/lit/ - Literature

Who is Phillip K. Dick

Faulker is 10/10 tho

Fuck him and his corncobby chronicles.

>>11149760
Fuck of Nabakov, he’s a genius

The Sound and the Fury is my favorite book but I'm honestly not well read enough. It's also the only book I've read by him but I enjoyed the subtleties and his indirect references that built the story.

1. Joyce
2. Pynchon
3. Gene Wolfe
...
47. Hemingway
48. Faulkner

>>11149758
>>11149758
You think Dick > Faulkner? Dick is good, but Willy created a whole universe that spans multiple texts and has a specific history/contains within it (basically) the whole of western literary history.
Dick is good but he ain’t that good.

He's really good in his own regard, but he mostly just piggybacked off of European modernism and recontextualized it for the American South. There's probably more innovative American authors that might be more deserving of the "best of the century" title. Faulkner's definitely up there though.

>woah dude what if I, like, do a book where you need color coding just to understand what's happening
>they sure won't notice I actually have nothing interesting to say then
Quintessential talentless hack.

>>11149770
Joyce is top-tier (and also not American), but him and Faulkner have similar endeavors and even styles sometimes, so I’m confused as to why you polarize them so hard.

>>11149770
one of the worst things I've ever read

Nabokov

>>11149785
Cognitive dissonance really is that painful.

>>11149775
>Southern Gothic is just "European" modernism repackaged with Southern Themes
No

>>11149770
Unironically agree.

>>11149787
This is a solid claim but idk if Nabakov is 100% American?

>>11149781
Faulkner is still in the top 50. His main problem, like Cormac Memecarthy, is that is style is histrionic at times.

>>11149781
It's obviously b8.

Gene Wolfe should be 1. Nabokov and Kingsley Amis should be 2 and 3.

>>11149797
He wasn't even slightly no matter how he claimed to feel.

>>11149801
This is fair, but I don’t think that attention to historical ideas, themes, whatever, makes a bad book. If anything it makes it more interesting despite being “dense”

>>11149804
this isn't even ironically funny
kys wolfeautist

>>11149817
0/10 bait

Faulkner = F. Scott > Steinbeck > Nabokov if you have a very loose definition of American > John Dos Passos > Hemingway

Ctrl+F: George R R Martin
no results

>>11149835
Grow up

>>11149838
Nice try. If you think any of the supposed greats had the mental horsepower to write Asoiaf, you are delusional.

>>11149835
He is a great writer but not quite Faulkner tier. More of a Balzac

>>11149843
Those books are pulp

1. Me
2. Melville
3. John Greene
...
999. G. R. R. Martin
1000. William Faulkner

>>11149854
*tips* Try having an opinion that wasn't fed to you by 4chan pseuds for once.

>>11149832
>>11149832
Did you get your greater-than signs confused with your less-than signs? Because even if you did, you’re still fucking retarded.

>>11149893
Who are the best America writers of the 20th century?

>>11149903
Philip K Dick :^)

Nah it was a fine list I’m just drunk and belligerent. I shit up this board. I do think Dick and Pynchon unironically are contenders to be on that list though.

>>11149910
Pynchon yes, Dick no

>>11149770
My problem with Joyce is that he's impossible to understand if you're not from New Jersey like him.

Hemingway and Salinger are the most effective writers

Faulkner and Steinbeck are the best storytellers

McCarthy and Nabokov have the best prose

>>11149856
This anon gets it. If you're a writer and you don't consider yourself among the top 5 best in your country why even bother?

>>11149936

Grossly underrated smackdown. It's a bit delayed, but here's a dinosaur for you, sir.

Hey, you all forgot about Based Toni Morrison again

When I first saw this thread I thought "Naa, he's good, but he's limited... there must be someone greater." Then I failed to find anyone. Barring any currently-undiscovered geniuses, the only novelist, in my opinion, who might be held in higher esteem in a hundred years is Cormac McCarthy.

People praise Faulkner for all the wrong reasons. For example:

>There's probably more innovative American authors that might be more deserving...

Technical innovation has some bearing on a writer's stature but not all that much, the same way that "ideas" have some importance but not all that much. Sure, many great writers have been great innovators; others (Jane Austen, for example) haven't. Faulkner is top dog because of his ability to create character, his ability to convey small-scale physical and emotional details (what Shelby Foote called the "texture of things"), and his ability to tell a satisfying story.

>>11149754
yes

>>11149809
the library of America published him. Go figure

>>11150109
Good post.

>>11150109
Disagree about McCarthy

DFW is the most inventive

>>11149770
there are people on this board who unironically think that Joyce was american. let that sink in.

Elmore Leonard

>>11150524
>Sure, many great writers have been great innovators; others (Jane Austen, for example) haven't.
You are a cretin

>>11151095

You have to admit, the English translation of Ulysses is first-rate. That's probably why so few people have even tried the original.

>>11149844
I think he's more of a Fielding tbqh

Me? I prefer Fitzgerald and Hemingway.

>>11149817
Kill me yourself, you fucking pussy.

He is the best novelist, but the best 20th century American writers were poets -- Stevens, Crane & Frost.