Reviews for Of Mice and Men

The average rating for Of Mice and Men based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2007-09-25 00:00:00 Callum Harrower The title of this novel is only 50% accurate, a very poor effort. Yes, it's about men, but there's little or nothing about mice in these pages. Mice enthusiasts will come away disappointed. This got me thinking about other novel titles. You would have to say that such books as The Slap, The Help, The Great Gatsby, Gangsta Granny, Mrs Dalloway and Hamlet have very good titles because they are all about a slap, some help, a Gatsby who was really great, a no good granny, a woman who was married to a guy called Dalloway and a Hamlet. I have no problem with those titles. But you may be poring over the pages of To Kill a Mockingbird for a long fruitless evening to find any mockingbirds coming to any harm at all. Indeed, to coin a phrase, no mockingbirds were harmed during the making of that book. So I rate that title only 5% accurate. And some titles seem to have a word missing, such as Conan Doyle's The Sign of Four. Four what? It doesn't say. Perhaps he completed the book and left the title to the very last minute and died as he was writing it down. Same thing with The Crimson Petal and the White. White what? Wallpaper? Hat? Cat? Mouse? Mockingbird? Could be The Crimson Petal and the White Gangsta Granny for all we know. A poor title. And what about The Dharma Bums? I think a Cigarette or You Out is clearly missing from that title. Another grossly misleading title is Women in Love . I can't be the only reader who was expecting some strong girl on girl action from DH Lawrence but I would have been better off fast-forwarding to the middle part of Mulholland Drive. Now that's what I call Women in Love. DH, take note. Another badly chosen title is Hitler's Niece - yes, it is 100% accurate, but at first glance it can look like Hitler's Nice, and surely that is going to put off a lot of potential readers (except for the readers you really don't want). And what about Call it Sleep? - call what sleep? The Catcher in the Rye, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Flaubert's Parrot, The Camomile Lawn - sometimes obscure titles can be solved if you understand that the author is referring to Death, so, the Catcher is Death, the Postman is Death, the lawn is Death and the Parrot is Death. Of course, I may have got that wrong. It's something I read somewhere and it just stuck in my mind. Some other titles I would give low ratings to : The Turn of the Screw completely baffled me - I know that "screw" is what inmates call prison officers, so I was expecting a story about a concert put on by the staff of a large correctional institution. It was nothing like that. The Little Prince according to my system does rate 100% but I still think The Little Faux-naif Idiot would have been better. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - actually, I rate this as 90% accurate - there are two guys who are named Kavalier and Clay, and they do have adventures, but they aren't amazing. A Clockwork Orange - this must be a metaphor for "I have given up thinking of a title for my novel" No Name - like A Clockwork Orange this must be where the author couldn't think of any title so in this case he left it without one, like the Byrds' album Untitled, or () by Sigur Ros, or several paintings by De Kooning and those other abstract expressionist types; but to call a novel No Name is self-defeating, because No Name then becomes its name - epic fail, Mr Collins. The Violent Bear it Away - this is another example of a word missing - possibly "took" or "dragged", I expect that's the sort of thing a violent bear would do I'm surprised the publisher did not catch this error.

Review # 2 was written on 2007-09-22 00:00:00 Remington Chapman I needed a quick read because I stupidly forgot that the library would be closed yesterday for Veteran's Day. I'd exhausted my current supply, and I needed a short term fix to hold me until I could get some new product today. So I grabbed Of Mice and Men off the bookshelf last night. And I'm glad I did because I'd somehow remembered that this was a depressing book. How wrong I was! Oh, sure there were some tense moments like when you think Lennie will accidently hurt Curley's wife in the barn. What a relief when George and Candy come in at the last minute and stop anything bad from happening! And isn't it nice that the scare changes both Curley and his wife so that they have a much better marriage and new appreciation for each other. Plus, it leads to the great moment when Curley is so grateful that he fronts George, Lennie and Candy the money to finally buy the ranch of their dreams. Oh, and that last scene with George and Candy on the porch of their new home while Lennie tends the rabbits brought a tear to my eye. What's that you say? I got the ending wrong? No, I'm quite certain this is what happened. No! Be quiet! I can't hear you! LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA