English art critic Jonathan Jones is no fan of the late Terry Pratchett. In a recent piece of criticism published in The Guardian, Jones argues that Pratchett is overrated.
Despite having never actually read one of Pratchett’s books, and only having leafed through one in a bookstore, Jones says he never plans to read the author. Here is an excerpt from the piece:
I don’t mean to pick on this particular author, except that the huge fuss attending and following his death this year is part of a very disturbing cultural phenomenon. In the age of social media and ebooks, our concept of literary greatness is being blurred beyond recognition. A middlebrow cult of the popular is holding literature to ransom. Thus, if you judge by the emotional outpourings over their deaths, the greatest writers of recent times were Pratchett and Ray Bradbury. There was far less of an internet splurge when Gabriel García Márquez died in 2014and Günter Grass this spring.
Pratchett fans took to Twitter to critique Jones message, calling him out for never having read the author and accusing him of click bait.