who is the most overrated writer ever?

It is heartening to see such a negative response to George Orwell.
Many years ago when I was idealistic (ah! the joys of youth) I read everything by Orwell and thought he was great. However, as I began to realise that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, my admiration for Orwell decreased accordingly.
Orwell was a strangely tortured man whose influnce on readers can be dangerously misleading and whose idealism, carried to its logical conclusion, would lead to anarchy.
When I realised this, I was compelled to write a novel as an antidote to Orwell, and on meeting someone who told me he could arrange an introduction to the late author's wife, I was able to decline, secure in the knowledge that, despite his readability, I no longer had anything in common with him.

Totally the woman who wrote Mary Poppins.
The movie was great, and the book is considered to be an all-times classic, but it really was the most boring thing I've read in my life and one of the two books that I never finished (the other one was The Sound of Music, again a successful film with Julie Andrews-coincidence?).

J.K. Rowling

Most overrated writer = J.K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyer and Meg Cabot (it's a three way tie)

Who conceives Shakespeare is the dominant writer?

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Originally Posted by Inderjit Sanghe

In terms of over-rated 'high-brow' authors, Fyodor Dostoevskii problably tops the list. His garrulous, sentimental proto-fascist, as well as tedentious garbage is vastly over-rated. Sartre is another one. Dostoevskii also really nees to omit those long-winded, totally irrelevant passages about characters with serial neuroses that inhabit the opening passages of all his books.

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You really have a thing against Dostoevsky, don't you? I mean, seriously, at some point, a line must be drawn even with personal tastes... To say Tolstoy is better than Dostoevsky is one thing, but to call D. the most overrated writer is just...wow.

I don't like your inclusion of Sartre either :D

I really hate Hemingway. I don't think he was a bad writer exactly, but that world weary pose, the boasting, lying and exaggerating in his personal life (especially the way he convinced everyone he was a war hero...I mean ffs, the guy drove an ambulance on the Italian front, it's not like he was an infantry officer at the Somme or Verdun), the macho posteuring etc- there is something obnoxiously adolescent and insincere about Hemingway that I find repellent. You only have to look at his most devoted fans!

Paolo Coehlo is awful. He belongs on a shelf with Californian, New Age garbage. I think all those Latin American 'magic realism' writers are overrated. Read Hermann Hesse instead!

As for Orwell, I think the criticism a bit harsh. He was absolutely spot on in his attacks on Stalin's Russia at a time when many British intellectuals were defending and forgiving Stalin anything just because he wasn't Hitler.

p.s J K Rowling is for kids, so give her a break. At least kids read her and learn positive lessons: about loyalty, love, comradeship etc. If it wasn't for her those same kids would prob. be playing soulless, violent video games. It's not like they'd be reading Keats and Dickens instead (though I must admit, as a kids writer she's not in the same league as Roald Dahl)

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Originally Posted by Nossa

Charles Dickens is SO overrated in my opinion. I mean yes he wrote good stuff..but not THAT good...I don't remember ever really enjoying any of his works..they're so gloomy and always leave me with bitterness and a strange feeling of wanting to hang myself!

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But he was one of the all time great creators of characters. In that respect he deserves to be compared with Chaucer, Shakespeare, Cervantes and Tosltoy. Secondly, he captured a period/ place like few writers I know. When you think of Victorian London/ England/ Britain you think of Dickens. Thirdly, he shook the conscience of a nation that was becoming ever richer yet ignoring the misery and suffering of so many of its inhabitants. Very few writers have ever had so much influence for good.

However, I do know what you mean. He can be long winded (though perhaps that's because people back then had more time- no TV, no radio, no CDs, no cars etc etc) and sentimental.

Oh, Dickens could do the characters. You have to give him that.

Whilst I enjoyed Twilight, the writing was that of a 13 year old with a thesaurus.

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Originally Posted by kelby_lake

Oh, Dickens could do the characters. You have to give him that..

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He really is one of the all time greatest creators of characters. Only Shakespeare, Chaucer, Cervantes and a handful of others can compare. Among novelists he is almost supreme in that respect. People like Micawber, Scrooge, Bill Sykes etc seem almost archetypal.

