Virginia Woolf and Salman Rushdie would be at the top of my list.

In my view the works of neither have much if any intrinsic merit and the reputations of both have largely been built on factors other than writing.

Woolf, in my view, could not write for toffee. Were it not for the connections and links she had with publishers and the Bloomsbury group, I doubt whether her insipid and banal prose would ever have seen the light of day.

As for Rushdie, I think he was very lucky that his early works coincided with a fad in the literary establishment for 'ethnic' writers, particularly if they dealt with issues of race and colonialism. Had it not been for the furore over the 'Satanic Verses' (most of it turgid drivel) he would probably have been forgotten about long ago. His ventures into 'magic realism' are laughably inept and largely unreadable. He is now famous for being a literary 'celebrity' rather than a writer, rather like Capote in his later years (the difference being that some of Capote's early stuff was quite good)..

Dan Brown - how that man has managed to mug a living is beyond me?

Ive read more engaging stuff on the back of a bottle of Domestos.

Dan Brown seconded, though I can sort of let him off because I don't think he pretends to write anything other than airport book fodder.

From writers who have more literary pretentions though, I think Ben Okri is terrible. I tried to read 'The Famished Road' but quickly lost the will to live.

Andre Gide - a new fatuity on every page.

Joseph Heller - overblown, badly edited, self-congratulatory.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez - sorry, I just can't stand magic realism.

Louis de Bernieres - feeble imitator of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Oh, and J.K.Rowling (ducks for cover)

Dan Brown seconded, though I can sort of let him off because I don't think he pretends to write anything other than airport book fodder.


Dan Brown thirded. I'm currently TRYING to read my way through the "Da Vinci Code", but his appalling writing style is making it a real chore....

D H Lawrence - one good story in the man. Everything of his I've ever read is the same story, same characters, same settings, same issues.... boring! Admittedly, I haven't read "Lord Chaverly's Lover".... ;) :hihi:

Joseph Heller - great ideas, but badly written and pretentious

In fact, most modern novelists seem to specialise in being pretentious....

StarSparkle

Joseph Heller - overblown, badly edited, self-congratulatory.





Now you tell me ! I've just bought Catch 22...........Stephen King, for no other reason than he's too long winded and too many of his novels follow the same old plots. Now, if we were talking Playwrights, Dennis Potter.........:huh:

john grisham-started 3 of his books and then packed em in.
but i must agree,dan brown-da vinci code and digital fortress absolute piffle.his books start well then just fade away like a cheap firework,but good luck to him-people obviously like him hes sold millions.

Now you tell me ! I've just bought Catch 22
LOL well it's not all bad (just overrated IMO) ... but yes, I prefer 'Slaughterhouse 5' myself - more humane and honest, and a lot shorter ...

I quite like Stephen King when he's being 'tight', but by God he can go on.

JD Salinger - The Catcher in the Rye is OK but it's not enough to give the guy teh reputation he has. And it has generated so many wannabe Holden Caulfields....

Dan Brown
JK Rowling
Helen Fielding
Phillip Pullman

And....pulling on my armour and asbestos underwear...

JRR Tolkien

:)

Can I partly nominate someone? I love Neal Stephenson's books but he just can't write an ending..they....just......sort.........of......... .......peter.......................out............ ........

I also tried reading 120 Days Of Soddom and as a "masterpiece" and "work of genius" it was pretty much unreadable!

And....pulling on my armour and asbestos underwear...

JRR Tolkien

:)


Wow - I'm running for cover.

There was a lot of controvercey over this one.


http://www.amazon.com/Million-Little-Pieces-James-Frey/dp/0307276902/sr=8-1/qid=1159289789/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-1764637-0805509?ie=UTF8&s=books

Phillip Pullman

YAY I'm not the only one! I liked the first one of dark materials but they soooo went downhill after that. Nice idea poorly executed IMNVHO!

JRR Tolkien

Yes and no - I liked The Hobbit and Middle Earth was a nice invention but Lord Of The Rings was miandering and pretty badly written!

Helen Fielding


Totally with you on her :thumbsup: Bloody dreadful writing

Mind, you can say the same about practically any chick-lit writer - ghastly rubbish

StarSparkle

PS Re: the Tolkien comments - dear, oh dear, oh dear.... you do realise what you've written's practically sacrilege?! :o

Dan Brown - for his near identical plot structures, short chapters and miniscule paragraphs.

Literary bum swill.

