I just ordered a couple of things on Amazon. A book that’s not available anywhere else; and nose spray that is more than fifty percent less than what it is at the Whole Food market (another place I try and avoid). Otherwise and most of the time, I’m at the local bookstore and the local drugstore or the Farmer’s Market, paying my several dollars more, because honestly, if we all keep supporting the BIG A, there won’t be any more stores. They have already killed off the bookstores and the careers of thousands of writers. And we have ourselves to thank because we want to save a few dollars. Furthermore, there won’t be any more stores of any kind if we keep on with this madness. We will be a nation of villages surrounded by warehouses.
Last summer, when my husband, Henry and I were staying back east, I broke the final taboo and became a PRIME member, there were so many things we needed for that two months and local prices were more of a rip off than usual. At least it seemed that way. It was so seductive. Especially when the bargain price merchandise appeared as if by magic, overnight, on the truck. The interregnum period between the pushing of the button and Henry’s bark when the truck drove up and the stuff arrived, seemed mere hours. It was magic.
I guess I should mention that last summer, in the weeks after my second novel Lavina was published, I was wild to promote. I was writing everyone and their baby sister asking them if they wanted me to appear at their book clubs. If you know me, you know I hate to ask for anything at all. Nor do I like to stand up in front of strangers. I did a signing, I did everything it seemed but wear a freaking sandwich board with the Sienna color wash of the novel.
And needless to say, I checked my Amazon reviews, everyday, sometimes more than once a day. Sometimes twice, three times. Those stars are very vexing little things. I liked them as a child, back when there was no Amazon. Though I never garnered that many of them then either. I was restless, unhappy and read novels at night instead of studying. This summer I did not garner star hood on Amazon either. Furthermore, I was outraged when a fifteen year old kid who had written and asked me for the book he couldn’t afford to send him one and I schlepped to the post office to oblige him—thanked me by giving Lavina, three stars: WTF?
Then I started getting those little messages in my Inbox. We’d like you to rate your recent purchase of Nose Better Nose Spray. How many stars?
Please rate your recent purchase of the six-pack of Coobie Sports Bras. How many stars? Please rate your recent purchase of bug spray. Olive oil. I stopped looking at my Amazon reviews at that point. Because the truth is, I’m not a nose spray or a six-pack of sports bras. Still less, a container of bug spray. One’s choice of brassieres are very telling. But not alas a reflection of one’s intellect. You are what you spray on your body, and of course you are what you read. But it’s not the same experience. And shouldn’t be judged through an identical lens –one devised to promote sales. Nothing more. Nothing less.
FYI: The kind of nose spray I favor received 144 mostly five star reviews on Amazon. The olive oil and the bug spray received even more. The bras (I found them too hot and over padded) also received thousands of stars.
Who Nose better?
Just now I did a search and found out, one of my all time favorite pieces of literature, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (who by the way has a website, one that eerily replies if you join it). His masterpiece, in the edition I own garnered 50 Reviews, only 54% of which were Five Stars. The bug spray beat him way out. Not to mention the Coobie bras.
The sequel to the dirty grey book, one I didn’t read garnered over thirty-two thousand reviews.
The question remains: if someone resembling Robert DeNiro in a black velvet cape and little horns appeared suddenly beside me (and raised a gloved hand that stopped Henry from barking) to offer me one million stars on Amazon for Lavina, and another million for the The New Me… in exchange for my soul… what would I do?
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