who is the most overrated writer ever?

[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...

[Kafka's Crow]

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...

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.

[Etienne]

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.

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.

[Kafka's Crow]

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.

[Emil Miller]

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.

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.

[mortalterror]

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!

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.

[stlukesguild]

Macho macho man! I wanna be a macho man...

[mortalterror]

Macho macho man! I wanna be a macho man...

Wounded veteran is not a punchline, and in my family we respect the men and women who put their lives in harms way for the sake of their loved ones.

[Etienne]

Wounded veteran is not a punchline, and in my family we respect the men and women who put their lives in harms way for the sake of their loved ones.

This is a punchline. Many veterans did not fight at all for their loved ones.

[WICKES]

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.

Well, like I said I don't dislike his books (though personally I think he is very overrated), but there is something nauseatingly adolescent about him. Many people who met him found him an overbearing braggart and liar. I read once that the story about rescuing the wounded man is now thought to have been grossly exaggerated. He covered the Spanish civil war, but he was a non combatant (as in WW1 and WW2). I'm sorry, but why didn't he go to Britain and sign up to fight the Nazis when Britain was all alone in 1940? People like Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon would have pissed themselves laughing if they'd been swapping war stories and all Hemingway could come up with was "well, my Hotel got bombed in Spain". Probably no hot water either! He always reminds me of John Wayne- both macho posturers who never really experienced the full horror of war (which was why they never grew out of the macho nonsense- the men who really had to do the fighting just wanted to forget it).

As for the hunting/ bullfighting, it doesn't take guts to shoot a lion. D H Lawrence (a much better writer) shows up the bullfight for what it is in 'The Plumed Serpent': an ugly, barbaric little piece of human cowardice and cruelty.

I do think he wrote well about the spiritual emptiness/ loss of meaning of the 20th century and he was right to try and find a solution in a more primitive, natural, authentic way of living. I also thought 'Fiesta'/ The Sun Also Rises was excellent but I can't take the posing and exaggerating. Had he been a piolet in the Battle of Britain or an infantry officer at Verdun then I'd maybe see it differently.

[Kafka's Crow]

Wounded veteran is not a punchline, and in my family we respect the men and women who put their lives in harms way for the sake of their loved ones.

Hey, you forgot to mention the latest fad, F.R.E.E.D.O.M

[mortalterror]

He covered the Spanish civil war, but he was a non combatant (as in WW1 and WW2). I'm sorry, but why didn't he go to Britain and sign up to fight the Nazis when Britain was all alone in 1940?

Probably because he was in his forties, walked with a limp, and had a history of other ailments which made him 4F. As far as his contribution not being dangerous or meaningful, I remember a little thing called 9/11. You might have heard about it. You see, a bunch of "ambulance drivers", fire fighters, and policemen ran into a burning building to pull survivors from collapsing wreckage. Well this "ambulance driver" went to a place every bit as scary as that. He took out the maimed, the bleeding, the dying, the groaning remains of humanity; let it seep into his clothing and fester in his mind. He dropped them off at the hospital week after week, and then he went back over and over to do it again. That's a patriot. That's a hero who's service does not deserve to be slighted or mocked by men who weren't there and didn't do or see half of the things he did.

I think he joined the ambulance core for three reasons. 1)The United States hadn't declared war by the time he went overseas. 2)His father was a doctor, and he wanted his father to be proud of him as a preserver of life, not a destroyer. 3) Dos Passos and E.E. Cummings had already done the same thing. I think he wanted to be where the action was, unlike Faulkner who joins the Royal Canadian Airforce, never sees combat, crashes a plane after hostilities are over and then tells wild stories for years about his dogfights over Germany.

[integrity]

I read a number of Hemingway's books in my early twenties, and thought his writing was highly overrated. Being that I am older now, and hopefully possess a bit more experience and wisdom, I thought I might actually give the guy's books a second chance.

But after reading about his "exploits" just now, I think I'll pass. I'm even less impressed with him than before. I tend to agree with Wickes. Hunting (any animal) is hardly heroic. The fact that he hunted innocent animals and pointlessly taunted bulls indicates to me a severe disconnect with nature, a sheer lack of compassion for fellow creatures, and a desire for unnecessary bloodshed or pain. Boxing?...dear lord...if two dumb mugs want to beat the **** out of each other for "fun" and silly looking belts, let the morons have at it.

Arming a fishing boat with a bazooka?! It sounds to me like he wasn't just a war hawk of sorts, but a dramatic pea head to boot. Good thing he realized how goofy he appeared to be, and pulled himself together enough to go shoot some real people. Apparently, non-human animals were not enough of a challenge for him.

Seems to me he canceled out whatever merits he gained as an ambulance driver by performing other various bloodthirsty "feats" of ignorance and apathy.

[Etienne]

I read a number of Hemingway's books in my early twenties, and thought his writing was highly overrated. Being that I am older now, and hopefully possess a bit more experience and wisdom, I thought I might actually give the guy's books a second chance.

But after reading about his "exploits" just now, I think I'll pass. I'm even less impressed with him than before. I tend to agree with Wickes. Hunting (any animal) is hardly heroic. The fact that he hunted innocent animals and pointlessly taunted bulls indicates to me a severe disconnect with nature, a sheer lack of compassion for fellow creatures, and a desire for unnecessary bloodshed or pain. Boxing?...dear lord...if two dumb mugs want to beat the **** out of each other for "fun" and silly looking belts, let the morons have at it.

Arming a fishing boat with a bazooka?! It sounds to me like he wasn't just a war hawk of sorts, but a dramatic pea head to boot. Good thing he realized how goofy he appeared to be, and pulled himself together enough to go shoot some real people. Apparently, non-human animals were not enough of a challenge for him.

Seems to me he canceled out whatever merits he gained as an ambulance driver by performing other various bloodthirsty "feats" of ignorance and apathy.

Mate, if such thing makes you dislike an author (and not his writing) then you've just dismissed a ton and a half of good literature. I'm not sure I see the connection in the fact that you will not read the books of a dead author because he happened to hunt and did some crazy things.

Might as well say: "I'm not going to read Borges, he never did anything in his life, so his writings are going to be boring!"

[JBI]

If we are taking Hemmingway's life into account, as we probably shouldn't, since it is his work which is important, then we must not forget his misogyny, alcoholism, and the fact that he seems overall to be a bit of an a@#hole. But that isn't the point. His prose has its importance, but many of his works are rather rubbishy. For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Sun Also Rises, and his Short Stories seem to be the most enduring, with the rest being sustained by the fact that a) he didn't die too long ago, and b) the popularity of the other works keeps him in print.

No doubt he was a great author, but compared to many of his contemporaries, he is quite minor in the grand scheme of American novels, though perhaps central in the development of the American Short Story.