Just started Da vinvi Code, really want to like it, but struggling if I'm honest. not nearly as engaging as Tom Clancy

Martin Amis (Except Rachel Papers)
John Cowper Powys (Oh Gawd...)
Alan Clayson (Absolutely the worst music biographer on the planet)
..and DBC Pierre

Charlotte & Emily Bronte, Dickens, Tolkien, Vikram Seth. I don't think that Dan Brown is overrated, as everyone I meet thinks he's ****e anyway - and I've not read anything by him.

I agree about Dan Brown

and also Alexander McCall Smith - who wrtote No 1 Ladies Detective Agency... I just found it meandering and pointless:(

Dan Brown thirded. I'm currently TRYING to read my way through the "Da Vinci Code", but his appalling writing style is making it a real chore....

And now fourthed or fifthed?!

He is apalling, all of the plots are very similar, and the outcome is always the same, the middle-aged hero gets with the nubile young beauty....

The saddest part of his writing is that you can tell he bases the lead roles on some fantasy version of himself.

Charlotte & Emily Bronte, Dickens, Tolkien, Vikram Seth. I don't think that Dan Brown is overrated, as everyone I meet thinks he's ****e anyway - and I've not read anything by him.

I would agree with all of those, except for Dickens. We have to remember that he was writing for a very different audience (when the reading classes had time to savour long and vivid descriptions and plot detours). By modern standards, his works are over-long, but his writing is seldom tedious and the plots are very good. The works of Dickens also lend themselves very well to dramatisation, which is by no means always the case with 19th century novelists.

The works of Dickens also lend themselves very well to dramatisation, which is by no means always the case with 19th century novelists.

Possibly because his work first appeared in serialised form, each episode ending on a cliffhanger.

I would agree with all of those, except for Dickens. We have to remember that he was writing for a very different audience (when the reading classes had time to savour long and vivid descriptions and plot detours). By modern standards, his works are over-long, but his writing is seldom tedious and the plots are very good. The works of Dickens also lend themselves very well to dramatisation, which is by no means always the case with 19th century novelists.


Fairy Nuff. I included Dickens because I had to read Zombie & Son. It scarred me for life.

Fairy Nuff. I included Dickens because I had to read Zombie & Son. It scarred me for life.

Don't you mean 'Dombey and Son', or is this the David Cronenberg version?

Dan Brown thirded. I'm currently TRYING to read my way through the "Da Vinci Code", but his appalling writing style is making it a real chore....

StarSparkle

Save yourself a lot of tedium and read 'Holy blood,Holy grail'.

Its equally as fancifull as 'The De Vinci code' but at least your spared Mr Browns, ahem, 'Novelisation'....

cant fault Dan Brown - shallow,easy reading. not everyone wants to read war & Peace all the time.
Hate Roald Dahl with a vengeance,dont really like Tom Clancy,Frederick Forsythe either.dont really appreciate all stephen king novels.

John Cowper Powys (Oh Gawd...)


Strange really how everyone has different tastes - I still think his books are some of the most memorable I've ever read. OK so they're long and meandering, and I'm sure his style won't be to everybody's liking, but certainly Porius, Owen Glendower, Weymouth Sands and A Glastonbury Romance are particularly worth seeking out.

As to the original question, I'll go along with Dan Brown (I read the Da Vinci Code and it was OK, nothing more), J.K. Rowling (Diana Wynne Jones should get some royalties from her!) and all the chick lit people, but as someone else said I don't really think they have any great literary pretensions anyway.

One more I'd have to go for though: Anthony Powell. Dry as dust.

Don't you mean 'Dombey and Son', or is this the David Cronenberg version?

Now there's an idea.

No, it was my pet name for the book whilst I was trudging my way through it - it made me feel undead.

I have never understood the adulation heaped upon William Burroughs. His 'cut-up' experiments , full of homosexual sadism and grotesque, warped science-fiction ideas seem the product of a genuinely deranged mind. As Samuel Beckett once said of Burroughs' novels, 'That's not writing. That's plumbing'.

Dan Brown ... his appalling writing style is making it a real chore...

Agree that it's an appalling style of writing, but it's not a chore... very easy to read and, tbh, i couldn't put it down.

Now, the DaVinci Code movie.... that was a chore!


.

William Burroughs
Oh yes, I'd forgotten about him. Mind you, Junkie (or however it's spelt) is pretty good.

And Beckett wasn't any great shakes as a novelist himself. The Unnameable? The Unreadable, more like. But I don't know how his novels are rated, therefore can't say whether they're overrated.

