I recently discovered that some smarty-pants put a reply comment on a book review that I posted at Amazon. Actually, he wasn’t so much a smarty-pants as a stuck-up out-of-state relative of the person who wrote the book I reviewed. Had to be a relative because no one but a relative or a grad student would have bought Ella Marie Rast’s “The Whole Dam Story: The Drowning and Rising of a River City in the West.”
Now, I’m not reviewing the book again. You want to read my review, or enjoy the snickety exchange between myself and the fellow with the infernally bad luck to be graced with a surname like Funk, just follow the link below. I’m not going to review the book – but I will make fun of the person with the audicity to say “I am wondering if this person really knows the history” — um… duh, Mr. Funk. Now, I realize that, under normal circumstances, this poor guy would have no way of knowing that he was dealing with someone whose name was followed by both the M and the A that denotes a graduate-degree holder. Under normal circumstances, how would he know? But, he should know. Why should he know? Because this book is so poorly written and so full of inaccuracies that, as I said, only a relative or a grad student would have read it… and the esteemed Mr. Funk already knows I’m not his relative.
Rather than deduce such a thing, he’s gone out on the shaky limb of accusing a stranger of stupidity. And what are his credentials on the matter? Well, this clever Californian was a long-time resident of the area, so I’m sure his ears are still ringing with all the down-home stories (and, obviously, for that august group, knowing which rivers are tributaries and which are main stems is entirely in the eye of the beholder). Hey, why do the research when you can just make things up and ram it through a vanity press? (The only reason I can think of is to avoid being made fun of by people like me… and lets face it, even at my most sarcastic, I’m not really that mean.)
But, I’m going to leave my readers with this piece of free advice – maybe, before you try to exchange jabs with people, do a quick search and find out who you’re dealing with (which is what I, in fact, did… and now that I know Mr. Funk is a hard-of-hearing baby boomer, I feel a little bit like a monster… but I’m posting this anyway… because hell hath no fury like a historian scorned). (And before anyone flies up in the air at me, I’ll add that my reaction to this book was kindly and restrained compared to the reactions of historians much my senior. Yes… it’s that bad.)
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on Friday, July 16th, 2010 at 10:06 am and is filed under Commentary.
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The Soul of Sarcasm
I recently discovered that some smarty-pants put a reply comment on a book review that I posted at Amazon. Actually, he wasn’t so much a smarty-pants as a stuck-up out-of-state relative of the person who wrote the book I reviewed. Had to be a relative because no one but a relative or a grad student would have bought Ella Marie Rast’s “The Whole Dam Story: The Drowning and Rising of a River City in the West.”
Now, I’m not reviewing the book again. You want to read my review, or enjoy the snickety exchange between myself and the fellow with the infernally bad luck to be graced with a surname like Funk, just follow the link below. I’m not going to review the book – but I will make fun of the person with the audicity to say “I am wondering if this person really knows the history” — um… duh, Mr. Funk. Now, I realize that, under normal circumstances, this poor guy would have no way of knowing that he was dealing with someone whose name was followed by both the M and the A that denotes a graduate-degree holder. Under normal circumstances, how would he know? But, he should know. Why should he know? Because this book is so poorly written and so full of inaccuracies that, as I said, only a relative or a grad student would have read it… and the esteemed Mr. Funk already knows I’m not his relative.
Rather than deduce such a thing, he’s gone out on the shaky limb of accusing a stranger of stupidity. And what are his credentials on the matter? Well, this clever Californian was a long-time resident of the area, so I’m sure his ears are still ringing with all the down-home stories (and, obviously, for that august group, knowing which rivers are tributaries and which are main stems is entirely in the eye of the beholder). Hey, why do the research when you can just make things up and ram it through a vanity press? (The only reason I can think of is to avoid being made fun of by people like me… and lets face it, even at my most sarcastic, I’m not really that mean.)
But, I’m going to leave my readers with this piece of free advice – maybe, before you try to exchange jabs with people, do a quick search and find out who you’re dealing with (which is what I, in fact, did… and now that I know Mr. Funk is a hard-of-hearing baby boomer, I feel a little bit like a monster… but I’m posting this anyway… because hell hath no fury like a historian scorned). (And before anyone flies up in the air at me, I’ll add that my reaction to this book was kindly and restrained compared to the reactions of historians much my senior. Yes… it’s that bad.)
Find the reviews and sarcasm here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1L24YM9TBQCON/ref=cm_cr_rev_detup_redir?_encoding=UTF8&cdPage=1&asin=1403337322&store=books&cdSort=oldest&newContentID=Mx3LIQTVC87NVRB#Mx3LIQTVC87NVRB
Tags: American Falls, History, Rast
This entry was posted on Friday, July 16th, 2010 at 10:06 am and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.