Sartre was a surprise appearance. Nausea is an incredible novel. Read a bit of Mysticism then read it - astonishing. It really reads like a wide eyed innocent undergoing the full mystic/ Zen experience only NOT enjoying it- finding it hellish rather than uplifting. Scary stuff.

I just love Dickens, many people deplore the "simplicity" and "naivety" of his writing, but I think that it is precisely that which makes the charm of his books, as it is not simple simplicity and naivety, Dickens was an extremely smart man, and a man who really knew how to write.

As for Dostoevsky, I really like his books, however I do have to agree with the fact that he is somewhat overrated. It often seems that many people consider him the alpha and the omega of literature... but it just seems to me like the guy is not such a good novelist. There is something very sketchy and unrefined in his books (he wrote very fast, yeah, yeah I know, but it's the result that I read). No doubt he created a lot for literary theory and gave food for thought for philosophers and psychologists, but as a novelist, he was no Tolstoy. However, just like Tolstoy didn't have the depth of a Dostoevsky...

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Originally Posted by Etienne

I just love Dickens, many people deplore the "simplicity" and "naivety" of his writing, but I think that it is precisely that which makes the charm of his books, as it is not simple simplicity and naivety, Dickens was an extremely smart man, and a man who really knew how to write.

As for Dostoevsky, I really like his books, however I do have to agree with the fact that he is somewhat overrated. It often seems that many people consider him the alpha and the omega of literature... but it just seems to me like the guy is not such a good novelist. There is something very sketchy and unrefined in his books (he wrote very fast, yeah, yeah I know, but it's the result that I read). No doubt he created a lot for literary theory and gave food for thought for philosophers and psychologists, but as a novelist, he was no Tolstoy. However, just like Tolstoy didn't have the depth of a Dostoevsky...

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Dostoevsky was consistently good. There are no bad books written by this one writer. There are no so-called 'minor works'. Tolstoy's career was a slippery slope apart from the two famous books. Too much religion. I think Tolstoy was a 'one-hit wonder' but that 'one-hit' (War and Peace) happens to be the greatest of the great novels. As far as the depth of characterisation is concerned, Dostoevsky leads the way by a huge margin.

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Originally Posted by Kafka's Crow

Dostoevsky was consistently good. There are no bad books written by this one writer. There are no so-called 'minor works'. Tolstoy's career was a slippery slope apart from the two famous books. Too much religion. I think Tolstoy was a 'one-hit wonder' but that 'one-hit' (War and Peace) happens to be the greatest of the great novels. As far as the depth of characterisation is concerned, Dostoevsky leads the way by a huge margin.

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Let me disagree with this view of Tolstoy. His short-novels are masterpieces, those short stories I've read of him were very good, and I find Resurrection better than Anna Karenina. Many people seem annoyed by some "religious ranting" from Tolstoy, but the fact is that in most of his works, more obviously in his major works, there is always some ranting. Agriculture for Anna Karenina, Philosophy of history for War and Peace, and then religion for Resurrection. Tolstoy was considered one of the greatest Russian writers before War and Peace and Anna Karenina. One could argue that his religious turn made him write worse, I'd argue that it only made him write less (fiction) but the quality was still there. His non-fiction writings were always kind of boring, he just repeats himself way too much, be it his Confessions or his rantings in War and Peace...

Which work exactly by Tolstoy have you found very much inferior to the status of a great writer like Tolstoy?

As for Dostoevsky, I haven't read all of him (Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot, The Gambler, Notes From the Underground and some short Stories) and I've found all of them very good, but most of them gave me an impression of being sketchy, so what I am saying is that on a stylistic level, he is far from being perfect. I am not saying he is bad by any stretch of imagination, I really like Dostoevsky, I just don't find him to be what some people try to make of him. He is certainly not the "most" overrated however.

I re-read Anna Karenina thinking I had missed something but still find it among the most forgettable of the 'great books.' I found the religious ranting in Resurrection appalling. Dostoevsky is not irreligious but later Tolstoy is just simply blatant. I did not mind the 'forces of history' and their indifferent march in War and Peace but religion at that scale in Resurrection is just not very palatable.

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Originally Posted by WICKES

I really hate Hemingway. I don't think he was a bad writer exactly, but that world weary pose, the boasting, lying and exaggerating in his personal life (especially the way he convinced everyone he was a war hero...I mean ffs, the guy drove an ambulance on the Italian front, it's not like he was an infantry officer at the Somme or Verdun), the macho posteuring etc- there is something obnoxiously adolescent and insincere about Hemingway that I find repellent. You only have to look at his most devoted fans!

