March 06, 2003

Truth in advertizing?

Oh dear -- looks like someone at Wal-mart's website committed a site design faux pas, and put up the wrong description for The Hobbit. Excerpt:

On the Battersea Reach of the Thames, a mixed bag of eccentrics live in houseboats. Belonging to neither land nor sea, they belong to one another. There is Maurice, a homosexual prostitute; Richard, a buttoned-up ex-navy-man; but most of all there's Nenna, the struggling mother of two wild little girls.

Funny, I don't remember anything about houseboats in the book...

Posted by Andrea Harris at March 6, 2003 12:11 PM
Comments

This description belongs to Penelope Fitzgerald's Offshore.

How it got into a description of The Hobbit...hmmm...sabotage? A prank?

Reading the descriptions, I'm reminded of why I said (in that nerdy-eyed post on my blog) that contemporary, mainstream fiction was boring beyond endurance. Ugh.

Posted by: Angie Schultz at March 6, 2003 at 02:03 PM

I didn't know there were homosexuals in any book Wal-Mart sold. Won't somebody think of the children?

Posted by: Sean Kirby at March 6, 2003 at 02:12 PM

That sounds a hell of a lot like The Hobbit to me.

Posted by: Steve H. at March 7, 2003 at 10:33 AM

I can't begin to tell you the wonderful feeling that came over me as I sent the link over to the snotty dotcom people. The screenshot is now the number one wallpaper choice in my area.

Vicky captured it Here

Posted by: Matt at March 7, 2003 at 10:40 AM