who is the most overrated writer ever?

I am wondering if a lot of people that list Salinger, Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, Woolf (the list goes on... some of the most influential authors of modern writing) read these authors for school. I found I didn't appreciate these writers until I re-read them independantly a few years after school...

I completely agree with the Stephen King nomination. I've read several of his books (admittedly not much of his early writings besides The Shining) and agree the characters and writing are quite dull. The movie version of the Shining is one of those few that beat out the books - this one by a long shot. (Now go ahead and attack this nom. Stephen King fans)

With Stephen King, I can really perceive what his very devoted readers enjoy in his literature, but I could also never call myself a fan, with the exception of The Shining and The Green Mile (also decent movies).
In these two novels, I feel he put much more thought and pre-meditation, while many of the others I have read consist of mere gore.
Other contemporary writers I happened to forget to list, for unknown reasons, and who I oddly associate with Stephen King: Dean Koontz and John Grisham - any writer who has the mysterious ability to produce so many novels in such little time cannot contribute as much effort as Leo Tolstoy, for example, who wrote few, but qualitative, novels.

i think with king it's kind of hit and miss- i've read and loved the shining, misery, the green mile, different seasons (with the shawshank redemption), black house, and on writing but i've also read It, pet sematery, carrie, and salem's lot and disliked those. i'm now reading the dark tower series and like that despite the first one being very shaky both in story and writing. so all in all, i think king is a good writer but his penchant for putting out so many books all the time sometimes makes for bad writing and sometimes for good.
ditto elmore leonard.

:banana:

i like king but i cant read king after reading a good classic novel.

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.

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)...

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

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

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.

:as-sleep:

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?

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.)

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.

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

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bix12
[FONT=Garamond

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.

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

https://www.oprah.com/obc_classic/lo...ah_218x296.jpg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 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.

---

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

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by The Title

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.)

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Her Philosophy

"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."

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dollar Signs

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sitaram

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!!!



;)

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.

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


:banana:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mister_noel_y2k

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

---

That's interesting!

I read James' Daisy Miller at university and loved every bit of it; characters, description and since then, I have always wanted to read his books but never had the chance. Because of that one book I read, I actually consider James one of the writers I like! Maybe I should read his other books and see how I feel about his style now.

im 100% sure that the most over rated writer is William Shakespeare, i mean come on its so dull. i dont care that its the basic for all literature ITS DULL

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Scheherazade

That's interesting!

I read James' Daisy Miller at university and loved every bit of it; characters, description and since then, I have always wanted to read his books but never had the chance. Because of that one book I read, I actually consider James one of the writers I like! Maybe I should read his other books and see how I feel about his style now.

---

It is my understanding that he wrote some essays on theory of the novel, interpretation. I have looked around for those. I would like to read them. By the way, his brother, William James, was one of the last famous psychologists prior to Sigmund Freud; one of the last pre-Freudians.

It became fashionable for literature majors to say that Henry was the better psychologist and William was the better writer, but such observations are sometimes more clever than accurate.

http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/hopki...nry_james.html

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by The Art of Fiction

The critical act, for James, must first of all be a disinterested and dignified search for "truth," for "life." Like Matthew Arnold, one of his earliest critical models, James saw criticism as a means of making "truth generally accessible"; "it does not busy itself with consequences" but "takes high ground, which is the ground of theory" (717). Unlike the vulgar, "off-hand" productions of his English contemporaries, James's reviews self-consciously attempt to rise above practical matters of "rough-and-ready" evaluation (96-97) and achieve detached discrimination, analysis, and appreciation, the qualities that he felt characterized both Arnold and Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, another early critical model.

...

Before the appearance of "The Art of Fiction," James wrote approximately 200 reviews almost entirely on individual works. During this same period he wrote about 20 essays (including his book on Hawthorne) on more expansive topics, literary figures, schools, or movements. After its appearance he wrote only six reviews but published almost 100 critical essays, including the 18 prefaces to the collected New York Edition of his novels (1907-9). It was in these essays and prefaces that James voiced his major aesthetic, critical, and theoretical concerns.