Paolo Coehlo is awful. He belongs on a shelf with Californian, New Age garbage. I think all those Latin American 'magic realism' writers are overrated. Read Hermann Hesse instead!

As for Orwell, I think the criticism a bit harsh. He was absolutely spot on in his attacks on Stalin's Russia at a time when many British intellectuals were defending and forgiving Stalin anything just because he wasn't Hitler.

p.s J K Rowling is for kids, so give her a break. At least kids read her and learn positive lessons: about loyalty, love, comradeship etc. If it wasn't for her those same kids would prob. be playing soulless, violent video games. It's not like they'd be reading Keats and Dickens instead (though I must admit, as a kids writer she's not in the same league as Roald Dahl)



But he was one of the all time great creators of characters. In that respect he deserves to be compared with Chaucer, Shakespeare, Cervantes and Tosltoy. Secondly, he captured a period/ place like few writers I know. When you think of Victorian London/ England/ Britain you think of Dickens. Thirdly, he shook the conscience of a nation that was becoming ever richer yet ignoring the misery and suffering of so many of its inhabitants. Very few writers have ever had so much influence for good.

However, I do know what you mean. He can be long winded (though perhaps that's because people back then had more time- no TV, no radio, no CDs, no cars etc etc) and sentimental.

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You raise some interesting points but I think your judgement on Hemingway is
rather hard because he really was a larger than life individual. As for his writing, I'm afraid I have only read A Moveable Feast and thought it was well written.
I know nothing of Paulo Coehlo but your recommendation to read Hermann Hesse is sound.
I have already mentioned Orwell elsewhere on this thread but I think you are being disingenuous in saying that many British intellectuals forgave Stalin because he wasn't Hitler. The fact is they actually believed in Marxism and should have been old enough to know better.
It's obvious that J k Rowling is for kids, but try telling that to the adults who read her.
Whatever his faults, Dickens was a great writer but I would suggest that most people are more likely to equate Victorian London with Conan Doyle; not in the same league of course.

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Originally Posted by WICKES

I really hate Hemingway. I don't think he was a bad writer exactly, but that world weary pose, the boasting, lying and exaggerating in his personal life (especially the way he convinced everyone he was a war hero...I mean ffs, the guy drove an ambulance on the Italian front, it's not like he was an infantry officer at the Somme or Verdun), the macho posteuring etc- there is something obnoxiously adolescent and insincere about Hemingway that I find repellent. You only have to look at his most devoted fans!

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He did drive an ambulance on the Italian front, where he was wounded by shell fire in the leg, and as he was crippled, bleeding, and tending to his own wounds, he managed to drag another wounded soldier nearly a mile to safety. The soldier still died, but I give Hemingway an A for effort on that one.

After WWI he covered the Spanish Civil War as a journalist, where he made some documentaries, his hotel was bombed, and he dodged more shellfire in the street. If it were me, and I'd been wounded in a war, I would do everything I could to stay out of the way of any further such actions; but he actually embraced this lifestyle, faced his fears, and went back.

During WWII he outfits his fishing boat with bazooka's, arms a posse, and gets a special permit to hunt German U-boats off the coast of Key West. When he realizes how ridiculous this is, he signs on for an embedded journalist position on the German front lines, where he is subsequently brought up on charges for engaging the enemy with rifle fire, and killing two German SS officers with a grenade. As a journalist, he was considered a non-combatant and was technically in violation of the Geneva convention.

The man hunted lions. Lions! What more do you need? When his plane went down in Africa, for the second time, despite having multiple fractured limbs he pushes his wife and friend through the window he's too big for and then, amidst flames and smoke batters the escape hatch open with his head. Say what you want about his writing, he was one tough dude. Then you have the boxing, the bullfighting... If you don't think that's macho, I'm afraid to see the guy who does impress you.

Robert Graves, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Celine, James Jones, Orwell: all might have seen more action than Ernest Hemingway, but he lived, and he wrote better than any of them. In the modern age, writers are not men of action as they were in the time of Aeschylus, Horace, Dante, Cervantes, Sidney, Sir. Walter Raleigh, and Lope De Vega.