All's Well That Ends Well

Rating: Null/10 (16 March 2011)

It's easy to appreciate a classic when it's established, but few appreciate an original work when it's new, let alone unpublished. Take "Swann's Way"; Marcel Proust's masterpiece was rejected by every publisher and insulted by the major critics of his day. "Dear friend: I may be thicker-skinned than most," one publisher, introduced to Proust by a close acquaintance, said, "but I just can't understand why anyone should take thirty pages to describe how he tosses about in bed because he can't get to sleep." After countless rejections Proust eventually published "Swann's Way" at his own expense. Today the novel is regarded as one of literature's finest works.
The point is, the most difficult task for a critic is to appreciate an original work before it is established. Today Michael Bay is regarded as a hack by everyone, but tomorrow his reputation will change. For when the oceans rise, mankind develops gills, fins and the attention span of goldfish, Bay will be New Earth's Shakespeare. He will be our Proust, our Hemmingway, and we will weep salty tears over the calamitous delights he dangles before our mutant fish brains.
10/10 - Masterpiece. The greatest human achievement since the first Moon landing.