Category:5-Minute Reviews

5-Minute Reviews is a new genre of literary, film, etc. (music, art) criticism, founded by Faterson for the purposes of this site.

This form of literary, film, etc. criticism consists in jotting down, immediately upon having finished reading a book, watching a movie, etc., one's impressions from the book, movie, etc.

This is done completely informally by a person who can type very fast on a computer keyboard – the person must touch-type; that is the basic and unconditional requirement for anyone who would like to write a 5-Minute Review such as those collected on this site.

(For writers in Slovak language, the usage of the alternative Slovak keyboard layout developed by Faterson is highly recommended.)

Now, the goal of a 5-minute review is, immediately upon having finished reading a book, watching a film, etc., to spend 5 minutes, touch-typing, jotting down spontaneously one's impressions from the book, movie, etc., in an informal fashion.

Don't try to write perfect sentences. Don't censor your own impressions; don't try to be politically correct in what you jot down. Freely and spontaneously jot down whatever your impressions are from a particular book, movie, musical album, theatrical performance, art exhibition, etc.

5 minutes is the goal for you. You must spend at least 5 minutes touch-typing, recording your impressions from what you've just experienced. Even if you believe you have nothing to report, because what you've just experienced was absolutely boring, unremarkable, disgusting or forgettable – you still are required to spend 5 minutes, touch-typing, recording your impressions.

However, 5 minutes is only the minimal goal It's perfectly acceptable for you to spend 30 minutes, touch-typing, a review that was originally intended to be a 5-minute review. In other words, 5 minutes is your minimal goal. In no way is this an upper limit that you are required to observe

It's also useful to rate each book, film, etc., upon having read, watched it, etc. On this site, the American rating on the scale of A+ (= best) to F- (= worst) is employed. However: unlike the 5-minute review itself, the rating attached to it is only supplemented on the following day after the review was written. In other words, it's useful to “sleep on it” before any work of art is rated – this is different from the 5-minute review itself that should be written as soon as one has finished reading the book or watching the movie; while the impressions are still very much fresh in the reader's, viewer's, or listener's mind

It is even permissible to jot down one's impressions during, in the midst of reading a book, watching a movie, or listening to a musical album – for example, one may easily stop the playback of a movie if one watches it on one's notebook computer. Such impromptu notes may be done in the form of bullets and keywords, to be expanded into full sentences for the 5-minute review after one has finished reading the book, watching the movie, listening to the musical album, etc.

Nevertheless, it would be a bad idea to try to write perfect, polished sentences for a 5-minute review. Oh no There simply isn't time for that; 5 minutes is a very short amount of time. So, for a 5-minute review, the first draft must suffice; there is no time for revisions of what you write.

That is, not on the same day when you first compose the 5-minute review! There is all the time you need afterwards (days, weeks, or even years later). You may use any day from the rest of your life to bring the original 5-minute review into a polished form: for example, by subdividing it into logical paragraphs; by re-organizing the sequence of ideas contained in the review (“shuffling them around”), so that they follow in a logical sequence; and by improving the text's diction and syntax, increasing their precision.

But, life is short. Perhaps you'll never get around to doing that. However, if someone offered you payment for such a polished, professional review, what more could you ask for On the other hand, unless there is a strong motivation of a similar kind for you to revise the review to make it look professional – just be content to leave it as it is, in the original form as written in the first 5 (or more) minutes after you've completed reading the book or watching the movie.

Because it's not the polished, professional nature of a review that matters. No, it's the record of one's spontaneous response, natural reaction to a work of art – this tends to be unique for each reader, viewer, and listener; that's why it's crucial to record your very own impressions, in as spontaneous, direct, straightforward, and immediate form as possible, as early as you can make it after finishing the “consumption” of a work of art

On this site, links to all available 5-minute reviews will be collected on this very webpage you are currently reading. See below for the titles of works for which 5-minute reviews are already available.

It will be pretty obvious for any reader of these reviews which of the 5-minute reviews are published on this site in their original, unpolished form, and which of them are already revised, re-organized, improved versions of the original 5-minute review. When in doubt, simply click the history tab at the top of any webpage, to consult all previous versions of any 5-minute review posted on this site.

The very first version of any 5-minute review will always contain the data specifying when the original, unpolished version of the particular 5-minute review was first written. All subsequent revisions of that original, unpolished version can then be consulted via the history tab available for all webpages on this site.

Enjoy reading these 5-minute reviews, and most of all, feel free to contribute your own 5-minute review of any work of literature, film, music, theatre, art, (etc.) to this site Simply set up a new webpage for any work of art for which you'd like to compose a 5-minute review. (If you need help on how to set up a new webpage on this site – it's easy and it only takes about 3 seconds – please consult this analogous instruction or send an email to the site owner at a@avenarius.sk to receive direct help.)

If a webpage for the particular work of art already exists on this site, simply click the edit tab at the top of that particular webpage, and insert the text of your own 5-minute review! (A single webpage on this site can contain many various 5-minute reviews of the same work of art – and if these reviews disagree among each other, so much the better At least there will be a lot to talk about in this site's associated discussion forum.)