...

Because of its crucially transitional place in James's development, it provides a synthesis of 20 years of inchoate and desultory*** thoughts about fiction and fiction writing and transforms them into a group of interrelated principles upon which most of his later criticism rests.

http://dictionary.reference.com/word...003/06/02.html

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Desultory

comes from Latin desultorius, from desultor, "a leaper," from the past participle of desilire, "to leap down," from de-, "down from" + salire, "to leap."

---

---

http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople....=true&UID=5083

Ezra Pound noted James’s faithfulness to the vernacular.

http://www.cercles.com/review/r10/lodge.html

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Consciousness and the Novel by David Lodge

In Lodge’s thumbnail sketch of the history of the novel Henry James is perhaps given too much credit—and Lodge’s interest being English Literature, Flaubert none at all—but he notes succinctly and effectively how James married in his fiction the first person of subjective enquiry with the third person of objective enquiry, developing the mastery of free indirect speech that allows the novelist to locate the narrative in a character’s consciousness and yet move away from it to suggest other realities.

---

http://mockingbird.creighton.edu/english/Erkan.htm

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by The Lioness and the Dove

James describes Aunt Maud in The Wings of the Dove as: “ Mrs. Lowder was London, was life—the roar of the siege and the thick of the fray. There were some things, after all, of which Britannia was afraid; but Aunt Maud was afraid of nothing – not even, it would appear, of arduous thought” (24). Here is another example of a personal description about Kate:

She would have been meanwhile a wonderful lioness for a show, an extraordinary figure in cage or anywhere; majestic, magnificent, high-coloured, all brilliant gloss, perpetual satin, twinkling bugles and flashing gems, with a lustre of agate eyes, a sheen of raven hair, a polish of complexion that was like that of well-kept china and that-as if the skin were too tight-told especially at curves and corners. (23)

On the other hand Milly is described as a dove : “ Milly was indeed a dove; this was the figure, though it most applied to her spirit. . . . so far as one remembered that doves have wings and wondrous flights, have them as well as tender tints and soft sounds” (337). James is very successful in describing people: Kate resembles to a lioness who acts according to her interests and get the best as she can whereas, Milly is soft and helpless resembling especially to a dove.

---

I have just found a link to the e-text of "The Art of Fiction"

http://dinamico.unibg.it/rls/essays/james.htm

which I reached through this useful looking page

http://dinamico.unibg.it/rls/e-texts.htm


By the way, this work by Robert Louis Stevenson looks interesting:

http://dinamico.unibg.it/rls/essays/writing/aw-1.htm

ON SOME TECHNICAL ELEMENTS OF STYLE IN LITERATURE
by Robert Louis Stevenson

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dejosc

im 100% sure that the most over rated writer is William Shakespeare, i mean come on its so dull. i dont care that its the basic for all literature ITS DULL

---

I can understand that. There are a few of his plays that I like, but moat of them are just OK, and some aren't very good at all.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Scheherazade

I read James' Daisy Miller at university and loved every bit of it; characters, description and since then, I have always wanted to read his books but never had the chance. Because of that one book I read, I actually consider James one of the writers I like! Maybe I should read his other books and see how I feel about his style now.

---

Unfortunately, I have only read Henry James' The Turn of the Screw and The Aspern Papers. Needless to say, why I never posted either James' names in this thread, I loved them both, despite The Turn of the Screw seeming very difficult to read; beneath its confusion, however, I found a genius work. Eventually, I intend on reading Daisy Miller, having heard good things, but so much to read in such a short life!
On a side note, for an easier read, I would definitely recommend The Aspern Papers. :D

sche, read the turn of the screw and then decide whether hes a good writer or not


:banana:

I think y'all hit about every author I think is over-rated (though I did take some guff on another thread for listing The Works of Shakespeare as one of the top 10 books I could do without. And I even added "Except, mayhap ye be a thesbian"!) Oh, well! I'll add votes for The Bard of Avon, Stephen King, "Dreary" Dickens, Hemingway, etc. But I'll probably make some enimies by adding, collectively, the sisters Bronte. I just can't read any of them! :as-sleep:

jack kerouac ~pukes~ Has anyone here read a book called CONVERSATIONS WITH CAPOTE? It's funny---Capote rips into jack, gore, mailer, etc. --- a tough critic & an accurate one! I LOVE CAPOTE! Brilliant man!

oh... james's THE GOLDEN BOWL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How dull is THAT! I cannot believe they made a film from it.... haven't seen it...you?

