who is the most overrated writer ever?

[bestseller]

Michael Moore is over rated. He is "Chomsky for children". Chomsky, that's one hell of an underrated writer. "Dettering Democracy" will knock you on your ***. That's a good read with excellent research (from an MIT professor of linguistics) that not only paints a realistic, unbiased view of politics, economics, and society in general, but it reads fluently with a varied higher vocabulary. It's all too rare. Michael Moore is comparatively a hack.

[scruffy_danny]

I hate to be all predictable or wotnot but (I havn't read the whole thread) but I really do have to say that the Harry Potter books aren't very good. I think Rowling is the most over rated author ever. I really do.
Ok, maybe her books are good, though each one incredibly similar to the other, but that is no excuse to the amount of sales she's had; it's simply ridiculous. It's a hyped up thing like many other things: pogs, marbles, football stickers, Sunny Delight, and now Harry Potter.
Rowling is ok I guess, I'l give you that, but she deserves less.

(the moody cow)...

[bestseller]

The authors of TV guide, of course. Fragmented sentences galore, and way too many numbers...is this a bad read, or what?

[scruffy_danny]

I think Homer Simpson would beg to differ... *chuckle*

[Bix12]

I didn't read through the entire thread, so I don't know if she was mention'd....but, Ayn Rand get's my vote, hands down. A major snooze-fest, and her "philosophy" sucks...imo.



One writer that I wasn't surprised to find mention'd a few times as being overrated was "Papa" Hemingway. I can understand why people might tend to think that of him. It's ironic, because the very thing about him that might cause folks to say he's overrated is actually, imo, the very thing wherein lies his genius. I'm refering to his compact sentence structure and sparse use of descriptors. Granted, he wasn't at all wordy, but he didn't need to be...he could say more, and with more precision, in a few short sentences than most other writers could only try, (and fail), to say in 2 full pages.

J.K. Rowling? At the insistance of others, I've tried twice now to read her, and both times I felt as if I were reading a book written for 10 year olds. Hmmmm....I wonder why that was?

[Sirius_Kai]

I think that I would have to say...I know this will possibly get me slaughtered...Faulkner. His stories are great, but IMHO, you have to be a wonderful writer to get the most out of it. Of course, that was probably what he was going for, but for general purposes...no. (In other words, I think far more people claim to enjoy his writing than actually do.)

[ArcherSnake]

I see some of you mentioned Kerouac. I think he and his contemporaries are just horrible, and extremely overrated. I had to read On The Road for my sophomore English class; the teacher chose this over Hemingway's A Moveable Feast because she thought we would identify with Kerouac's "rebellious, nonconformist nature" (which was, I must say, very overdue for a legally adult young man). Not only did I find it inappropriate (there was some sex and alot of drug use in there), but it didn't really seem to have a point to it. I didn't get anything out of it, and neither did the rest of the class.

[amuse]

i've never liked Faulkner (and probably never will).

[RococoLocket]

Charles Dickens is overrated, he bores the hell outta me.

I just had to study Wordworths *twitch* Prelude for my Eng Lit A-Level, and it was torture! It came across to me as arrogant; No wonder Coleridge overdosed & died so soon after 'Wild Willy' [as my English teacher loves to call him] wrote a 12 book poem all about himself for his bestest friend. Wordsworth = Overrated.

Usually, the more I study a book/poetry etc, the more I begin to like it, so when it all goes the opposite way, that's when I know it's awful.

[baddad]

One writer that I wasn't surprised to find mention'd a few times as being overrated was "Papa" Hemingway. I can understand why people might tend to think that of him. It's ironic, because the very thing about him that might cause folks to say he's overrated is actually, imo, the very thing wherein lies his genius. I'm refering to his compact sentence structure and sparse use of descriptors. Granted, he wasn't at all wordy, but he didn't need to be...he could say more, and with more precision, in a few short sentences than most other writers could only try, (and fail), to say in 2 full pages.

[/FONT]

"Hear, Hear", from a Papa Hemingway fan.............Hemingway was all about 'simple'. Deep complexity revealed with simple words, simple sentences. Hemingway.

[Basil]

Over at Oprah's Book Club, they're celebrating "A Summer of Faulkner."

[Sitaram]

I didn't read through the entire thread, so I don't know if she was mention'd....but, Ayn Rand get's my vote, hands down. A major snooze-fest, and her "philosophy" sucks...imo.

