Geoff > Status Update

I like this. I'll do my damnedest on this front too.

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "I like this. I'll do my damnedest on this front too."

You actually do a really good job at this. I had you in mind when thinking of opinion-free reviews. It's a tough obstruction, esp. when reviewing something, to not give opinions, but I think it is certainly doable.

Just curious, what can constitute an opinion-free review? Description based?

Opinions are judgements about something not based on facts or knowledge - so a review free of those kinds of judgements.

Like when you just "feel" something. This is an opinion. I'll try not to express what I feel; rather, what I know or come to have known.

Gotcha; I suppose it's just my assumption that all reviews inherently contain opinions to some degree which is why I asked. Personally, if GIF or image-heavy reviews disappeared from my feed forever I'd be extremely pleased...

Oh yes, GIF's are Satan's spawn

I've de-friended over GIFs

In an attempt to undermine you I'm going to read twice as many books and have three times as many opinions in my reviews.

Sonovabitch!!

I know what you mean. Aside from checking in with a few of you on a pretty much daily basis, I am going through a bit of a GR disenchantment/disinterest phase at the moment - though this may be due to the fact that I am insanely busy and work and moving house on Wednesday...

I used to get really excited about reading reviews and finding new books etc, but I seem to have become a bit over-saturated.

Oh, and I just saw your follow-up comment now. And I completely agree with that--I very much appreciate when someone can weave their experiences into a review in a way that is insightful, but there have been too many times I've started reading something and a few paragraphs in think "when are we going to get to the book?"

A personal interpretation could be interpreted as an opinion on meaning, making opinions rather inevitable. Not liking opinions is an opinion itself, making your whole non-opinion approach dependent on the solid foundation of an opinion.

Good luck!

Jonathan wrote: "I know what you mean. Aside from checking in with a few of you on a pretty much daily basis, I am going through a bit of a GR disenchantment/disinterest phase at the moment - though this may be due..."

Over-saturation is the key word here. Not only GR, but media in general - and I feel like I even make an effort to disconnect! Shit gets tiresome, hearing what everybody thinks about everything all the time.

Matthias wrote: "A personal interpretation could be interpreted as an opinion on meaning, making opinions rather inevitable. Not liking opinions is an opinion itself, making your whole non-opinion approach dependen..."

It's a rough road I've set out on, for sure. Fare forward voyagers, u.s.w

But factual, knowledgeable judgments about art can be formed, and also can be expressed. This is true.

Factual judgments on books? Sounds like thin ice to me, especially given all those star-ratings blinking in the Goodreads skies. The trap being that you could consider your opinion as fact, while nobody else does.

Don't consider my misgivings as a lack of faith in you. I just don't have a problem with opinions, as long as they're explained, preferably in an original, entertaining manner. Whether that explanation be based on fact, sentiment or something else doesn't really matter.

Of course, I haven't been on Goodreads as long as you have, so over-saturation is not a factor for me. So again, good luck!

Matthias wrote: "Factual judgments on books? Sounds like thin ice to me..."

Well, I can talk about what a book does, what it does not do, and how successful it is in relation to the standards and form it sets out for itself to achieve - these are criteria beyond anything I determine for it. I can talk about what it does in relation to other books of its kind. I can talk about its relation to the author's other works and their development. I can't really talk about beauty or pleasure or feelings. Maybe beauty, because there are standards of beauty that are social determinations, not my own. So maybe beauty, if I'm careful. It's going to be an interesting obstruction, for sure.

Definitely! Looking forward to seeing the results of this experiment, if I may call it such. I promise not to be a pain in the ass in the commenting sections of these reviews, as I am here ;-)

No pain in the ass, not at all! I was looking forward to some discussion on this matter - I hope more people contribute.

"Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, Sir!"
-- Charles Dickens, Hard Times

I mean, when you put it that way, it sounds like a kinda shitty thing to do.

Rather than have opinions, I try and make myself a vehicle of truth.

Oh I'm not really interested in truth - just not throwing out opinions based on nothing(s). Like, it might be my opinion that Ted Cruz is just the president we need to face the challenging decades to come - but knowledge and facts tell me that he is a lying, manipulative, egomaniacal sociopath empty of practical content or ideas who looks like a Worm-Beast from Hell. So I'd have to use knowledge and facts to check my opinion. Is this truth? I dunno. Who am I, Gadamer?

