who is the most overrated writer ever?

[March Hare]

I posted earlier in this thread that Shakespeare was the most over-rated writer...I'm changing my vote to Ayn Rand. As much as Shakespeare's praise annoys me, hardcore Rand fans("Objectivists") are almost as crazy as hardcore Twilight fans that beat people that dislike Twilight with baseball bats.

Desolation, thanks for the chuckle. A good friend went through an Objectivist phase and, man, he was hardcore. I can dig the philosophy of rational self interest in theory and am still compelled by the logical base of Objectivism. But Atlas Shrugged is just a sheer plot draped over speeches proseletysing Objectivism. Rand is no novelist.

[Manchegan]

I posted atlas shrugged as a novel that changed my life in another thread, but I have to agree that her writing is pretty bad. More like ayn rant...am i right?

The worst part was at the end of that book where all the good guys are suddenly a highly trained SWAT team.

[March Hare]

I posted atlas shrugged as a novel that changed my life in another thread, but I have to agree that her writing is pretty bad. More like ayn rant...am i right?

Yeah.. I laugh now but when I was a young dips*** Atlas Shrugged did help get me off my butt and working hard.

[joebob]

Atlas Shrugged did help get me off my butt and working hard.

Same.

As for overrated, I'd have to go with Vonnegut or Hemingway.

[Paulclem]

As for overrated, I'd have to go with Vonnegut

I read The Sirens of Titan in a completely different way to my English teacher some 3 million years ago. He read it the more sophisticated ironic way - which I might be mature enough to get now. I think he's a sophisticated writier.

[joebob]

As for overrated, I'd have to go with Vonnegut. I think he's a sophisticated writier.

hardly.

[DanielBenoit]

Ayn Rand maybe. How the hell is it that Atlas Shrugged is number one on the Modern Library's best novels of the century auidence poll, a privlige shared alongside Ulysses in the critics poll. Total absurdity.

Wilfred Owen is a bit overrated as well. And so is Charles Burkoski, but that's just my opinion. His works always appeared a bit superficial to me.

[JBI]

By Burkoski do you mean Charles Bukowski? Either way, everybody knows that JBI is the most overrated writer anyway - no point looking for a competitor.

[neilgee]

For me it's got to be D.H. Lawrence. He was pompous, judgemental, full of self-pitying egotism and his stories describe a black and white world where he is right and everybody who opposes the narrator's pov is wrong. I rated him as an adolescent but it was when I had to study Sons and Lovers for A level that I really went off him big time.

[Lokasenna]

For me it's got to be D.H. Lawrence. He was pompous, judgemental, full of self-pitying egotism and his stories describe a black and white world where he is right and everybody who opposes the narrator's pov is wrong.

Yes!

The man was an abysmal writer... god alone knows why he stays so popular. I can only assume it has something to with noteriety...

[glover7]

Joyce.

[Dinkleberry2010]

I think James Joyce is vastly overrated; so is Hemingway the novelist although he wrote some fine short stories.

[inbetween]

Friedrich Schiller... don't know if you know him but my country is awfully proud of him and I can't see why ... there might be some nice ideas in his plays but ... really they agonize me with him every german lesson... that wannabe-shakespear (I realy like shakespear and reading Schiller I realy must say that he can't hold a candle to the beaty of his stile...)

[escapologist]

I think James Joyce is vastly overrated; so is Hemingway the novelist although he wrote some fine short stories.

Joyce is overrated, but that's cos critics are always waiting for a writer who's hard to understand, so that they can spend the next 987694375 years writing about them. Pathetic. Having said that, I've only read Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Ulysses may yet surprise me, but I'm not counting on it.

I loved The Sun Also Rises so I wouldn't say Hemingway is overrated. The Old Man and the Sea definitely is, though.

Dan Brown is overrated. But then again, he's not a writer.

[DanielBenoit]

Joyce is overrated, but that's cos critics are always waiting for a writer who's hard to understand, so that they can spend the next 987694375 years writing about them. Pathetic.

Oh come on. Since when was ambiguity such a bad thing? Mystery is what keeps things beautiful. If Joyce had not written in such a radically different way, literature would not be what it is today. New percpectives always create new horizens for creativity. I suppose Shakespeare and Dante too are overrated since they've been written about for well over three hundred years.


Okay, I know I'm the bad guy, but Dickens hasn't really appealed to me in recent years. When I was younger I loved Oliver Twist and Great Expectations, but now, despite the forever known fact that Dickens is probably second or third to Shakespeare in charactarization, he just writes on and on to a rather dull extent, and his class commentary isn't as powerful as Dostoyevsky's.