The Guardian click-bait - Get real. Terry Pratchett is not a literary genius

[jgaiser]

It does not matter to me if Terry Pratchett’s final novel is a worthy epitaph or not, or if he wanted it to be pulped by a steamroller. I have never read a single one of his books and I never plan to. Life’s too short.

Apparently this person only reads real "Literature" and, though he has not read a single book, Pratchett doesn't qualify. Pretentious.

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddes...iterary-genius

[HarryT]

I honestly don't recall anyone ever suggesting that he was a literary genius. He was an extremely good and commercially-successful author (and one whose books I very much enjoy reading), but one should, I think, be wary of throwing around words like "genius", don't you think?

[doubleshuffle]

Well, the guy whose life is too short to read Pratchett had the time to drive to Cardiff and visit the "Doctor Who Experience".

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddes...summer-holiday

Probably really pure, calculated click- and comment-bait, that article.

[icallaci]

Wow. He's never read anything by Terry Pratchett, just "flicked through a book by him in a shop" and so dismisses a much-loved author as worthless? Not only is this guy pretentious, but he apparently has no idea that reading can be fun as well as "life-changing." What a dour, sour person. Too bad. He's missing out on at least one of life's greatest joys.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by icallaci

Wow. He's never read anything by Terry Pratchett, just "flicked through a book by him in a shop" and so dismisses a much-loved author as worthless?

Where in the article does he refer to him as "worthless"? He calls him "mediocre", but "mediocre" means "of average quality, neither good nor bad". It does not mean "worthless".

Personally I very much enjoy the books, that I respect someone else's opinion to consider them to be of average quality; not everyone enjoys the same things.

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by HarryT

He calls him "mediocre", but "mediocre" means "of average quality, neither good nor bad". It does not mean "worthless".

True. But it doesn't really matter if he calls him worthless, mediocre, boring, or even great. He bases his judgement on flicking through a book, which totally disqualifies his opinion.

I once started One Hundred Years of Solitude and gave up after twenty pages because I thought it was boring, but I would never use this as the basis for publicly stating that Garcia Marquez was an overrated bore.

I have read several books by Grass though, and thus feel completely qualified to state that he was an overrated bore.

[icallaci]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Where in the article does he refer to him as "worthless"? He calls him "mediocre", but "mediocre" means "of average quality, neither good nor bad". It does not mean "worthless".

"Actual literature may be harder to get to grips with than a Discworld novel, but it is more worth the effort." Terry Pratchett is worthless to him. Not worth his effort.

[HarryT]

"More worth the effort" does not, as you seem to be suggesting, imply that he considers Pratchett's books to be "worthless". He considers it to be worth less than what he rather pretentiously refers to as "actual literature", but "worth less" and "worthless" mean completely different things.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

I once started One Hundred Years of Solitude and gave up after twenty pages because I thought it was boring, but I would never use this as the basis for publicly stating that Garcia Marquez was an overrated bore.

Having somehow read all of Love in the Time of Cholera, I can confidently state that I found the book overrated, boring, self-indulgent, and grossly creepy. I don't know whether the author himself was any of these things.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

True. But it doesn't really matter if he calls him worthless, mediocre, boring, or even great. He bases his judgement on flicking through a book, which totally disqualifies his opinion.

Yep, I agree with you there.

I once started One Hundred Years of Solitude and gave up after twenty pages because I thought it was boring, but I would never use this as the basis for publicly stating that Garcia Marquez was an overrated bore.

I have read several books by Grass though, and thus feel completely qualified to state that he was an overrated bore.

History is generally the arbiter of who is or is not a great writer. Will Dickens and Shakespeare be taught in English Literature classes in a hundred years time? I feel pretty confident that they will. Will Pratchett be taught similarly? Time will tell.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by meeera

Having somehow read all of Love in the Time of Cholera, I can confidently state that I found the book overrated, boring, self-indulgent, and grossly creepy. I don't know whether the author himself was any of these things.

Worth bearing in mind, perhaps, that the Nobel Prize for Literature is almost always awarded as a "Lifetime Achievement" award, rather than for a specific book. The fact that Gabriel García Márquez was awarded the Nobel Prize means that many people think he was a decent writer. Of course that doesn't mean that you, I, or anyone else has to find his books enjoyable.

[Dr. Drib]

I think Gabriel Garcia Marquez is the acknowledged literary genius here amongst those who read and have a love for literary fiction.

That other guy was an OK genre writer, even though he needed to have his teeth whitened.

But everyone here remembers what my Drill Sergent said, don't you, about opinions?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by icallaci

"Actual literature may be harder to get to grips with than a Discworld novel, but it is more worth the effort." Terry Pratchett is worthless to him. Not worth his effort.

And then he give a Jane Austen novel as a counter example. Pratchett is much more deeper and gives more than Jane Austen.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tompe

And then he give a Jane Austen novel as a counter example. Pratchett is much more deeper and gives more than Jane Austen.

Do you think that Pratchett will be regarded as an author as significant as Austen by future generations? Not "as popular", but "as significant", which is not at all the same thing.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by tompe

And then he give a Jane Austen novel as a counter example. Pratchett is much more deeper and gives more than Jane Austen.