Wednesday, August 27, 2008

The White Tiger

In short, I think reading this book is a better use of one's time than watching Fox News and a worse use of one's time than having sex.

For those of you who don't read comments, here, n! reviews Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger.

PS: Yes, the one and only n!! We are kicked alright

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

In short, I think reading this book is a better use of one's time than watching Fox News and a worse use of one's time than having sex.

That statement conveyed absolutely NO information.

Unknown said...

Well, that depends on what information you were looking for! And there was a link there to the full thing if you were interested.

Skalman? Are you really Skalman? Now I have Bamse and Skalman visiting. Awesome!

Anonymous said...

Shellman: Perchance there is an individual out there, out of 6 billion on this planet, who has, at this moment, exactly this dilemma:

1. Should I watch Hannity and Colmes today?
2. Should I read that new book about tigers?
3. Should I have sex?

Then conceivably this would be a VERY useful, actionable review (I should have sex). And really isn't life all about "If you save one life you have saved all of humanity" stuff?

Think of this as a micro-targetted review (in this date of fragmented media, should you expect any less?). But for the broader based ones which dwell lovingly on literary merit, psychological underpinnings of characters, and comparisons to Nabokov's unfinished novel, you should consult Falstaff at 2x3x7. Or Chandrahas (??) at The Middle Stage. Or Jabberwock. Those folks can REALLY review.

Veena, kind of you to link! Hope you won't get more brickbats for this!

n!

Falstaff said...

n!: What if you combined 1 and 3?
And surely that depends on who you're having sex with?

Anonymous said...

V && n!: I didn't say the post conveyed no information. But that particular statement is trivially true for any activity, i.e. ALL activities (well, strictly: all except Fox-watching and sex-ing) are better use of one's time than watching Fox and worse use of one's time than having sex.

Clearly, reading that book is included in the set of ALL activities. Therefore reading that book is trivially better than Fox-Watching and worse than sex-ing.

Thus, the statement conveyed no information. And that doesn't slip by Shellman without notice: I am a communist inventor extraordinaire -- flaws of logic are disintegrated on sight!

Space Bar said...

i think we consider shellman's contribution the first Review of a Review.

:D

Space Bar said...

*should* consider.

Anonymous said...

Falsie: You want to have sex with Hannity and Colmes?

Shellman: I wouldn't agree that ALL activities are better than watching Fox News. I can think of several worse - reading the comments on rediff.com, watching John Kerry give the convention speech, having sex with Hannity and Colmes etcetera etcetera etcetera.

Spacebar: Why, I was thinking EXACTLY that!!

n!

Falstaff said...

n!: I meant what if this hypothetical individual decided to have sex while watching Hannity and Colmes - would that be better or worse than reading White Tiger? (What sort of social science researcher are you, not to consider the interaction term?)

And don't bring me into this - I wouldn't watch Hannity and Colmes if a white tiger dragged me to it. But then again, I wouldn't read The White Tiger (having tried and given up one-third of the way through) if Hannity and Colmes dragged me to it. So I guess that evens out