Talk:Nude Men

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Genre categories?

There is nothing in the text that indicates anything about magical realism or absurdism, but there are a categories to that effect. Do the reviews comment about the genre of the novel? LadyofShalott 19:53, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I read the novel years and years ago, but I remember nothing that merits these categories. These cats are in fact overused and misunderstood. Not everything absurd is "absurdist" - and not everything vaguely unreal is "magical realism." (The worst is "surrealism" - a word that gets tagged to anything slightly weird.) I say we drop it from these categories. Thoughts? NaymanNoland (talk) 07:00, 4 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Review of Nude Men

Reverting the Chicago Tribune review to the Kirkus on these grounds is absurd, and - frankly - sounds more than a bit like Qworty's infamous rant about the New York Times: "Kirkus is famous for understated reviews, and its interpretation is considered more weighty than the gas-inhaling hacks of the chicago tribune (who receive plenty of freebies from publishing companies anyway)." The reversion has been undone, but we really do want to be careful about going down that rabbit hole again. The Chicago Tribune is, I assure you, not generally regarded as the refuge of stoned hacks: it's right behind the Times and the Washington Post in terms of prestige. Kirkus is weighty simply because it's meaningful to be reviewed there, not because the anonymous reviewers themselves are more reputable than the writers for the major papers - they're certainly not. Moreover, they're hardly known for understatement - Kirkus is famous for harsh reviews. Finally: yes, ALL reviewers receive free books from publishers. All this to say: we have a solid, sourced review - let's not mess with it without good reason, or it's simply going to look as if Qworty's unleashed vengeful sock puppets. NaymanNoland (talk) 17:06, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Btw, if we do want a full sentence rather than a fragment - as suggested - the full sentence from the Trib (sourced) is this: "Reminiscent of some of Philip Roth's zanier explorations of identity and sexuality, "Nude Men" is consistently entertaining and provocative." I'm not sure this is a great idea, as the full sentence sounds a bit like puffery and promo. Nothing wrong with partial sentences, if they're clear, right? NaymanNoland (talk) 17:43, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the quote from the Trib is fine as it is. The fragment I mentioned in my edit summary was in the edit I reverted, which inserted a sentence fragment.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 17:46, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ah. My mistake. So we're all on the same page. Excellent. NaymanNoland (talk) 17:59, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]