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Underrated?

W

Wabbit

New Member
Firstly, got this idea from something Soxfan posted in another thread so thank you and credit where credit's due :)

Which writer or writers do you feel is very much underrated or misunderstood?

I'm not sure what I am going to answer. I'll have a bit of a think on this one first.
 
For me, this is a "no-brainer". Chuck Rosenthal wrote three wonderful books, and I know that not a lot of people have heard of him. His first two books were issued in PB by Perennial, but the third never made it that far. So, I assume that he, at the very least, fell out of favor. I did hear, from someone I trust, that his fourth book wasn't very good. But then, he wrote it as Charles Rosenthal, which tells me something, too. At any rate, the first three were genius in my opinion.
 
Well my choice would be Stefan Zweig. I would not say he is underrated, as i have heard only good things about him, but for some reason he is little known. He was a very popular author when he was alive, but after his suicide in 1942 he has sadly been forgotten. A brilliant writer that deserves more readers.

If anyone is interested in reading his books i would suggest starting with a collection of his shorter stories including "The chessplayer/The royal game".
 
Wabbit,
If you think about it, you may remember me mentioning Chuck Rosenthal in connection with Magic Realism. His Loop Trilogy (Experiments with Life and Deaf, Loop's Progress, and Loop's End) is a Magic Realism look at life in a dying steel town.
 
OH, YES! I do remember that now. I was going to write it down and check it out. Thank, for the third time, for the reminder Funes :)

I'll be sure and cut and past this name into my "to buy" file :)
 
Christopher Brookmyre; Jon Courtney Grimwold

Both terrific writers that you dont hear much about, Brookmyre has a very darkly funny style of writing, and Grimwold writes modern steampunk.

Phil
 
Phil,
I've always been curious about Jon Courtney Grimwood. As far as I can tell his books weren't released here in the U.S. But, I am intrigued by the setting (a modern day Ottoman empire, if I'm not mistaken) and the mixture of mystery and steam-punk styles.
 
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I'm not sure how well he is recognized in Europe, but his name I have found is almost unknown here in America. Barnes and Noble barely has any of his work, and the books we do carry, are modeled for only one at a time.

So for Americans, a hidden treasure if you enjoy the likes of Russian writers.
 
I have heard of Solzhenitsyn, if only in terms of him being one of the most well known Russian writers, if you asked me to name any of his books then i'd be stumped :)

Grimwold's Ashraf Bey series is the one you mean funes, its very good, and the unique Ottoman setting is quite enjoyable :) I am not surprised its unpublished in America though, its hard enough to get hold of over here!

Incidentally, another writer whom I like is James Rollins, who writes like a cross between Michael Crichton and Clive Cussler. Unfortunately he is published over in America and not in the UK, so i have to wait to visit the US to pick up his new books.

Phil
 
True@1stLight said:
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I'm not sure how well he is recognized in Europe, but his name I have found is almost unknown here in America. Barnes and Noble barely has any of his work, and the books we do carry, are modeled for only one at a time.

So for Americans, a hidden treasure if you enjoy the likes of Russian writers.
Click to expand...


The Gulag Archipelego was considered essential reading when I was a teenager, especially for anyone with a social conscience. Well, that was in NYC, though, which is not really part of America per se. There's a street named after him in NYC and his widow lived in Manhattan until she died.

For anyone ignorant of his work, he was the first to publish (by illegally exported manuscript) any details of the Soviet workcamps for political prisoners.

I think in the post Cold War era, his work might seem less important than it was at the time, rather like Poland's Solidarity movement has faded with the opening of Eastern Europe.
 
True@1stLight said:
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I'm not sure how well he is recognized in Europe, but his name I have found is almost unknown here in America. Barnes and Noble barely has any of his work, and the books we do carry, are modeled for only one at a time.

So for Americans, a hidden treasure if you enjoy the likes of Russian writers.
Click to expand...

The level of Solzhenitsyn's recognition in Europe can be measured by the fact that he was awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature (1970, I think), but I'm not really surprised he's not widely read in the U.S., despite the fact that he lived in Vermont for 20 years after being expelled from Soviet Union for anti-government opinions. As I understand it, Solzhenitsyn was once a member of the Red Army and a staunch communist - in fact, he was later critical of Gorbachev and his reforms for allowing The Soviet Union to become "polluted by the west".
 
ControlArmsNow said:
The level of Solzhenitsyn's recognition in Europe can be measured by the fact that he was awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature (1970, I think), but I'm not really surprised he's not widely read in the U.S., despite the fact that he lived in Vermont for 20 years after being expelled from Soviet Union for anti-government opinions. As I understand it, Solzhenitsyn was once a member of the Red Army and a staunch communist - in fact, he was later critical of Gorbachev and his reforms for allowing The Soviet Union to become "polluted by the west".
Click to expand...

I don't understand where you get the impression that AS is not read or known in the US. Just wondering. Is there a survey or something? Anecdotally, I don't think that's the case. I always thought he was primarily known in the US and first published here. (I'm not saying, "hey where's the proof", just "what are you referring to?")

I do think the popularity of his books has waned drastically since the 70s and 80s, but that is a commonplace with Nobel winners. A lot of times their subject is more important (and timely) than their writing, and so when the subject becomes less relevant, the books fade into the background.
 
It might be more my age group. Perhaps the aplicability has fallen and therefore the recognition. I'm not sure, I just know that not all that many people in college with me right now have ever read a line of writing by him.

I"m 22 by the way....
 
Haven't heard about him. Yet, his novel, One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich, the title, seemed to be familiar to me.

PS: underrated? hmm, what about him? Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov , any one has ever read Quiet Flows the Don?

And Andre Gide, author of Strait is the Gate??
 
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