Has anyone read I CAPTURE THE CASTLE by Dodie Smith?? Very good! As for Harry Potter I do enjoy them--- overrated writers...hmmm....anything by that closet case Hemingway. Jack. K. eeewwww hmmm..... Stephen King bores me to tears!

Mr. "I think I'll eat my shotgun" Hemingway is sure taking a beating in this thread. I am saddened to the point of a weep.....*sniff*.....

I too, share the same opinion. Rowling gets too much than she deserve (IMHO).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 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....

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by baddad

Mr. "I think I'll eat my shotgun" Hemingway is sure taking a beating in this thread. I am saddened to the point of a weep.....*sniff*.....

---

Amen, baddad!
This thread often makes me feel like I have painstakingly poor taste in literature; some of my favorite writers have received mention here, but I try not to take it personally, instead taking a deep breathe and counting slowly to ten. :D
Personally, I cannot but give the highest praise to writers like Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, the Brontë sisters, William Shakespeare Henry James, Wilfred Owen, and Jack Kerouac, yet I realize we all have our different palates for literature; to put it in another way, I know people who like J.K. Rowling and Billy Collins. ;)

Now now...some of us do acknowlege that Mr. Hemingway is indeed one of the greatest witers ever. So stop sniffing, your nose is beginning to red...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by baddad

Mr. "I think I'll eat my shotgun" Hemingway is sure taking a
beating in this thread. I am saddened to the point of a weep.....*sniff*.....

---

I agree that Virginia Woolf is an exceptional writer.This year I've managed to read quite a few of her works such as Mrs.Dalloway, The Waves and Orlando.
The Waves is an outstanding piece.It's deeply poetic and a breathtaking read.
As for Henry James: I've read Washington Square and last year read The Awkward Age.I've yet to read The Aspern Papers or The Turn of the Screw but both these works are on my read next list.I've got copies of both here and plan to come to these in time-I hope I get a chance to read these two really soon!And Bronte is fantastic-one of my favourite books from that era is Wuthering Heights.I've also read the poetry and gone over this book on innumerable occasions.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by baddad

Mr. "I think I'll eat my shotgun" Hemingway is sure taking a beating in this thread. I am saddened to the point of a weep.....*sniff*.....

---

I have a hard time seeing Hemingway placed on the same list as Rowlings, too!

For those who don't like Kerouac and continue to follow a day in day out existence, he was railing against you, against society and norms. Try the Darma Bums, Kerouac deserves a second chance.

Two thumbs down for the Potter series!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by B-Mental

I have a hard time seeing Hemingway placed on the same list as Rowlings, too!

For those who don't like Kerouac and continue to follow a day in day out existence, he was railing against you, against society and norms. Try the Darma Bums, Kerouac deserves a second chance.

Two thumbs down for the Potter series!

---

*wants to agree completely with the above quote...but*

I suppose the 'Potter' series is a good read for younger folks, anything that encourages people to read has value I suppose.....

I have tried to read books by Willa Cather and Catherine Anne Porter many years ago, but I couldn't get into them, then. Maybe I could try again sometime.

Dan Brown and Hunter S. Thompson

I think that Tom Wolfe is the most overrated writer ever!I detested his new journalism and find his novels badly written and almost entirely lacking in any literary merit. Honestly just because he's from the south and wears a white suit literary editors of magazines seem to equate him to a Faulkner or Dickinson instead of just the grubby overvalued little (in every sense) hack that he is!