/lit/ - Literature

>not as stylish as Hemingway or Faulkner
>not as funny as Pynchon
>not as insightful as DFW

>>19516417
face down arse up under WS Burroughs

I don't really rate things, but I do enjoy his writing a great deal.

>>19516457
>dfw
>insightful
hearty kek

>>19516457
False on all accounts.

>>19516417
He is the best.

Nowhere, he's a non-entity as is every writer post WW2.

>>19516537
Based.

>>19516457
I'm very curious why you think DFW was more insightful than Gaddis.

Unquestionably top 10
Other nominations: Agee, Anderson, Barth, Dos Passos, Faulkner, Gass, Hemingway, London, O'Connor, Pynchon, Wolfe
HMs: Cather, Coover, DeLillo, Dick, Ellison, Fitzgerald, Hawkes, Lewis, McCarthy, McElroy, Morrison, Porter, Reed, Salinger, Stein, Steinbeck, Warren, West, Wharton
Tier lower: Abish, Baldwin, Barnes, Bellow, Brautigan, Caldwell, Chandler, Doctorow, Elkin, Heller, Mailer, McCullers, Percy, Plath, Robinson, Roth, Stegner, Updike, Vonnegut, Wallace, Welty, Yates
Does James count (for 20th century)? Does Nabokov count? Who am I missing?

I don't rank authors, but he writes some of the most natural dialogue I've read. If you've read JR you'll understand

>>19518064
Late Lovecraft is good. Clark Ashton Smith. William Williams. Yes, Nabokov counts. Kerouac is terrible, but Big Sur is better than a lot of novelists best works. The poets? Eliot, Pound. Henry James.

1. Ezra Pound
2. Eliot
3. Henry James
4. Salinger
5. Raymond Chandler
6. Lovecraft
7. London
8. Nabokov
9. Faulkner
10. dos Passos

>>19518131
I wasn’t including poets because OP said “novelists”

>>19518160
Yeah I read it as writers in my head, sorry. Didn't realize till after I said it, guess that'd exclude Clark Smith too, but Lovecraft wrote novels and novellas.

None of these names really stand out to me, it seems to just be a bunch of second-rates, with James as the lone first-rate guy.

>>19518064
>Reed
lou?

>>19518064
>that list
>fucked up Delillo's name
It's so painfully obvious your are barely over 20. Only a new reader could think pynchon, Gass (lol), London, fucking Barth and Wolfe (bigger lol if Thomas) belong in the top 10, over guys like Heller, Bellow, McCarthy, Salinger, Fitzgerald, Nabokov and Ellison.

>>19518064
Nabokov is Russian, so he doesn't count.

>>19518131
Eliot is British.

>>19520676
>Bellow
Was canadian, shit head

>>19520996
Was as much a Canadian writer as Nabokov was a Russian writer, Dumbass.

>>19520710
So was Henry James

>>19516457
>>not as stylish as Hemingway or Faulkner
wrong
>>not as funny as Pynchon
wrong
>>not as insightful as DFW
wrong

>>19520676
Lol

>>19516457
he's by far funnier than Pynchon

>For a moment he hesitated there and then put down his papers on the descending stair behind him taking both hands to fit the door closed silent as the dim hall till he made for the stairs, the separating sole of his shoe lending a percussive effect to his haste down them broken only for his pause on the pavement where he stared at the vacant limousine double parked there, abruptly recovering a rhythm double time past a fleet of garbage cans, another, down a curb, curbs, declining at last to a flapping cadence up the wide range of museum steps to find brief echo through the rotunda and recover silence in a sudden glide toward the sculpture gallery, as a horde emerged from the armor collection.
the little fragmented transition passages in JR is probably the closest a book has ever gotten to feeling like a movie for me

