EEEeeeewwwwww.......sounds positively horrible!! Gonna be tough to top that as the worst book ever...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Isagel
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EEEeeeewwwwww.......sounds positively horrible!! Gonna be tough to top that as the worst book ever...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Isagel
worst writer just means who do YOU think is the worst writer ever.
:banana:
worst writer considered literary? saul bellow...all the taste was in his mouth! ugh!
Ah guys, you'll never get anywhere *this* way....Just kidding! :D
I haven't any read Kafka yet, but I've heard he has an excellent reputation and...hmm...that Kafkaesque describes for a "nightmarish and oppressive atmosphere"....but that doesn't mean anything. Apparently he's often regarded as a comic writer, and he was an "acutely sensitive individual", and wrote from allegorically, lyrically, and lucidly, to plain matter-of-factly. Whoa that's long. But I would defend him if I had read him. :)
But worst writer ever...hard...there's so many bad, bad writers out there....many of which I haven't read one word, but have esteemed bad simply because they ARE. I think....I'd be fighting over Bill Bryson (ugh...my dad reads him...I don't like books where you can't read one page without stumbling over at least one taboo word), um........I'll tell you the rest later, can't remember them!
What a very helpful post. *Sighs*
Miss Darcy
Wow, for the first time I find someone else who admits to dislike Kafka! Thanks guys, you made my day...I can't stand him! Though I wouldnt define him as "the worst"
I don't know how to choose my worst...worst in topics, or worst in writing? If it's for topics, I'd mention Danielle Steele, I think it was the name, and her pathetic novels about beautiful girls and love stories... But I dont rmemeber her writing being particularly bad. But there are authors whose way of writing is boring or in some case even just bad, sort of illiterate...I read some essays that frankly I could have written in better form when I was at primary school...
Objectively, the writer of the 'Eye of Argon'. :pQuote:
Who is the worst writer ever?
Subjectively - Terry Goodkind.
do you read a lot of borges sitaram?
i cant help but laugh out loud when reading kafka, i think his writing is brilliant for its matter of fact delivery of what is frustratingly absurd, i think its the same sort of humour as S. becket, where tension is created through lack , that is you take a man whos woken up as a bug, dont explain it just have him accept it and try to get on with life, or you take a person arrested, dont explain why just have him accept it and get on with life- or like becket have two people sitting on a log waiting for somone who never comes, have someone working for an employer they dont know or see and dont know why they are there. i love the huge gaps, because i relate to that feeling of emptiness, absurdity and lack of meaning.
anyway, as for the actual topic in question- the worst writer- i think all of that romance, thriller, crime, all of that popular stuff written by the truckload (i do not here mean to denegrate the entirity of the above listed genres, just the stuff that takes the formula and joins the dots and banks the cheque.)
The most overrated writer in my opinion is dickens. bleagh.
I love Borges. Jorge Luis Borges was simply amazing! I guess I see your point about Dickens. Though "A Christmas Carol" , Scrooge, all that, is utterly amazing, as a story.
I didn't like Kafka after reading 'Metamorphasis' the first time, but I went on and read 'The Great Wall of China', which followed in my penguin classics edition, and it was amazing. When I went back and gave 'Metamorphasis' another try I thought it was great!
But worst? I think that publishers have better sense than to publish that because presumably they would read this theoretical 'worst' manuscript every and be like 'this is the worst manuscript ever... I think I'll not publish it.' And by the glorious process of publication we are spared from the worst writer ever. Although, I had a friend in highschool who published a story on an N*SINC fan fiction page. I bet you could find some crappy writers on sites like that!
I could definitely agree about Theodore Dreiser. "An American Tragedy" had a fair amount to say, but it was just poorly written, with no style whatsoever. Repeating, awkwardly worded phrases... blah. I recently read somewhere that many literary critics referred to it as something like "The best worst novel ever", or along those lines and couldn't help but chuckle over the accuracy of that.
As for Kafka, I enjoy what works of his I've read. I do think that it would be hard for me to really hold his writing against him as, unless I'm mistaken, it is all translated into English when I read it so it loses a lot of whatever flavor he might have given it. But then again maybe he wrote it in English... ?
I can tell your right now a lot of posts in this thread will be contriversal.
In my opinion I would have to say R.L. Stine. Yes he is a childrens author, but it would be nice to see if his books challenged kids to read at a higher level (like Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling).
He wrote a real book for adults once and I heard it wasn't much better. Just more graphic and grusome.
If it wasn't for R.L. Stine, my son would never have begun reading. His stories are the present representations of the Hardy Boys, etc. Inspired my son to read John Bellairs, Louis Sachar (Holes) and Kenneth Oppel, all children's novels, yes, but so much more amazing than what I had as a youth. He went on to read The Chrysalids ( I mention this book so much) at eleven yrs. old and loved it. So when I found the book for adults, Superstition, by R.L. Stine, I happily grabbed it and hunkered down for a good read...let's just say it now props up an indoor plant. He should stick to kids' work. My least favorite author is Victor Pelevin, his writing drives me nuts. But by saying least favorite, it's probably because I can't "get him", like iwilkiku wrote about kafka and metamorphisis, I should go back and try to read "the life of insects", where I happen to think Pelevin is trying too hard to be like Kafka's Metamorphosis...wonder which plant it's under?????
totally agree about r l stine, his series of goosebumps books entitled "night of the living dummy" which goes on for something like 5 parts, could easily be the title of his biography as a writer.
nice to see saul bellow burned too.
:banana:
Once read Goosebumps in Chinese. Pretty entertaining, but I was young (11/12). The translator might also have done some work...