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/lit/ - Literature

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6677207 No.6677207 [Reply] [Original]

I think a list of the best prose writers in English is interesting because there's a lot more debate to it then the 10 greatest overall writers of the language which automatically has to include Shakespeare, Milton, and maybe Chaucer and Spenser.

The Americans who would be worth mentioning in my opinion are Melville, Faulkner, Twain and James. But Britain has a lot more room for debate and its hard to choose.

So what do you guys think?

>> No.6677229

>>6677207

DeFoe
George Eliot
Melville
James
Joyce
Woolf
Nabokov
Pynchon
McCarthy
DFW

>> No.6677272

>>6677229
>James
>Joyce

>> No.6677291

Are we including non fiction? Then we have Bacon, Johnson, Hazlitt, Emerson, Orwell etc. too.

>> No.6677345

Let's get this shit over with lads
Burton
Thoreau
Nabokov
Hemingway
Joyce
Melville
Wells
Hawthorne
James
Emerson
Updike
Wodehouse

>> No.6677947

>>6677207
I honestly cannot pick 10 brilliant prose writers, simply because ten people haven't struck me as great. I'll just name some who haven't been named yet.
Henry Miller
Thomas Browne
Robert Penn Warren

>> No.6677959

>>6677345
>wodehouse
I rarely see this gem mentioned

>> No.6677962

>>6677345
>not being able to count

>> No.6677973

>>6677207
no particular order

Joyce
Woolf
Melville
Faulkner
Steinbeck
Sterne
Hardy

Honestly i'm not sure I can come up with 3 more who can compete with them (even Hardy is pushing it). Maybe could add Defoe, maybe Ford Madox Ford, maybe the 10th could be Gertrude Stein or John Dos Passos.

>> No.6677980

>>6677207

I wouldn't really consider Milton, Shakespeare, Chaucer or Spenser to be writers of prose.

I suppose the other question is what makes good prose. Is it good storytelling or is it good composition? Are people like DFW and Joyce always going to better than minimalists like Hemmingway?

A lot of the people I like have already been mentioned.

I think Nabokov is a pretty obvious choice. I'd also pick Updike and McCarthy.

Then I'd say:

James Salter
PA Baker
Kerouac
Peter Carey
Peter Matthiessen
Saul Bellow
Oscar Wilde

>> No.6678067

Joyce, Woolf, Burton, Browne, Florio

>> No.6678140

>>6677272
oh please be bait

>> No.6678152

>>6677947

>Thomas Browne

THANK YOU.

If he doesn't make your list then your list is wrong.

>> No.6678157

Melville
Faulkner
Herbert
Lovecraft
McCarthy
Fitzgerald
Twain
Capote
Dick
Poe

>> No.6678370

>>6677229
replace defoe with swift

>DFW
now ur just trollin

>> No.6678378

>>6677980
>PA Baker
Who's this? Do you mean JA Baker?

>> No.6679780

>>6677980
>I wouldn't really consider Milton, Shakespeare, Chaucer or Spenser to be writers of prose.
that is what the OP said......

>> No.6679826
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6679826

>Look at Melville
>has the privilege of being a bourgie, a genius, popular, and insanely handsome.
> can't read his work without crying at the fact that I will never be a fraction as comparable in either aspects and that I am destined from birth to be a genetic failure born of poor upbringing.

>> No.6679839

>>6677962
stemfag pls
>>>/sci/

>> No.6679840

>>6677207
>Shakespeare
You don't know what prose is apparently

>> No.6679847 [DELETED] 

Charles Bukowski
John Fante
Ernest Hemingway
Jack Kerouac
Ken Kesey
Henry Miller
J.D. Salinger
Hunter S. Thompson
Kurt Vonnegut
Fyodor Dostoevsky

>> No.6679848

>>6679826
If it makes you feel any better, your post made me laugh. That's gotta count for something.

>> No.6679860

>>6679847
>>6677947
Is Henry Miller really that good?

>> No.6679864

>>6679840
And apparently you can't parse a simple sentence.

>> No.6679870

>>6679826
Idk. Despite coming from a good background he wasn't exactly rich for most of his life, and a lot of his writing was done while he was being forced to deal with a lot of other bullshit and nonsense. Additionally, his writing could have developed to be even better, but he sort of gave it up because of lukewarm reception in his later career. I would go as far as to say his life wasn't that great, and this is without even a discussion of his various health ailments, possible depression, and deaths of family members.

>> No.6679873

>>6679860
He's good unless he starts rambling.

>> No.6679875

>>6679870
When I say 'possible depression' I mean that, according to the author of the Melville biography I'm currently reading, his family members seemed to think that he had poor mental health at some periods of his life, which could have just been sadness regarding his various predicaments in life that he dealt with.

>> No.6679896

>>6679873
But he does that everytime.

>> No.6679907

>>6679875
Are you the person to whom I recommended the Hershel Parker biography? If so, how are you liking it?

>> No.6679910

>>6679896
Really? From reading "Plexus" and some of his short stories, I remember that he was quite capable of staying coherent, especially when talking about people and places. On the other hand, there was a story about him painting a picture that was practically unreadable.

>> No.6679918

>>6679907
I don't think so. I found this 50 year old, ~150 page biography for $1.50 and I'm reading it. It's by some writer named Tyrus Hillway. I am in the market for checking out a more substantial biography though, if you have any recommendations.