Aha, now I know the secret to your Font of Garamond and COLOR equals yellow! (Nice, that one poem of yours, Bix, I must look more closely)

I always felt like I should read Ayn Rand, but I could never bring myself to actually begin. Just now, I became curious about the origin of the title "Atlas Shrugged" and google lead me to a very informative link:

http://www.eckerd.edu/aspec/writers/atlas_shrugged.htm

The overarching story is that the men of the mind, who like Atlas,
carry the world on their shoulders, gradually get fed up with being
exploited, and abused, and given no respect. They retire from the
world, shrugging the burden, in effect. Rand’s working title was On
Strike. Her husband’s suggestion that the title be changed to Atlas
Shrugged was a valuable contribution. (It reminds me of another great
title change, when Viktor Frankl’s book From Death Camp to
Existentialism was re-named Man’s Search for Meaning.)

"My philosophy, Objectivism, holds that:
Reality exists as an objective absolute — facts are facts, independent
of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes, or fears.

Reason is man’s only means of perceiving reality, his only source of
knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.
Man — every man — is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of
others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to
others, nor sacrificing others to himself. My need does not give me an
automatic claim to your wealth.


The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a
system where men deal with one another, not as victims and
executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free,
voluntary exchange, to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man
may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and
no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The
government acts only as a policeman that protects man’s rights; it
uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who
initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. There should be
a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and
for the same reasons as the separation of state and church."

Rand makes much of the sign of the dollar, and another bit of hokum
occurs in the ending, when John Galt traces the sign of the dollar in
the air as he tells the strikers it is time to go back to the world. Even I
choke on that. She took the dollar-sign symbol, always drawn on
capitalist pigs in cartoons, and turned conventional wisdom upside
down, to make a point. She always wore a large gold dollar-sign pin on
her dress. At her funeral, a six-foot floral dollar-sign was placed by the
casket.

Such links, and tidbits help me to develop a deeper understanding of and appreciation for certain books and authors.

For now, I have my hands full with Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow". Ms. Rand will have to wait her turn.

Speaking of Faulkner, I am mesmerized by the opening pages of "As I Lay Dying", with Jewel and that horse poised for an instant in "furious hiatus".

I suppose if we like intricate, gothic, ornate convolutions of Byzantine complexity, then we are doomed to dislike barebones, powerful simplicity, elegantly hewn by Occam's razor and distilled to the most elemental form.
And, conversely, if we love the simple, we shall not love complex.


There is no accounting for personal tastes or for contemporary popularity or historical endurance. Thornton Wilder seems to have been quite fond of Gertrude Stein, but Hemingway appears to have disliked her intensely.

I am sure there are those who consider Gertrude Stein to be overrated.

It might prove very interesting to study works which were best-sellers but fell into obscurity, such as "Anthony Adverse" of the 1930's, and compare them with works which were unsuccessful in their time, but were then "rediscovered" long after the author's death.

[Scheherazade]

I suppose if we like intricate, gothic, ornate convolutions of Byzantine complexity, then we are doomed to dislike barebones, powerful simplicity, elegantly hewn by Occam's razor and distilled to the most elemental form.
And, conversely, if we love the simple, we shall not love complex.

OK, Sitaram, keep your hands where we can see them and slowly walk away from that Thesaurus!!!

[Sitaram]

But, look how cute I was in that paragraph,.... the FORM of the sentences imitated the meaning which I attempted to convey. The first sentence, which is elaborate and ornate, speaks of those who prefer complexity. The second sentence is much simpler by comparison.

Mallarme describes one of Pascal's Pensees as a "perfect poem" precisely because its very sentence structure emulates the idea which it conveys:

"Le silence eternelle et des espaces infinite, m'frai" (from my poor old memory, pardon any errors..... "The eternal silence and the infinity of space, frighten me" ... but the ME of the sentence is OUTSIDE of an alienated from the two infinities, which are perfectly balanced and juxtaposed by the "AND".

Though, it may be Paul Valery and not Mallarme. I read the essay 40 years ago. Hard to remember.

In all honesty, when I write, I never use a thesaurus. I just write what pops into my head. Of course, once it pops in my head, I place it in the fire of the forge until it glows, and then pound it on the anvil for a bit with a very large hammer and my sinewy "arms like iron bands", like any respectable village smithy under a spreading chestnut tree.

My big problem is spelling. I paste what I write into MS Word, and look for spelling errors. Then, I use this forum's wonderful edit feature to correct. When I was a teenager, and wanted to read the poetry of Wallace Stevens, I had to have a large dictionary to look up so many words. But now, as I read Gravity's Rainbow, I am amazed that I don't have to look up any words, and I am personally familiar with many of the things he mentions in culture and history (I actually had a Plasticman comic in the 1950s). I believe that whatever we write should well up naturally, from within, and be a genuine expression of what we are and who we are, and not some synthesis or caricacture of what we would like to be.

[mister_noel_y2k]

i've a new literary writer i dislike- henry james. BOO!