/lit/ - Literature

At this point, I think we can all agree that these two were the best of American fiction from approximately 1965ish to 2015ish. I think it's quite clear that neither DeLillo nor Roth were ever truly in the same category as these two. Sure, someone like Wallace was talented but, because he killed himself and we don't know how he would have matured, he's very much a product of his generation and, whether you believe he had discernible talent or not, there's just not enough there nor will there ever be enough there. Beyond those five, to be frank, I'm struggling to think of any others who would even dream of laying claim to being the best.

So, if it's agreed and established that they were unquestionably the best of that time period, the question then becomes, which of these two was best?

Me? I originally thought it was McCarthy until I forced myself to put more effort into Pynchon, and I eventually became a Pynchon man for a long time. Until I started to believe that even Pynchon regretted some of his more challenging excerpts and wished he had as much commercial success as McCarthy, which I think really showed itself in his later work. So I switched to McCarthy. Now I'm in the midst of another deeper dive with Pynchon and I'm starting to better appreciate him again.

Gun to my head? I think Pynchon was the talent of his generation, but I can understand why, if forced to only choose one for a desert island as the only books you can read for the rest of your days, I understand why people would say McCarthy.