We generally assume that after pouring blood, sweat, tears, and your soul into a character or book, you have to love it. It’s part of you! Well, you’d be seriously mistaken if you thought that about these guys. Here are five authors who hated their most famous works!
Anthony Burgess – A Clockwork Orange
Anthony Burgess’s least favourite book is pretty surprising to the rest of the world. He hated how it eclipsed his other works which he greatly preferred. He even called A Clockwork Orange a ‘minor work’. He hated the film even more and he thought it sparked a wave of crime from people who saw the protagonist as an idol.
A.A. Milne – Winnie the Pooh
Milne had originally written the books about Christopher Robin for his son, and he wished he’d kept it that way! Because of the incredible success of the little bear, he couldn’t get back into writing adult fiction and began to hate his most famous character.
Annie Proulx – Brokeback Mountain
The film was based on a collection of Proulx’s short stories. It wasn’t that she hated how they were written or anything like that. She just couldn’t stand the amount of fan fiction from guys who promised they were straight and just wanted to tell her how wrong she was with the ending.
Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle – Sherlock Holmes
(Spoilers ahead but you should already know this. If not, where have you been?) There’s a reason why Holmes was killed off half way through the series. That was supposed to be the end of the series! He was only brought back due to popular demand. Conan-Doyle hated how his character’s name was more famous than his own, and grew to despise the detective.
Peter Bechly – Jaws
Bechly didn’t actually hate sharks! What he really hated was the fear of sharks that his novel and film adaptation created. He devoted the rest of his life to protecting sharks, specifically great whites.
It’s a shame, but don’t let it stop you from reading them!
Sources
http://io9.gizmodo.com/10-great-authors-who-disowned-their-own-books-1571934580