The Death of a Dream

One of the reasons I wanted to at least try to get my book reviewed by The Onion’s A.V. Club is because their reviews are more than a little tenacious. They use and A-F grading scale, the kind that still sends a little prickle of dread through our bodies when we see those dreaded letters used to denote things like performance and comprehension.

And where most reviewers use a star system where even one star suggests the movie/book/TV show in question has some redeeming quality, there’s no getting around the letter F. And based on the low grades being awarded recently, it appears The A.V. Club is either going through some kind of cyclical reviewer’s PMS or they’re just being subjected to some really bad shit. Given the some of the most recent movies are The Iron Lady, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and The Devil Inside, I’m guessing it’s the latter.

Ditto for books, where Haruki Muakami’s IQ84 got a D. I love this. I love that they have the guts to say “This book literally could not get worse.”

What fascinates me about the reviews is that I often find myself reading through them and thinking to myself: “Oh, this book/movie got a B-minus. That means it’s probably way better.” Or, just as puzzling: “Oh, this movie got an F. That means it’s probably the worst crap in the world.”

There’s a spectrum, I guess. The reviewers are especially harsh and unforgiving because they’re smarter than most reviewers, which I respect; I mentally tamper my own expectations as a result. Likewise, they’re not afraid to call bullshit when they see it, like in the case of IQ84 which is grossly overrated. That’s why I sent a review copy of my book to their offices. It’s a boss battle. It’s a testing of merit and might and a return to the anxiety of college when you turn in a research paper that you think is pretty darned good, but you need approval from someone else who knows more than you.

Still, like all reviewers, there’s some breathing room to ensure The A.V. Club never reaches god-like status: it recently gave Stephen King’s 11/22/63 an A-minus, despite the fact that King never sufficiently explains why a history teacher would ever want to save John F. Kennedy. Despite his left-leaning tendencies, Kennedy was nonetheless a downright disgusting sort of man who used his power mainly to screw women who weren’t his wife, sit on his hands during the construction of the Berlin Wall, and go out of his way to nearly eradicate the planet during the Cuba Missile Crisis, and relied heavily on gangster muscle for a variety of pet projects.

Maybe King’s history teacher is intentionally foolish, and that’s the point. Maybe the history teacher never bothered to look up all the other crimes he could be preventing instead of wasting his time trying to save a man who made enemies with Dr. Martin Luther King? Moreso, the parameters of the time travel are so defined that it fits perfectly with King’s conceit. Moreso, how the hell would saving JFK doing anything good, knowing just how stupid he was on foreign policy in general?

Needless to say, I can’t get past the sheer idiocy of the premise itself. I’m more than happy to let a few questions go whenever I pick up a King book, but still. My point isn’t that I disagree with the A.V. Club’s review–only that reviewers are human and reviews are subjective, but nonetheless we rely on the ones we respect because we trust them and don’t always trust ourselves. I’m sure the A.V. Club is probably right about King’s book … I just can’t personally reconcile the premise.