A friend of mine kindly forwarded an e-mail from a well-known book promoter offering a free telephone seminar featuring an interview with the author of those “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books. This reminded me of something I thought when that book and its numerous follow-ups first appeared - has there been a worse book title in the whole of human history?! Yes, yes, I know the books have sold gazillions and I am sure that the title played its part in contributing to that commercial success, but it’s still mind-bendingly, buttock-clenchingly awful.
For a start, the metaphor doesn’t even work - I get that “chicken soup” is intended here to mean something soothing that will make you feel better - but I can’t stand chicken soup and I doubt I’m the only one. Surely “nice cup of tea” (for the British edition at least) or “foot massage” would work better? The quality of the metaphor aside, the meaning - this book will provide something comforting for your “soul” - is unspeakably appalling. Why not drop the metaphors entirely and just call it “A Bunch of Sentimental Dross”? Other books have made me want to hurl them across the room, but usually only after I have read at least part of them.
But wait! I could be being unfair, since the title has prevented me from going within so much as ten yards of a copy. So as part of my extensive research for this blog I read online the first story in the first of the books...and it was worse than I could have imagined. Unthinking, unquestioning, cheap emotion of dubious authenticity. I struggled to get to the end and the story isn't half a page long.
So maybe the “chicken soup” metaphor works after all? The books are something you would only imbibe if someone had a gun to your head or you were in need of an emetic...
For a start, the metaphor doesn’t even work - I get that “chicken soup” is intended here to mean something soothing that will make you feel better - but I can’t stand chicken soup and I doubt I’m the only one. Surely “nice cup of tea” (for the British edition at least) or “foot massage” would work better? The quality of the metaphor aside, the meaning - this book will provide something comforting for your “soul” - is unspeakably appalling. Why not drop the metaphors entirely and just call it “A Bunch of Sentimental Dross”? Other books have made me want to hurl them across the room, but usually only after I have read at least part of them.
But wait! I could be being unfair, since the title has prevented me from going within so much as ten yards of a copy. So as part of my extensive research for this blog I read online the first story in the first of the books...and it was worse than I could have imagined. Unthinking, unquestioning, cheap emotion of dubious authenticity. I struggled to get to the end and the story isn't half a page long.
So maybe the “chicken soup” metaphor works after all? The books are something you would only imbibe if someone had a gun to your head or you were in need of an emetic...
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