Overrated authors

Joan No You Didiont

All of the white straight males are overrated.

All the Americans are overrated.

Toni Morrison wrote a few great novels and then spent decades coasting on her reputation.

JK Rowling

Maureen Fucking Dowd

It will be difficult to top your example, R1. Roth must have been the most overrated author of his era writing in the English language.

But for other names, I’ll add Saul Bellow, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan, Haruki Murakami, Richard Powers and more recently in the UK and Ireland, Sally Rooney.

An example of a good and striking idea that becomes a terrible and overrated novel is Kafka’s The Trial (the blurb is the highlight).

I am not sure Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace is overrated, but its “cleverness” and “wit” are massively oversold.

Is it too easy to pick on authors we read in high school?

William Faulkner. What does anyone see in him?

Richard Ford.

What's John Steinbeck like?

His sexy looks might motivate me to pick him up.

Augusten Burroughs

Philip Roth's stuff is hilarious through the mid-80s. After that, I agree he's overrated.

Elizabeth Gilbert and her Eat - Shit - Die bullshit.

What a load of piping-hot, white-cunt crap.

They may be overrated, but Cormac McCarthy and Philip Roth are among my favorite authors. I find their style of writing, and their stories, to be eloquent, intricate, deeply analytical, and highly immersive without all the pretentious prose. Some would argue that the latter is exactly what their writing is, but their material doesn't come across that way to me.

I don't have a background in literature, so I'm just humbly offering up a layman's opinion.

They may be overrated, but Cormac McCarthy and Philip Roth are among my favorite authors. I find their style of writing, and their stories, to be eloquent, intricate, deeply analytical, and highly immersive without all the pretentious prose. Some would argue that the latter is exactly what their writing is, but their material doesn't come across that way to me.

I don't have a background in literature, so I'm just humbly offering up a layman's opinion.

^^ Oops. Got a message saying it didn't post, hence the duplicate.

John Irving's books went to hell.

Famous Authors I Don't Enjoy/Comprehend

That should be the title of this post.

I read "Portnoy's Complaint"; it's a scream -- if Roth were gay, it would be quoted on here all the time.

"The Great Gatsby" is very overrated. A slim volume, and it's like, eh.

Overrated by whom, OP? The reading public, critics, or both? And to those listing Joan Didion: would you not consider her essays (which were considered groundbreaking at the time and are still read today) separately from her novels, which many readers and critics have more mixed feelings about? It's all so lazy.

Hemingway and Fitzgerald.

Over striving men.

Henry James and his atrocious purple prose. The film version of “Turn Of The Screw” - called “The Innocents” - is one of my favorite thrillers, but the source material (narrated by the melodramatic, histrionic protagonist) is unbearable.

Christopher Rice, celebrated in the gay world. Total hack. Horrible writer.

R20 oddly I liked The GG only because reading it 50 years ago I fantasized and envisioned a life like that!

"so, how'd that turn out for ya"

R21 I’d say Phillip Roth is probably a bit more overrated by critics than the reading public. It’s hard to find critics who will take Roth to task, but the reading public? Eh, at least they will admit there was a fall off.

McCarthy is different. I actually think he’s overrated by the reading public and critics. If it makes sense, I feel like people eagerly yield to him presenting his prose as manly and true. He’s like the literary Clint Eastwood,

Why were Joan Didion’s essays considered so groundbreaking?

R6 When Maureen Dowd won a Pulitzer for writing about a hundred columns giggling like a schoolgirl over Monica sucking off Bill, I knew Pulitzers were a joke. The only reason Dowd has a career is that she was at one time a reasonably OK looking woman who sucked up to (and maybe sucked off) every nerdy journalist creep on the East Coast.

Dr. Seuss. Like who eats things like green eggs?

Joan Didion, whose career comes more from being an It girl who ran with the right crowd than any spectacular talent.

Jonathan Franzen, a self important little cunt who is not quite the genius he fancies himself. His books are long and boring suburban tripe. Critics like him so they eat up his smelly turds.

Elizabeth Gilbert and her shallow, done a million times before tripe . Comes across as a hollow empty sociopath and severely mentally stunted.

A friend lent me her copy of "The Road", and I was reading it one summer day out on my deck. Some bird, probably a phoebe or a robin, flew overhead and shat on the open book. I was mortified and I called her to apologize. She laughed and said "everyone's a critic".

Elizabeth George. Long, flowery, overwrought writing but strangely passive aggressive. It became clear that she viewed the non posh characters as pathetic and beneath contempt. George is an American who writes books set in Britain but she is way off in her depictions of British society. Her books are an Americans idea of how Brits live and think and tend to more frequently reflect American culture than that of U. K.

Joyce Carol Oates, meh.

Donna Tartt, I read The Secret History but couldn’t finish The Little Friend or The Goldfinch.

I don't love Steinbeck's work but I do read Cannery Row every few years. The description of old California is very moving and I like to fantasize about fucking Ed Ricketts.

William Shakespeare

Roth's early stuff was incredible OP

The short stories after Goodbye, Columbus are some of the best examples of the genre, and Goodbye Columbus itself is a brilliant study on the effects of the assimilation of American Jews and is applicable to any minority, actually.

There was a huge period in the 80s and 90s when his novels were awful with pages of navel gazing drivel.