>> No.6679928

Joyce
McCarthy
Pynchon
Wallace
Stirner
Greece

>> No.6679939

>>6679918
Ah, okay. Then I recommend the Hershel Parker biography I just mentioned. It's far and away the most detailed, comprehensive biography of Melville. It will take you a very long time to read, as it is the product of fifty years of research and work.

It's called Herman Melville: A Biography, and was published in two volumes (though you might be able to get it in a single copy). I can't recommend it enough.

>> No.6679950

>>6679910
And he is coherent, but there are a lot of moments with him telling a bunch of thoughts about something, it's just an essential part of his work.
I don't think that makes him a less good writer, though.

>> No.6679968

>>6677207
I'm happy with your Melville, Faulkner, Twain, James. To them I would add:

Austen
Joyce
Nabokov
Woolf
Pynchon
DeLillo

That's novelists though, add non-fiction writers and this gets way trickier.

>> No.6680004

>>6679939
Thanks, Maybe I'll check it out. The one I'm reading is interesting but it doesn't go into nearly enough detail.

>> No.6680034

Jerzy Kosinski

>> No.6680043
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6680043

Faulkner
Nabokov
Pynchon
McCarthy
Calvino
Melville
Joyce
Wodehouse
Steinbeck
Woolf

>> No.6680047

>>6680034
underrated

>> No.6680051

>>6680043
>Calvino

>> No.6680056

>>6680051
Yes

>> No.6680097

>>6679826
Melville was loathed by the entirety of the reading public as soon as he started writing anything worthwhile. He published his epic poem with money he borrowed from family members because no one would publish him. One of his kids shot himself in the head (idr, maybe more than one suicided but i know one did for sure). He died in obscurity and nobody read his shit until the Moby Dick revival in the 20th century at some point.

>> No.6680116

>>6679870

>various health ailments
>possible depression
>deaths of family members

sounds like just about every life that ever was

>> No.6680210

>>6680116
I guess I should have specifically mentioned his son, as in the post above yours. From what I can tell there's been at least a little bit of debate about whether it was suicide or accidental self-death. (Melville's son was known to sleep with a loaded pistol under his pillow, and was found dead one night after coming home late with a bullet hole in his temple. It was initially officially ruled a suicide and then later labeled as an accident) Melville was reputed as being somewhat harsh towards his son in terms of discipline, and may have felt a certain amount of guilt as a result of his son's death.

>> No.6680221

>>6680210
>and was found dead one night after coming home late with a bullet hole in his temple.

Hm, I probably could have worded that better, but whatever.

>> No.6680644

>>6680056
he didn't write in English my friend

>> No.6680659

>prose
top pleb

>> No.6681096

>>6680097
>Melville was loathed by the entirety of the reading public as soon as he started writing anything worthwhile.
Dude constantly got shat on for his writing. He was a bit ahead of his time for sure. No prophet is accepted in his own country.

>> No.6681102

>>6677345
>Hawthorne

I'm glad at least one person managed to get this right.

>> No.6681162

>>6679873
>>6679896
>>6679910
I like Miller's ramblings, I find them extremely energetic and revigorating, but I can see where you're coming from.

>> No.6681174

>>6677229
>>6678140
Who the fuck is James? King James?

>> No.6681182

>>6681174
Yep. He wrote the original New Testament of the Bible.

>> No.6681186

>>6677980
I like Peter Carey, but is he really one of the greatest prose writers in English? It's solid prose, no doubt, but it's studied; there's no invention in it.

>> No.6681191

>>6681174
in case you're still wondering: henry james

>> No.6681220

>>6681191

OMG you needed to spell it out to a superpleb amirite?

>> No.6681232

>Everyone posting Melville
Is it that I just don't understand this meme or am I right that the people of the 19th century just had better taste than you lot? The writing is laboriousness intersected by nauseatingly adolescent 'fun with references'. It reads like he's trying to associate himself with an aristocracy that, by his time, no longer exists. In all of Moby-Dick there isn't as much merit as in any one short story by Borges.

>> No.6681244

>>6681191
>>6681220
>American trash

>> No.6681274

>>6681244
Actually he's English.

>> No.6681282

>>6681274
He was already an established writer by the time he left. You bongs can't claim him.

>> No.6681285

>>6681282
Sure we can, just as we can claim Conrad, and you can claim Nabokov.

>> No.6681290

>>6677207

Someone give me examples of good prose and bad prose
I have no idea what you guys mean when you say prose

>> No.6681296

>>6681290
We mean language written without meter.

>> No.6681370

>>6681296

what is language written with meter?
not even poetry requires meter, what makes it poetry?

>> No.6681377

>>6681370
Fuuuuuuuuuuck offf.

>> No.6681392

>>6681370
Poetry you can do basically anything with, if you want. Prose is just language written without meter.

>> No.6681558

>>6681377
>>6681377
sorry for wanting to learn more
dickhead

>> No.6681572
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6681572

>>6677980

>Kerouac

>> No.6681589

>>6681370
>what is language written with meter?
poetry
>not even poetry requires meter, what makes it poetry?
verse

>> No.6681610

>>6681558
There are no hard categories in anything. Look, here are some poems that are also good prose:
>http://jacketmagazine.com/25/lerner.html
I thought you were just trying to be a postmodern, 'fuck your words, things are intermixing; prose and poetry are the same, just prose is worse. Lmao, lmao, lmao. WWII was the sexiest thing ever'-type asshole.

>> No.6682006

>>6680644
damn

>> No.6683103

>>6681610
Thanks. Lerner is one of my favorite poets rn

>> No.6683221

>>6683103
pleb as fuck