[Libby Cone]

This excess would call for it to be rated because even though the book jacket may say what the book is about, the average adult reader who would be interested would most likely be disgusted by so much it.

Or perhaps, not a rating so much as a caution label.[/QUOTE]

Wow, Griffonwing! I think you're crossing the boundary into style. I mean, my tastes aren't very esoteric, but I can't seem to finish a Cormac McCarthy book. Does it need a rating? If you asked someone who likes McCarthy to write it it would say one thing. If you asked me to write it, I'd label "All the Pretty Horses" with CAUTION:This book starts off badly, with a young hired hand falling for the beautiful, haughty daughter of his employer and being warned off her by her grandmother...zzzzzzzzzzzz.

"Blood Meridian" - CAUTION: All the characters kill Indians en masse, with hugely, almost Biblically descriptive prose that makes no distinction between pus and a sunset. After they commit mass murder, they get drunk, go whoring, and then repeat the whole cycle. No one, murderer or victim, has an inner life, whose narrative might make the book worthwhile.

...or a book that I liked - "Freddy and Fredericka" by Mark Helprin- CAUTION: Even though this book is unevenly edited, it is so hysterically funny in places that you should probably wear a Depends while reading it. It has sex and bad words, but who cares?

Somebody who didn't like "Freddy and Fredericka" might say something like CAUTION: Poorly edited, with unbelievable plot twists, sex, and bad words.

I think that when you beging to talk about "excesses," you are commenting upon style and not content. W. G. Sebald seldom goes into detail about the murders that took away the people he reminisces about, but if you understand what he is talking about, it can seem just as grisly as Cormac McCarthy.