But he came back in the 00s with stories like American Pastoral and The Plot Against The Jews.

But as for overrated, the king of all would be James Joyce whose novels are incomprehensible to most, followed closely by Faulkner, who suffers from the same curse. English professors love them because students need the professors to understand the books.

JD Salinger

Laura Ingalls Wilder. There was no Albert in her books!

Truman Capote.

Truman Capote.

Most prolific authors have ups and downs---Roth ended his career on a high note and the dull, conservative stuff in the middle doesn't represent the full sweep of his career. Bellow was very uneven.

Henry James, OTOH, is just tedious and turgid and yet people are still forced to read him. In contrast people willingly read the work of his brother William.

Some authors are destined to be forgotten---Updike could set a seenand his Rabbit character was fully recognized. But his plots were ridiculous and his treatment of women was misogynistic.

R40, I concur!

I found Gore Vidal's life much more interesting than his fiction. Christopher Rice only exists because of nepotism. In Cold Blood was very well written, after that Capote became a celebrity and it went to his head and his work went downhill.

"Joyce Carol Oates., the three saddest words in the English language

Most authors - even the great ones - seem to have one or two outstanding books in them, but subsequent books seem sort of watered down.

E Annie Proulx

Shakespeare will be read, studied and admired after all of the other authors mentioned in this thread are long forgotten.

Proust sux in the original and in translation.

The same can be said for Leo Tolstoy and he hated Shakespeare's work.

Some authors are great writers, some are great story tellers, rarely are any both. You can be a great story teller and not a great writer, and find success. However, a great writer who is not a great story teller will not usually do well.

[quote]Christopher Rice, celebrated in the gay world. Total hack. Horrible writer.

I read his first book right after it came out and it was awful. I've never read any of his other books.

If I said Jonathan Franzen wrote utter crap, that would still be overrating him.

Never been able to get into Faulkner, James and Updike.

I like her but Jane Austen.

Everybody mentioned so far in this thread.

And John Updike

Jonathan Franzen.

Gillian Flynn. Gone Girl was fine as an airplane beach read but as insightful as people made out. The "cool girl " speech was the worst. All it was was a self pitying rant for people who are weak and needy enough to change their entire personality for their partner.

R46 How is she overrated?

Not as insightful I meant

Erica Jong.

Virginia Woolf, JK Rowling, Tolkien, Hemingway,

Erica Jong was never taken seriously as an author by the "literary establishment" and her novels are all but forgotten today, R59, considered relics of their time. She was a best-selling author for a while in the 1970s and early 1980s, but that doesn't translate to "overrated."

Dan Brown

But my essays are still worth reading, my dear R43. After all, I am the godfather of this damn site, and I made Pointless Bitchery into an artform!

Margaret Atwood

R64 Her characters are all either predators are cold fish devoid of any human warmth.

Erica Jong had Fear of Flying, but I think male critics resented the casual way she presented female infidelity. The funny thing is we could use her voice today. I think women are being way more uptight about sex. Again.

I love Margaret Atwood, but she has the same problem as John Irving And Fay Weldon and Jonathan Frantzen: after a while the characters become recognizable versions of others. And the themes are repetitive.

But I still enjoy the read, most of the time.

Margaret Atwood is the Iris Apfel of North American literature, an old woman with a gimmick, trading the kooky spectacles for an icy gaze and hair that looks like an old man's bush ratted out with a comb.

I very rarely touch anything by living writers. It's all about "X's unique voice that speaks for some segment of some population," the rape culture writer, the abused Southern white trash writer, the brilliant child of immigrants from a repressive culture writer, the last American WASP writer, the gender fluid serial kitchen shoplifting voice of their generation...

I suffered through some of Henry James' tediousness but after enjoying this confection (below) I said to myself that I had misunderstood Henry James and that I should set time aside to re-read and re-appreciate Henry James.

(I haven't done so yet)

You shouldn't give up on contemporary fiction altogether, R68, not while there are still great novels being published all the time (including translated literature from all over the world). Keep an open mind; there's more than just Sally Rooney out there.

Eric Jong---a never rated author, not even overrated.

James Patterson

His books are super cringey, formulaic and just bad.

And yet he sells more of them than any other current writer.

I am aware that his books are routinely mocked by critics and not considered anything more than pulp, but he's made millions if not billions writing crap that is bought by people who actually still read books.

"Toni Morrison wrote a few great novels and then spent decades coasting on her reputation. "

I'd think most authors would want this. Obviously the best scenario is to have a full life of compelling works. But, if not, coasting off a rep is better than sinking into obscurity.

ANN PATCHETT !

A friend shared one of her books for me to read. Thinking I was a musician and would like it. Bel Canto was a total bore. You knew what the ending was going to be half way to the end. A sad story reminiscent of the movie Diva, which was a hundred times better.

I would never read anything else by her. I'm judging her on one opus.

BOO!

Christopher Rice owns this thread. He would never have been published were it not for his mother and his fuckable hole. All crap, rubbish writing.

Matthew, Mark, John and Luke

Margaret Atwood's dialogue is rather wooden.

I agree with James Joyce, no one should have to work that hard when reading to find enjoyment.

^ sez he who wrote "Finnegan's Wake"

We need an underrated authors thread.

Faulkner - I cannot stand his poor put upon southerner bit. Get over it already the south lost the civil war.