I have never understood the adulation heaped upon William Burroughs. His 'cut-up' experiments , full of homosexual sadism and grotesque, warped science-fiction ideas seem the product of a genuinely deranged mind. As Samuel Beckett once said of Burroughs' novels, 'That's not writing. That's plumbing'.

Its not even good plumbing, Timo. He certainly was not Corgi registered, although he was definitely certifiable. Burroughs is a good example of a writer whose fame stems from something other than writing. All through his adult life he was peddling a form of outlaw chic which his admirers found appealing (but which many others found to be nasty and unpleasant). Implicitly, he was also peddling the dangerous myth that imbibing hard drugs of various kinds will make you see things better and will be an aid to creative endeavours. It is likely to have the very opposite effect, that is if you survive in the first place. It is no coincidence that he invented a character with a talking ass. This was probably the most autobiographical thing he ever wrote.

Agree that it's an appalling style of writing, but it's not a chore...


Oh God, it IS a chore! I can hardly read a page without wincing at something - more likely several somethings - that Mr Brown's 'written'. Its potentially a really interesting story, but it's SO very badly written it literally keeps setting my teeth on edge. It's almost painful trying to read it.

StarSparkle

I think Dickens' main strength was his ability to describe odd and eccentric characters and their interaction and also his description of places makes me want to visit them.

He relies a bit too much, I think on co-incidence, but, in general, I think he's not over-rated and stands up there with the giants.

What's fascinating, too, for the modern reader, is the insight he gives us into everyday Victorian life--------the food, the attitudes, the comparative anarchy or freedom of those turbulent years.

Agree that it's an appalling style of writing, but it's not a chore... very easy to read and, tbh, i couldn't put it down.

Now, the DaVinci Code movie.... that was a chore!


.

The da vinci code was easy to read I agree, in the same way that a kids book is. There were times when I skipped ten pages because I had already predicted exactly what was going to happen. That and to escape the tedium. Never read such bilge.

As for JRR Tolkein he's ace! Defined a genre.

Agree about JK Rowling, but I think at least she is a capable writer and makes a story interesting, which brown certainly isn't and can't.

Danielle Steel, definitley overrated, my mums read most of her books and i've read a few and while some are ok if you're into that sort of thing, they're all very simillar and nothing special at all in my opinion.

I used to read Virgina Andrews books but they were all simillar as well. Seemed to deal abit too much in incesturous relationships if i remember rightly. Im not sure if she'd be classed as over-rated though as i don't know how popular her books are.

I love JK Rowling for giving the world Harry Potter :D and i have read all of Dan Browns books, while i know they're not literary genius i found them to be entertaining and certainly not as bad as some people make out. At one point it seemed to be everyone reading a book on a bus or train was reading the da vinci code, now it seems to be the 'in' thing to slag it and Dan Brown off. Strange...

I thought Da Vinci Code was alright, but Angels & Demons is absolute drivel. He jumps out of a helicopter, using his coat as a parachute and falls in a river, just ending up breaking his arm? Behave!

Digital Fortress wasn't bad

I have never understood the adulation heaped upon William Burroughs. His 'cut-up' experiments , full of homosexual sadism and grotesque, warped science-fiction ideas seem the product of a genuinely deranged mind. As Samuel Beckett once said of Burroughs' novels, 'That's not writing. That's plumbing'.

Samuel Beckett? That's a bit rich coming from him.....


Ping image only just almost never one second light time blue and white in the wind. Head naught nose ears white holes mouth white seam like sewn invisible over. Only the eyes given blue fixed front light blue almost white only colour alone uncover. Light heat white planes shining white one only shining white infinite but that known not. Ping a nature only just almost never one second with image same time a little less blue and white in the wind.

Digital Fortress wasn't bad

Nope - it was appalling!!!!

Samuel Beckett? That's a bit rich coming from him.....

At least Beckett's 'stream of consciousness' does not involve pederastic fantasies. I for one prefer his existentialist tramps and impotent, roaming failures to Burroughs' pathetic fixation with Arab boys.

Thomas Hardy...loathsome romanticised nonsense and far too fond of adjectives.

What's that Tess? Life getting you a bit down? Feeling a bit put upon? The relentless march of progress destroying your pastoral paradise (which seems to be something of an s hole)?

Well tough...stop whinging and get out...and tell that Hardy to put his quill down.

Oh God, it IS a chore! I can hardly read a page without wincing at something - more likely several somethings - that Mr Brown's 'written'. Its potentially a really interesting story, but it's SO very badly written it literally keeps setting my teeth on edge. It's almost painful trying to read it.

StarSparkle

For God's sake throw it in the bin now!!!

