World's worst novelist....

She had the last laugh, though, no? She is still being talked about! ~PEPS~ “Underlay is overrated."

I love 'terminally deluded.' I know a few people who are terminally deluded. I'm absolutely certain about that. ~ www.fabulousmother.com

She could have had a secret agenda. She could have achieved exactly what she set out to achieve... ~PEPS~ [ insert pithy and poignant quote ]

The Great American Parade "It is, in my professional judgment, the worst novel ever published in the English language." -- Gene Weingarten, Washington Post http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/stories/2003/02/23/parade.html I gather Gene Weingarten spoke to the author prior to publishing his review and sought permission to tell 3 million Americans how awful the book was. At the size of the review's expected reach, the author appears not to have objected, it's alleged, in some accounts of this curious story! My webpage is at: http://www.bookscape.co.uk

Which was kind of my point. ~PEPS~ You can’t finish a man till he’s finished his Texan Bar

I find that hard to believe.

Believe it! ~PEPS~ You can’t finish a man till he’s finished his Texan Bar

And your point is? ~PEPS~ You can’t finish a man till he’s finished his Texan Bar

Who was the woman who featured recently in the news, that sang opera so badly that she became famous? Have you watched The X-Factor recently? These people are seriously deluded. I know I'm going off-thread here, but I don't care. When I played in various bands we had to carry out auditions for female singers. Some of them were so bad I would end up sprawled over the drums, completely helpless with laughter. There are too many to relate here, but one does spring to mind. She was from Lithuania (I think?) with an accent that would cut concrete, and she attempted 'Lovely Day' the Bill Withers' song. She sang (?) completely flat viz zat accent and she kept going out of time as well. I ended up falling off the drums in hysterical laughter. The rest of the band were in hysterics too. So we said 'thanks but no thanks.' But that wasn't the end of it. She came back about half an hour later and tore into me verbally. "You bad man, you very bad man. You make joke of me, you have no respect for people!!!!!!!!!" And etc.. All the while the rest of the band are in the background pissing themselves laughing. So; yes, there are people out there who are seriously deluded as to there talent.

Agreed! I can't help having this niggling thought in the back of my mind, though, that people who appear to be "seriously deluded," but are succesful, may be just acting out a role... ~PEPS~ You can’t finish a man till he’s finished his Texan Bar

I think you're being overly generous. If this author was purposefully bad, they'd use a pseudonym - make up a 'character' to bear the brunt of the ridicule. There's no point in making a joke out of yourself unless other people are in on the joke, and no one wants to be remembered as 'the world's worst' something. The whole point of fame is adulation. ~ I'll Show You Tyrants * Fuselit * The Prowl Log * Woe's Woe

There's nowt so queer as folk. ~PEPS~ You can’t finish a man till he’s finished his Texan Bar

Is the purpose of fame adulation, or remuneration? What about cold, hard cash? The Italian parliament has a porn star in it. She doesn't appear to mind infamy. The bad author seems to have profitted. When fame/celebrity/adulation meets financial reality aren't some odd phenomena produced? (Dare one mention the Hamiltons?!)

Simon Cowell. ~PEPS~ You can’t finish a man till he’s finished his Texan Bar

The bad author's dead! No amount of remuneration will help her now. Besides which, there are easier ways to get money than playing the fame game. Thousands of MD's have worked that out. I can't believe anyone tries to get famous purely for monetary reasons. ~ I'll Show You Tyrants * Fuselit * The Prowl Log * Woe's Woe

Big Brother contestants? ~PEPS~ You can’t finish a man till he’s finished his Texan Bar

I was actually referring to my American professor, who's still very much alive, and torturing people with his leaden prose. But, anyway, didn't Oscar Wilde say that the only thing worse than being talked about was not being talked about at all? And DH Lawrence said Chatterley was supposed to make people think about sex. Hum, well, it did! Perhaps some people really do put on a show for its own sake. And, I gather that the famous scientist and writer, JBS Haldane used to poke fun at society by boasting to noble guests, at dinner, of how he relished the opportunity of killing people, which his period in the trenches of WWI gave him! My webpage is at: http://www.bookscape.co.uk