(no subject)

[the_rck]

Something I've been pondering-- How does one find the line between personal opinion and objective quality (or lack thereof)? That is, how do I know if I was bored by something because I was in the wrong mood, because I don't care for that genre, those tropes, etc. or if it was badly executed? Did I love that book because it's amazingly good, because it was exactly what I needed at that moment when I read it, or because it pushed my narrative buttons just so?

It's not wrong to love something that's crap or to hate something that's brilliant. The problem is knowing which is which. Part of my book and DVD logging right now is an attempt to tease out a little more information in my own head about my opinions. I don't always succeed.

On some level, the difference between my taste and the objective doesn't matter. My taste is always going to have more impact on what I like or don't, and people wanting recommendations will be better served by knowing my taste than by expecting that my enjoying something relates to some universally applicable scale of quality.

Still, I thought I'd ask-- How do you tell the difference between objective quality and your own opinions?

Comments

Not sure if this helps...

[anderyn.livejournal.com]

I do this with music, because I HATE instrumental passages with the hate of a thousand burning suns, but I can usually tell when someone is really good at it. I just don't LIKE it. It could be amazing and powerful and virtuosity embodied, and I won't LIKE it and will kill it from my iPod in a new york second -- I can also tell when someone is crappy at singing, but if I like the song, and this is the only version I can get, I will keep it. And play it.

Re: Not sure if this helps...

[jss]

Excellent point; I feel the same about some of the things I've read: I can tell you the author is doing a wonderful job, using language to paint pictures wonderfully and using great similes, developing their characters with a plot as simple or complex as the story requires, whatever — but I can still hate the story. I can see that it's well done but still not like it.