I read it despite feeling that I was being manipulated and conned all the way through and now I regret that Dan Brown has effectively stolen part of my life I wish I had back.

Martin Amis I find appalling. I rarely stop reading books part way through but for him I'd make an exception. I've no idea how his dross is so appreciated by the literary fraternity

At least Beckett's 'stream of consciousness' does not involve pederastic fantasies. I for one prefer his existentialist tramps and impotent, roaming failures to Burroughs' pathetic fixation with Arab boys.

I can understand that. I just disagree with Beckett on this one.

With the exception of maybe two of his novels, I think that Isaac Asimov is also overrated.

I can understand that. I just disagree with Beckett on this one.

With the exception of maybe two of his novels, I think that Isaac Asimov is also overrated.

The sad fact is that most of the famous novelists are over-rated, in that the majority have written only one really good book (perhaps two). Exceptions which come to mind are Dickens, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, D.H.Lawrence, Steinbeck and (more controversially perhaps) John Fowles. Ironically, the fame of many writers increases almost in inverse relationship to the quality of their outputs.

For God's sake throw it in the bin now!!!

I read it despite feeling that I was being manipulated and conned all the way through and now I regret that Dan Brown has effectively stolen part of my life I wish I had back.


I'm a masochist, that's the trouble! :o :hihi:

It's now become a challenge - I WILL read to the end of this book, despite Mr Brown's best efforts! :D

StarSparkle

and now I regret that Dan Brown has effectively stolen part of my life I wish I had back.

Nothing like blowing things out of proportion is there?! :D

Most writers of children's literature these days are vastly over-rated. The likes of J.K.Rowling cannot possibly compete with the brilliant Enid Blyton. In her terse, sinewy prose Blyton bravely tackled social issues of the greatest importance, such as race-relations , which contemporary writers ignore or avoid. Long before Enoch Powell's thundering warnings of future 'rivers of blood' in Britain, Blyton cogently drew attention to the severe problems caused by young, angry unwanted Golliwogs in Toyland. Courageously, Blyton told the truth, when others simpered and equivocated about 'mutual tolerance' and 'melting pots'. Toyland was being held to ransom by roaming, lawless bands of Golliwogs, and even Noddy himself was mugged several times. On reflection, Blyton was a Prophet. Who in all honesty does not feel foreboding when contemplating the future of race-relations in our inner-city Toy communities these days?

Nick Hornby - dull dull dull

Alan Hollinghurst - Can't believe this guy won a Booker prize. The good plot in the Line of Beauty was completely overshadowed by his detached and emotionally-retarded writing style.

J K Rowling - Hardly Roald Dahl is she?

Catherine Cookson - Would never normally subject myself to housewife tales or chic-lit, but it was bought from a very limited choice of English language books while on holiday. Absolutely dire. Considered putting it down in favour of staring at the wall for entertainment on several occasions.

I'm a masochist, that's the trouble! :o :hihi:

It's now become a challenge - I WILL read to the end of this book, despite Mr Brown's best efforts! :D

StarSparkle

I get like that.

I've started so I'll finish... even if it's only so I can slate it with authority at the end!

Catherine Cookson - Would never normally subject myself to housewife tales or chic-lit, but it was bought from a very limited choice of English language books while on holiday. Absolutely dire. Considered putting it down in favour of staring at the wall for entertainment on several occasions.

LOL! Know exactly what you mean!

When I was younger, and very bored, I would occasionally pick up one of Mum's Catherine Cookson's to pass the time - usually ended up losing the will to live, and thoughts of putting my head in the oven started to stir.... :hihi:

StarSparkle :)

Alan Hollinghurst - Can't believe this guy won a Booker prize. The good plot in the Line of Beauty was completely overshadowed by his detached and emotionally-retarded writing style.

:wave:

I made the mistake of reading this too. There isn't one sympathetic character in the book - I kept hoping a massacre would occur. And all those descriptions of how attractive Margaret Thatcher is had me reaching for the sick bucket.

Other revered modern authors who are distinctly rubbish: William Gibson, Donna Tartt, the monumentally pompous and patronising Douglas Coupland, Ian Rankin. To name a few.

:wave:

I made the mistake of reading this too. There isn't one sympathetic character in the book - I kept hoping a massacre would occur. And all those descriptions of how attractive Margaret Thatcher is had me reaching for the sick bucket.

Other revered modern authors who are distinctly rubbish: William Gibson, Donna Tartt, the monumentally pompous and patronising Douglas Coupland, Ian Rankin. To name a few.

