What I Learned from the Worst Novelist in the English Language(newrepublic.com)
newrepublic.com
What I Learned from the Worst Novelist in the English Language
https://newrepublic.com/article/158761/learned-worst-novelist-english-language
30 comments
Really enjoyed this piece. Quite poignant and has enough self reflection to conventuals the writers experience without being self indulgent.
*contextualize
I really enjoyed the writing even though it took me some time to correctly understand some passages (I am not a native speaker). I feel sorry for Burrows's case, he seems to be a great militant against oligarchy and oppression as well as a tempted writer who was not fairly reviewed by his peers.
Robert Burrows wasn't the worst novelist in the English language. The article makes that clear.
The article includes Gene Weingarten's demeaning characterisation to get clicks. That wouldn't be necessary if Barrett Swanson had listened to his better instincts, and built on his portrait of Robert Burrows as an earnest man of letters. Instead, he had a bet each way, perpetuating Gene Weingarten's cruel ruse as a straw man, and negating it.
The article includes Gene Weingarten's demeaning characterisation to get clicks. That wouldn't be necessary if Barrett Swanson had listened to his better instincts, and built on his portrait of Robert Burrows as an earnest man of letters. Instead, he had a bet each way, perpetuating Gene Weingarten's cruel ruse as a straw man, and negating it.
Robert Burrows is not newsworthy without Gene Weingarten. The article would leave a massive unanswered question at its center.
Yes, as I read it the unfairness and falseness of the review was the core of the story.
> Robert Burrows is not newsworthy without Gene Weingarten.
Are you saying that in your way of thinking, newsworthiness only arises from a false, disparaging accusation?
Are you saying that in your way of thinking, newsworthiness only arises from a false, disparaging accusation?
It's easy to answer that question by just, you know, reading what they're actually saying, instead of making insinuations based on the dumbest possible thought someone could have about the article.
I read the article, andrewfinr.
It seems like a serious attempt to inform us about the humanity and abilities of Robert Burrows. The reason it tends more towards clickbait than necessary is obvious from the headline:
What I Learned From the Worst Novelist in the English Language
If the article was more of an attempt to rehabilitate Robert Burrows, who the author visited on his death bed to get the story, the headline might more candidly have been written as:
What I Learned From the "Worst Novelist in the English Language"
Swanson does encapsulate the insult in inverted commas, but not until para 19, when he writes:
There was something regal, something monumental, in his bearing, and though I knew otherwise, I found myself thinking, “There he is. The worst novelist in the English language.”
Was it really necessary, or beneficial to share that thought, if the point of the article is to debunk the insult?
It seems like a serious attempt to inform us about the humanity and abilities of Robert Burrows. The reason it tends more towards clickbait than necessary is obvious from the headline:
What I Learned From the Worst Novelist in the English Language
If the article was more of an attempt to rehabilitate Robert Burrows, who the author visited on his death bed to get the story, the headline might more candidly have been written as:
What I Learned From the "Worst Novelist in the English Language"
Swanson does encapsulate the insult in inverted commas, but not until para 19, when he writes:
There was something regal, something monumental, in his bearing, and though I knew otherwise, I found myself thinking, “There he is. The worst novelist in the English language.”
Was it really necessary, or beneficial to share that thought, if the point of the article is to debunk the insult?
Those are reasonable points that are entirely irrelevant to mine, which was about how you misrepresented ponker's position through your asinine, insulting "in your way of thinking" question.
You didn't even have to stretch for a charitable interpretation: the surface reading was perfectly decent. Instead you either thought they were making some ludicrous generalization about newsworthiness for all time, or found it rhetorically useful to seem to think that. In either case your comment provided negative value.
You didn't even have to stretch for a charitable interpretation: the surface reading was perfectly decent. Instead you either thought they were making some ludicrous generalization about newsworthiness for all time, or found it rhetorically useful to seem to think that. In either case your comment provided negative value.
I would argue that the worst English language novelist, among those of reasonable renown, was Anthony Trollope (but this kind of statement is fraught with issues, due to inclusion criteria - I'm not counting people that write for, say, Castalia House - and inherent subjectivity).
I'd nominate Hugo award winning author Liu Cixin.
That's just ridiculous. His trilogy is good, in the vein of Asimov. It's riddled with issues, yes - such as poor characters, unbelievable human behavior, etc. But the big ideas (which is what a lot of the people reading science fiction are after) are very cool and fairly novel. Come to think of it a lot of this could be said about Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke. Their characters sucked too, yet their books are classics.
You know, Cixin won the Hugo award? This fact alone should tell you that he cannot be the worst, not even close. A lot of people enjoyed his novels. You could argue that he's over rated and that's about that.
You know, Cixin won the Hugo award? This fact alone should tell you that he cannot be the worst, not even close. A lot of people enjoyed his novels. You could argue that he's over rated and that's about that.
It must be said that he won his Hugo in part due to the consequences of a openly hostile voting campaign for the nominations organized by people who did, in fact, write for Castalia House.
Most sci-fi is terrible, so it's not surprising that a terrible novel could win a sci-fi award.