>>19520676
1. I think DeLillo is the proper stylization, it seems like you are in the wrong here
2. I'm 63
3. Pynchon is an excellent novelist. I don't know why you think Gass is funny, Omensetter's Luck and The Tunnel are phenomenal. London is a titan of American lit. Barth has several exceptional novels, insanely funny and intelligent. Thomas Wolfe is unquestionably one of America's all time best novelists. Heller, Ellison, and Salinger are slightly penalized for only having written 1 proper novel each. Nabokov would be included but his inclusion is debatable due to his nationality. Bellow was extremely talented but I don't think he deserves inclusion in any top 10. McCarthy is excellent and is in my top 20. Same for Fitzgerald. I should note that Ishmael Reed should be in my "tier lower" category. Just one dude's opinions, always on the lookout for more to read and I'm sure my opinions will shift as they have before

>>19523994
Sorry not accurate on Heller. He wrote plenty of other novels. But Catch-22 is a good deal better than the other few I've read of his

>>19523994
>63
>on /lit/
You don't sound like one.

>>19524047
You've never even heard me speak

>>19524341
I have heard your post.

>>19524452
Who do you think are the top 10 American novelists of the 20th century?

>>19524452
Too scared to post your opinion on a Latvian spoonbill grooming forum

>>19526512
If you have any ability to read, i already put the names in the previous reply. I have a life besides acting smug on this board over things already presented.

Anyone else ever see the episode of Recess based on JR as a kid, then read read JR years later and have a jimmy nuetron brain last?

Also, it’s fucking amazing how real his dialogue sounds, especially compared to his prose, which is up there with Gass.

Favorite American author by far.

>>19526630
Holy...There's an episode of Recess based on JR? It must be a coincidence, it's not like the premise of JR is something so original.

>>19523994
OL is great, except for when it looses all semblance of coherency at the end.

Sometimes, I quote Pimber’s thoughts about the fire of fall, his listing of trees, on dates with smart looking bitches.

>>19520676
>hating Wolfe
You are clearly a newfag who just started reading. Wolfe is one of America’s greatest writers and the fact that you put Fitzgerald above him shows that you have only read maybe 50 books in your life. Indubitably, you haven’t read Look Homeward, Angel, let alone anything else. Faggot.

>>19526630
>>19526646
What is the episode? I love Recess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7WPeUpcBlg

>>19526652
You have only read Wolfe. His autofiction garbage is long forgotten and for good reason.

>>19526678
I have read and own more books than you. Keep crying and get better taste.

>>19526714
>all that useless shit
>laterally inverted image
Reading much is no defense against stupidity, or something along those lines, said someone once.

>>19526733
>t.
Nice cope, bud

>>19526740
Nice selfie, chud. Retards like you always fall back upon the same shit. Tiresome

>>19526758
Why are you getting so mad, bud? You were rightfully called out for being retarded and having a shit opinion, yet you are getting angry. Like clockwork. What’s it like being in a constant state of seethe concerning your mediocrity?

>>19516457
>DFW
>Insightful

>>19520676
> It's so painfully obvious your are barely over 20

>>19526770
Holy mother of newfag! Look at all that seethe. Spam more paragraphs chud lol.
>Liek...clackwok
Hahahahahaha. NEW VOCAB LEARNED. Good work boy, add it. Add it and you might fit in
>What’s it like being in a constant state of seethe concerning your mediocrity?
You tell me

>>19526777
>so mad he is samefagging
Mindbroken

>>19526787
>no u
Retards like you always fall back upon the same shit. Tiresome

>>19526794
Retards like you copy other "supposed" retards shamelessly, like bigger retards than previously guessed. Seethe. Spam more words and then deflect.

>>19526816
Haha cope, seethe, dilate, broken buck

>>19526822
Deflect. Deflect more pissypants. Hahahaha
A t. wolfe defender is no match for my wits.

>>19526648
It becomes more coherent again in the last 1/5 of the book or so. But yeah the Pimber section is amazing

>>19526787
you are falling apart. christ man. go lift or something.