Hello hello! :wave:

Timo, what about your thoughts on The Wishing Chair? or the position of Darrell as top 'prig' of Mallory Towers? :thumbsup:

I can't abide Alan Hollinghurst's writing either, its pretentious twaddle. I hate Milan Kundera too - The Unbearable Pretentiousness Of Literature.

Another one I can't stand is that stupid Aussie woman who's everywhere like Sh*t in a field - Kathy Lette. How can her work be so popular? I just failed to get it in every way. In general I cannot read chick lit, crime or detective novels, as i feel my brain shrinking with early onset dementia.

Don't like Dickens.

Now it's not starting a war to say you don't like Tolkien. Of course I do, but I know his work so well that I can see exactly why other people hate it. I've had a pop at Pullman on here before, but I've just read HDM for the 3rd time and now I think I really get what he's talking about. I still think he fell down with the last book though, probably due to having his main character 'offstage' for half of it!

And I love Donna Tartt and Coupland and Hardy!

I see this thread is a couple of echelons higher than I initially thought but I'm going to say Kathy Lette all the same.

I can't quite find the words.......

Most writers of children's literature these days are vastly over-rated. The likes of J.K.Rowling cannot possibly compete with the brilliant Enid Blyton. In her terse, sinewy prose Blyton bravely tackled social issues of the greatest importance, such as race-relations , which contemporary writers ignore or avoid. Long before Enoch Powell's thundering warnings of future 'rivers of blood' in Britain, Blyton cogently drew attention to the severe problems caused by young, angry unwanted Golliwogs in Toyland. Courageously, Blyton told the truth, when others simpered and equivocated about 'mutual tolerance' and 'melting pots'. Toyland was being held to ransom by roaming, lawless bands of Golliwogs, and even Noddy himself was mugged several times. On reflection, Blyton was a Prophet. Who in all honesty does not feel foreboding when contemplating the future of race-relations in our inner-city Toy communities these days?

Timo, this is truly a brilliant example of revisionist literary criticism, sufficient to make F.R.Leavis dance with delight in the grave of academe. Your insights into the deeper meaning of Noddy's adventures in Towtown will, I am sure generate a whole new industry of scholarship. So Blyton's Toytown masterworks are really allegories, similar to Animal Farm, only more prophetic, and indeed more relevant to the contemporary era? No wonder the pc brigade view her works with such hostility and suspicion. I think I will proceed with a textual exegesis of these works forthwith, with the aim of producing a learned paper on subversive subtexts in children's literature, with particular reference to Blyton's 'Samizadat'.

Thankyou, my dear Lord Chaverly, for those kind words. Indeed, it is my intention to contribute towards literary theoretical development as part of the post- Terry Eagleton school of revisionist criticism at Central University Neepsend Tip Site. However, not all my colleagues share my deeply-held view that Blyton was indeed a Prophet. Some scholars consider the writer to have been a racist bigot.
Professor Cuchulain O'Feckinell of our combined Irish Literature/Peat Cutting Dept [and author of 'The Smell of the Bog'- a big seller in Ballingaddy] is currently researching anti-Hibernian, racist subtexts in Blyton's work. 'Why is it that Leprachauns are conspicuously absent in all Blyton's stories ?', asks this latterday academic woodkerne. And the answer is given; 'Because Blyton was a rabid Unionist, and her sprightly elves and dour kelpies symbolise the English and Lowland Scots Loyalist settlers who robbed my fellow Gaels of their land. Oh Jesus, all we wanted was a little bit o land! Mavrone! Our day will come! Slit de Protestants troats!'

Professor Rabbiti Pattapong, specialising in the growth area of Surinamese Wimmins Science-Fiction , criticises Blyton's work for 'the complete absence of ethnic female characters in spacesuits'. In Professor Pattapong's view, Blyton was almost certainly a man, and as such is a 'patriarchal agent' perpetuating a 'continuum of hatred' and 'multiple levels of oppression' against 'black and brown-skinned sisters of the space-age'.

The new industry of scholarship you refer to is already underway. What a great contribution it will make to the store of knowledge, in a very real sense.

Germaine Greer - that tracksuited harpie.
A legend in her own flatulent blurb.

And she's got a face one could never get tired of slapping.

Germaine Greer - that tracksuited harpie.
A legend in her own flatulent blurb.

And she's got a face one could never get tired of slapping.

Didn't think Germaine was a novelist Don?

Didn't think Germaine was a novelist Don?
Well writer then :hihi: still don't like her :hihi:

Didn't think Germaine was a novelist Don?

She certainly wrote a lot of fiction..... :hihi:

StarSparkle