who is the most overrated writer ever?

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07-09-2009, 03:30 PM
mayneverhave

Quote:

Originally Posted by amuse

I still remember choking on Faulkner in high school...only one book, but it was excrutiating.

Omg, i just saw that he won a Nobel Prize. Whoa is me!

And just read an excerpt from The Sound and the Fury. Can't say I appreciate the choppy little sentences. Though if memory serves, he also wrote many sentences that ran on and on like the Amazon or Mississippi.

Faulkner's technical style shifts throughout that novel, ranging from simplistic and completely extroverted (Benjy) to lyrical and drawn out (Quentin).

Authors like these deserve the benefit of the doubt. Before you simply dismiss an author because he appears, on first notice, to be difficult, ask yourself "why would an author employ very long sentences?" You wouldn't pick up a Shakespearean play and say "Oh, Shakespeare uses 'thou' and 'ye', I give up!"
07-10-2009, 01:13 AM
Mathor

Quote:

Originally Posted by Helga

I didn't like 'to kill a mockingbird', and as I recall it was the only book Harper Lee wrote so in my opinion she is very overrated...

what world are you living in. You really don't like TKAM?
07-10-2009, 01:24 AM
Pryderi Agni

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mathor

what world are you living in. You really don't like TKAM?

Guess there are philistines in every cultural epoch:nod:.
07-10-2009, 12:41 PM
kelby_lake

Quote:

Originally Posted by Helga

I didn't like 'to kill a mockingbird', and as I recall it was the only book Harper Lee wrote so in my opinion she is very overrated...

Finally! Someone who understands! What on earth are the people saying below me about 'philistines'? It's a so-so book not a grand classic.
There is probably a reason why she didn't write another book...
07-10-2009, 01:31 PM
lattywatty

Definitely agree on J. K. Rowling. Read the first six books because I was young and everyone was reading them then got seven chapters through the latest one, put it down and haven't picked it up since.
07-10-2009, 03:30 PM
Lynne50

Hi, Red,
I'm intrigued by your quote. Is that a quote of your own? If not, could you tell me where you read it? I liked the analogy of the apple/tree, but as soon as we form a thought or opinion of our own, we're doomed to the ground. Of course, we are in great company.
07-10-2009, 03:50 PM
JBI

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mathor

what world are you living in. You really don't like TKAM?

This world - hell, I'd go so far as to say I really, really don't like that book. When it comes to that text, or Harry Potter, I'm almost of the mind to say I like Harry Potter more (almost, though I think I like to Kill a Mockingbird more, as it is only one volume, and only 300 pages as apposed to several thousand).
07-10-2009, 04:02 PM
Drkshadow03

Quote:

Originally Posted by JBI

This world - hell, I'd go so far as to say I really, really don't like that book. When it comes to that text, or Harry Potter, I'm almost of the mind to say I like Harry Potter more (almost, though I think I like to Kill a Mockingbird more, as it is only one volume, and only 300 pages as apposed to several thousand).

That's it! No Quidditch for you!
07-10-2009, 04:13 PM
JBI

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drkshadow03

That's it! No Quidditch for you!

Heh! who would want to be transported to a world where if you shake a stick up and down a few times, white sparks come out!
07-10-2009, 04:19 PM
bluosean

Steinbeck, Hemingway (sp?), Whitman, O. Henry, and Kather would be my choices.

Jewett is under-rated though. She is fun reading.
07-10-2009, 04:20 PM
kelby_lake

Quote:

Originally Posted by JBI

Heh! who would want to be transported to a world where if you shake a stick up and down a few times, white sparks come out!

:sick: That sounds like a creepy euphemism....
07-11-2009, 05:37 PM
Oread

I don't understand all the votes for Steinbeck! His style is simplistic but his stories are deeply insightful. Of Mice and Men is an amazing story, I can get goose bumps just thinking about it. Plus, I can't help but love all the plugs for Monterey and Salinas =). Two books that stand out in my mind as particular objects of hatred are Grendel and Siddhartha.
07-11-2009, 05:50 PM
islandclimber

Quote:

Originally Posted by JBI

This world - hell, I'd go so far as to say I really, really don't like that book. When it comes to that text, or Harry Potter, I'm almost of the mind to say I like Harry Potter more (almost, though I think I like to Kill a Mockingbird more, as it is only one volume, and only 300 pages as apposed to several thousand).

my thoughts exactly! haha
07-11-2009, 05:54 PM
islandclimber

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oread

I don't understand all the votes for Steinbeck! His style is simplistic but his stories are deeply insightful. Of Mice and Men is an amazing story, I can get goose bumps just thinking about it. Plus, I can't help but love all the plugs for Monterey and Salinas =). Two books that stand out in my mind as particular objects of hatred are Grendel and Siddhartha.

I quite liked Of Mice and Men too... most likely my favourite work by Steinbeck, although I wouldn't call it his best... I don't see him as overrated... although I don't like East of Eden that much... thinking of overrated writers although I don't know so much anymore as I am not sure what current opinion is of him.. but Theodore Dreiser is definitely one of them in my mind.. Saroyan to an extent as well.. and Charles Bukowski is the most overrated poet ever... I despise his poetry almost to an irrational extent! :flare:
07-11-2009, 07:33 PM
Nabokov_love

I truly enjoyed your input in this discussion and must agree that although some authors may be overrated currently, they will take their place among the entertainers of our day. Granted, they are not brilliant pieces of philisophical inquiry, but not all great literature is! :)

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