TBP is the worst novel I've ever read. Even his big ideas are terrible and absurd.
TBP is the worst novel I've ever read. Even his big ideas are terrible and absurd.
I've got to agree, The Three Body Problem was the second worst science fiction novel I've ever read - to be honest, I only read 3/4 of it. But he's not an English author so he doesn't count.
Which was the worst? I am not a great fan of this trilogy but I've read many worse scifi books, including some considered classic.
I found it almost unreadable, and I can tolerate a lot. Maybe something gets lost with the translation. As for the worst, I forgot the author's name. It was a military sci fi novel with an alien invasion theme, so you'd expect it to be bad. However, I love the topic and was willing to tolerate the focus on right wing US prepping. I'm fine with all of that, but, SPOILER AHEAD: The problem of the novel was that the fight was pretty much unwinnable, so in the end the author simply just introduced vampires who allied with the paramilitary preppers and swiftly eliminated all aliens in the last chapter. That was by far the worst plot I've ever seen.
Sounds like David Weber's Out Of The Dark
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_the_Dark_(Weber_novel)
> With nearly every Shongairi base on Earth destroyed, Thikair orders his remaining forces off the planet, while planning to outright destroy Earth from orbit. However, as the last fleeing units reach their ships, the Shongairi dreadnoughts suddenly destroy the rest of the warships, all but one. Thikair is confronted on his own ship by same enemy that had destroyed the bases and smashed his fleet: vampires, who need no air to breathe, and can travel as mist.
> Their leader, Mircea Basarab, is actually the immortal Vlad the Impaler, whom humans remember as Dracula. He and his kind have been hibernating, and kept hidden before the Shongairi's arrival forced them to "protect" the people of Earth by creating more vampires and build an army to eliminate the Shongairi. Thikair is told that the hijacked dreadnoughts are being sent to each of the Shongairi worlds to destroy their Empire. Thikair is slain by one of the vampires, Stephen Buchevsky, whose human family was killed by the initial bombardment. Humanity now possesses Shongairi and Hegemony technology from the Shongairi industrial ships, and is fully united under the newly established Terran Empire, becoming a mighty adversary to the Hegemony which had so casually sent the invaders against and innocent and unsuspecting world.
Haha!
> With nearly every Shongairi base on Earth destroyed, Thikair orders his remaining forces off the planet, while planning to outright destroy Earth from orbit. However, as the last fleeing units reach their ships, the Shongairi dreadnoughts suddenly destroy the rest of the warships, all but one. Thikair is confronted on his own ship by same enemy that had destroyed the bases and smashed his fleet: vampires, who need no air to breathe, and can travel as mist.
> Their leader, Mircea Basarab, is actually the immortal Vlad the Impaler, whom humans remember as Dracula. He and his kind have been hibernating, and kept hidden before the Shongairi's arrival forced them to "protect" the people of Earth by creating more vampires and build an army to eliminate the Shongairi. Thikair is told that the hijacked dreadnoughts are being sent to each of the Shongairi worlds to destroy their Empire. Thikair is slain by one of the vampires, Stephen Buchevsky, whose human family was killed by the initial bombardment. Humanity now possesses Shongairi and Hegemony technology from the Shongairi industrial ships, and is fully united under the newly established Terran Empire, becoming a mighty adversary to the Hegemony which had so casually sent the invaders against and innocent and unsuspecting world.
Haha!
Who doesn't write in English, however.
Trollope's The Way We Live Now is a classic, and still very relevant today.
I doubt there's a single unique absolute worst novelist. But self-publishing has allowed people with no talent for English, never mind for fiction, to hawk their efforts through the Kindle Store and Wattpad.
The results vary from "That was... not great" to "OMGWTAF."
I doubt there's a single unique absolute worst novelist. But self-publishing has allowed people with no talent for English, never mind for fiction, to hawk their efforts through the Kindle Store and Wattpad.
The results vary from "That was... not great" to "OMGWTAF."
Care to expand on this? Never heard this opinion before, and I quite liked the one novel of his I've read (The Warden).
I find that his alleged realism is mostly a fixation with the trivial (there are exceptions, but they tend to be drowned out). Besides often reading like the compiled research material of someone doing research on historical inflation rates, the structure of his works suffered from his large output.
Off topic:
This is how this website looks when I open it:
https://i.imgur.com/M1m5LJX.png
yikes
https://i.imgur.com/M1m5LJX.png
yikes
On my phone in landscape orientation, the blue popup in front of the other two popups that cover half of the screen each is so big that the closing-button is unreachable. Quite unusable.
Anyone that creates and that cares how their work will be received by others should volunteer as judges in competitions until they realize fully how subjective and biased the judging committees are.
Since Burrows already had some experience running against the establishment (his university administration) I expect that he was not particularly fazed by the negative review.
Since Burrows already had some experience running against the establishment (his university administration) I expect that he was not particularly fazed by the negative review.
If you can't do, judge.
I suspect some of these people are bad faith in their criticisms simply because they're bitter their own work didn't take off.
I suspect some of these people are bad faith in their criticisms simply because they're bitter their own work didn't take off.
"But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so." --Anton Ego, Ratatouille
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