book", it would serve better use mopping up my tears of hatred. I have a week to finish this book and Im only 9 pages in. I think I speak for all the children in the world when I say this book was annoying. The only reason Im giving this book one star is because of the fact that Neil Postman obviously has the ability to form sentences, just not ones that are any good or have relevance. The name of this book is a serious misnomer, it should be boring ourselves to death.

I love this so much. His whole summer is wasted ploughing though a single book that you can read in one night.

A friend told me that he threw "Ancient Evenings" across the room against the wall after reading only the first few pages. I'll never get that image out of my mind. Because those were excellent first pages. I had read a LOT of stuff about Egyptian history and art and culture and there is absolutely nothing out there that brings their magic-filled existence to life like Norman Mailer's fictional construction. I loved every word that my friend hated.

"Mopping up my tears of hatred." Oh, God, I love this so much.

He has a whole week to read a book and he's only nine pages in. This is the tell. We're being put on. His summer is not ruined.

He (not she) is a teenager and he speaks for all children of the world. Stop it. You're killing me.

"Misnomer. Should be Boring Us to Death." A teenager who views himself as a child and who gives up at nine pages but whose summer is ruined because of a book due in one week does not write this well. This is an adult, a very good reader and high intelligence writing as a child to demonstrate the premise of the book. It is satire. And done so well that it's not so easy to pick out from the real one-star reviews.