Let's make a list!
I'll start: Dan Brown.
Overrated authors
| by Anonymous | reply 23 | July 8, 2024 10:10 PM |
Martin Amis
Christopher Hitchens
Ian McEwen
Salman Rushdie
Will Self
The twat who wrote Trainspotting
Inasmuch as that fucking fraud was ever rated as anything, the twin pillars of shit who were "J.T. Leroy".
Ditto James Frey
David Foster Wallace (1)
Joan Didion - if an upper-class persecution complex was a person...
Maya Angelou
Tom Wolfe
Gore Vidal - brilliant essayist, the novels are unreadable
Anybody named Waugh, ever.
Stephen King - nice guy, sloppy writing
Neil Gaiman
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | July 8, 2024 4:57 PM |
I"m in the minority but I always found her plodding and precious.
Good enough but far from definitive.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | July 8, 2024 5:08 PM |
r1 I love Drew Droege's take on Maya Angelou (as a person, not a writer):
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | July 8, 2024 5:09 PM |
John Le Carré is a gasbag.
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | July 8, 2024 5:18 PM |
John Updike.
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | July 8, 2024 6:17 PM |
R4, agree but "The Little Drummer Girl" on it's own is a piece of perfection. Totally different voice used in the narration- I wonder if he had his wife write it for him?
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | July 8, 2024 7:05 PM |
I agree with you there, r6. It was even something of a page-turner.
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | July 8, 2024 7:32 PM |
JK Rowling
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | July 8, 2024 8:17 PM |
Chaucer! Rabelais! Balzac!
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | July 8, 2024 8:29 PM |
Virginia Woolf
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | July 8, 2024 8:31 PM |
F. Scott Fitzgerald
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | July 8, 2024 8:53 PM |
Homer
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | July 8, 2024 8:58 PM |
r12 = Sumerian housewife
| by Anonymous | reply 13 | July 8, 2024 8:59 PM |
I find Homer is lacking substance. There is no plot and the names are silly.
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | July 8, 2024 9:04 PM |
William Shakespeare. He has a few good lines but my god do people read way too much into his work. Not every verse has 18 meanings.
| by Anonymous | reply 15 | July 8, 2024 9:06 PM |
r15 William Shakespeare is one English author who is decidedly NOT overrated. His impact on the English language and its literary culture -- as well as Western ideas of self, what it means to be human, etc -- cannot be overstated.
| by Anonymous | reply 16 | July 8, 2024 9:09 PM |
Alice Munro is not overrated, but she was a raging cunt who threw her daughter under the bus.
That should count for (or not count for) something.
| by Anonymous | reply 17 | July 8, 2024 9:17 PM |
James Joyce. That shit is unreadable!
| by Anonymous | reply 18 | July 8, 2024 9:27 PM |
I don't think Dan Brown is overrated. No one thinks Dan Brown is a good author. A popular one who has made a lot of money - sure. But, not a good one.
| by Anonymous | reply 19 | July 8, 2024 9:39 PM |
God.
| by Anonymous | reply 20 | July 8, 2024 9:45 PM |
Walter Scott. To go from "Ivanhoe" to writing the celebrity Q&A column in Parade magazine .... I mean, REALLY.
| by Anonymous | reply 21 | July 8, 2024 9:46 PM |
R20? Please.
We all know I wrote that insipid fucking book.
| by Anonymous | reply 22 | July 8, 2024 9:47 PM |
Dan Brown was always terrible.
| by Anonymous | reply 23 | July 8, 2024 10:10 PM |