22 April 2007

Don Quichote



Today I received an email from Amazon... it contained its usual list of suggestions which in general are indeed very interesting. But they managed to amaze me today:

Suggested was:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7)
by J. K. Rowling
List Price: $34.99
Price: $18.89
You Save: $16.10 (46%)

It was recommended because I purchased or rated: 'The Malleus Maleficarum of Kramer and Sprenger'.

Riiiiiiight... wtf! I couldn't help replying to the feedback line:

Dear Amazon,

In general I appreciate your recommendations but to suggest I would like 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' because I own and rated 'The Malleus Maleficarum of Kramer and Sprenger' is ridiculous! The Malleus is a 15th century manual used by the inquisition in their quest against witchcraft. The Malleus is a historic work which I own because of my study in medieval religion. Harry Potter is fantasy literature and as such has absolutely nothing to do with the Malleus; not even when a majority of people rate HP as witchcraft instead of story. It is not witchcraft, never will be witchcraft and most certainly doesn't belong in the realm of scientific historic study.

Yours,
Gertjan Filarski
University of Leiden, The Netherlands

And yes I do feel a bit like Don Quichote...

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I guess they figure that if you like historical works on witchcraft, you might also like fictional ones.

11 May, 2007 21:37  

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