Ted Cruz does have an extremely punchable face- I don't think that's up for debate; Carnap could have built a whole logical system with that as its founding axiom, and in this case even Gadamer would have to concur with the analytics

(Most people can appreciate improving one's body through exercise as an end in itself; but reading to improve one's mind - breaking down former beliefs to replace them with something more substantial, this seems pointless to most people; we act as if opinion is at once arbitrary & the last court of appeal)

David wrote: "(Most people can appreciate improving one's body through exercise as an end in itself; but reading to improve one's mind - breaking down former beliefs to replace them with something more substanti..."

I'd like to add that to my favorite quotes thingy here on GR

David wrote: "(Most people can appreciate improving one's body through exercise as an end in itself; but reading to improve one's mind - breaking down former beliefs to replace them with something more substanti..."

I'd like to add that to my favorite quotes thingy here on GR

ALL THE FEELS /posts gif

Noooooooooooooo ah whatever

If I'm one of the Guilty Opinionated, I apologize. I try to keep any reviews about the books for the most part and stay out of conversations about religion/politics/social issues/groceries.

If I am not one of them: yeah, totally fuck those guys.

Cody, you're alright in my book. Of course, my book is the Book of the Damned, so, you know..

Hey, Neat Neat Neat...The Damned are a mighty fine rock and roll outfit. I'm cool with that!

Confession: I did use a .gif once in a review. But it was a picture of a claymation skull eating Stalin's face, which 1) is totally sick and 2) fit the review of Stalin's biography.

Writing reviews is a pain in the ass - from now I'm using 100% gifs for all reviews.

*super opinionated gifs*

I've never used a gif, but the other week I did upload an image into one of my reviews, and was proud of myself for figuring out how to do that.

Sebald wrote novels with images in them, and if it wasn't for his tragic, untimely death he'd probably have moved on to gifs by now.

Opinions make GR reviews interesting - qualified opinions that are reasoned, that is.

So you're either going to be the status quo or a troll. How fulfilling.

There's nothing wrong with The Status Quo. Their first album is fantastic!

Aubrey wrote: "So you're either going to be the status quo or a troll. How fulfilling."

I don't really see why basing my reviews on impersonal facts and knowledge would result in these two things being my only option going forward.

Anyway, it's a pretty stupid idea to begin with, and probably impossible to implement, so I guess I'll just go back to reviews with opinions. At least then I can just say whatever I want without having to do any background work, research, or checking against reality, and just claim I'm right because it's how I feel. That's what makes America Great Again or something. Vote Trump.

Hegel most certainly will see you clear through this false dichotomy, this binary opposition between fact and opinion. Probably Aristotle too ; or, you know, who ever floats your boat.

No, wait..... Derrida! He's got that whole deconstruction thing going on!

Fuckin' binary opposition twistin' me up again. I shoulda just thought in Deleuzean rhizomes from the get-go.

Geoff wrote: "Fuckin' binary opposition twistin' me up again. I shoulda just thought in Deleuzean rhizomes from the get-go."

This is a good time to recall the fact that hops are rhizomes. And don't even get me started on the need to suppress the male hops rhizome ; mess up a whole field of hops!

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "This is a good time to recall the fact that hops are rhizomes."

I just knew my grisette had read A Thousand Plateaus! It tasted so pretentious, and it wasn't just the brettanomyces.

Hadrian wrote: "Confession: I did use a .gif once in a review. But it was a picture of a claymation skull eating Stalin's face, which 1) is totally sick and 2) fit the review of Stalin's biography."

I used a GIF in my review of Inherent Vice, and it's beautiful, hypnotizing, and oddly comforting. The only good GIF. That and that little fat kid strollin' saying Haters Gonna Hate.

David wrote: "Ted Cruz does have an extremely punchable face- I don't think that's up for debate"
Have you seen this analysis from a neurology professor, explaining why his expressions are so unappealing?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...
This commentator also mentions his resemblance to Joe McCarthy: http://www.abqjournal.com/561602/opin...

Sometimes I feel too burnt out or tired to read reviews by more than a handful of friends, and/or about books I'm not very interested in. I'm sure it happens to everyone, esp. with larger numbers of friends and/or less time.
I am also perenially too knackered to do regular photo finding and uploading with decent results. (I don't know why this is draining, but it is.) Aside from it inadvertantly stopping me annoying people with images in reviews (I've posted, like, one, ever) it's one of the main reasons I don't blog. Here I can just write stuff in boxes with a bit of html and the layout is taken care of.

Lol, see Ted Cruz's face is the great uniter; normally I'm extremely skeptical of the "scientific" claims made by neuro-psychologists, but in this case I'm willing to drop the quotation marks - Cruz's face is really, truly, objectively scientifically hideous.

That Psychology Today article is one of the great things to come out of this election cycle.