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I say Salman Rushdie. Just finished 'the Satanic Verses' by Salman Rushdie, what a pile of crap. Shalimar the clown was ok...kinda. 'anger' (think it's translate like that) was a complete ripoff of Sartre's Nausia, and a horrible one at that. Why is he considered a good writer, I don't get it.
opinions? :book:
Edit: oops i was wrong, maybe confused him with someone else...
Yes he is overrated, becuase of the Ayatollah jazz that advertised for him, i'd say they sold him more books than he would ever be able to if he advertised for himself. (don't ask how i got the book, some people would still kill me for reading it)Quote:
Originally Posted by Fragony
Not that I have personally read any, but Dan Brown is getting some serious flak lately...
I actually thought Anne Rice's 'interview with a vampire' was horrible and one of those rare instances where the film was better than the book. Although I have to admit, that was a long time ago and havent read any more since.
JK Rowling.
JD Salinger. I still believe that you need to have the correct mix up of hormones to enjoy it.
I couldn't name any that have not already been named... JK Rowling, JD Salinger and Dan Brown would all certainly be near the top of my list. Perhaps J.R.R. Tolkien also...
William Shakespeare...
Tale that back, Reenk. Big Bill is the man.
I'll throw down for James Joyce. Finnegan's Wake should be enough to put him in the highest pantheon of the overrated.
I'll never understand anyone's appreciation for Vonnegut.
Dickens
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Originally Posted by Duke Malcolm
gasp.....evil, evil!
YES! VONNEGUT IS THE MOST OVERRRATED WRITER! SLAUGHTER HOUSE V is terrible....Quote:
Originally Posted by Proletariat
Well, she isn't exactly critically acclaimed, is she ?Quote:
Originally Posted by BDC
You could probably say that any one of the 'great' writers is overrated, but heck, I'll throw in Melville mostly because I read half the first page of Moby Dick and didn't understand a thing he had written. :oops:
Noone mentioned Michael Crichton yet?! Why?!
...Oh, right, you can't be overrated if everyone knows you're a hack. :laugh4:
Well, in terms of classic writers, I harbour a burning hatred for Thomas Hardy, after having to study the dirge that is Tess of the D'Urbervilles in English Lit.
For more contemporary stuff, I would have to say JK 'too rich for editorial control' Rowling is up there. I never got why Frank Herbert was so well liked, either.
Dickens, by a long, long margin -- though it's not entirely his fault since the idiot publishers were paying him by the word (what did they expect).
I like Rowling's series - frothy fun without having to work too hard. Cervantes or Twain it is not, I grant you.
I have heard that Dostoevsky and Tolstoy were even more depressing and monotonous in the original Russian, but lacking that language I cannot comment. They're certainly stultifying in English.
I tried. God knows I tried really hard to like his stuff. All the girlies thought he was cool, so I tried even harder, back in the 60's. He was Irish. He was Catholic. He was troubled. He was clever.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
I was all those things too (I thought). But I just could not and can not get him. In the end, I realized, it was all a joke of his. Not his writing. The mere fact of his writing for pay, amused the hell out of himself.
I agree with Lemur, and enjoyed his 'highest - overrate' twist. :)
Jack Keroack. His books were supposed to be so "cool" and so "heavy" and it just seemed to me like he slummed around and ate out of trash cans then put it on paper. Exciitng.
And don't get me started on William S Burroughs, he can kiss my arse
Possibly Shakespeare...
lolQuote:
Originally Posted by Alexanderofmacedon
The only difference between Shakepsear and other writers of his time is that he got published. He was the Puff Daddy of his time, he sampled :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:
Mark Twain is definately overrated, maybe not the most overrated writer, but definately one of the more overrated ones.
The ghost writers for the bible. :inquisitive: :dizzy2: :sweatdrop:
Trying to separate actually bad writers from people whose style I don't like (Dickens, Bronte, any stuffy Victorian types, some Faulkner).
Any writers of mass produced novels (Clancy, King, and Grisham) I'm not fond of. But the worst has to be Dickens, he's just boring and terribly predictable.
Gimmie Hemingway, Heller, London, and Kerouac
I've read the first book of Tess in romanian, but I have no intention of reading the second. The Man That Laughs by Victor Hugo... oh god, I swear it SHOULD NOT take half the book for the plot to start advancing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Big King Sanctaphrax
I'm not particularly fond of Nathaniel Hawthorne. I thought The Scarlet Letter had too much repetitive self-pity and "woe is me" scenes. I suppose his characters may have been acting accurately, but it still annoyed me at times.
As a matter of fact, the Romantic period stuff all seems a bit much. I didn't get the ending to "Bartleby, the Scrivener", and all the "Oh, the this" and "Oh, the that" of the writing doesn't work for me. I find Poe to be an exception, probably due to his interesting subject matter.
not a big fan of C.S. Lewis either.:book: :inquisitive: :wall:
Isabel Allende:book: :inquisitive: :no:
read his philosophy books, they are very different from narniaQuote:
Originally Posted by Wakizashi