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/lit/ - Literature

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16104768 No.16104768 [Reply] [Original]

/lit/, Who is the greatest novelist in history?

>> No.16104775

Ayn Rand obviously

>> No.16104776
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16104776

>>16104768
Tao Lin

>> No.16104781

>>16104768
All of them are trash. Novels are for plebs.

>> No.16104789

>>16104768
Google knows who the first greatest novelist is.

>> No.16104794 [DELETED] 
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16104794

>>16104776
I second this

>> No.16104829

>>16104768
So many Anglos and they didn't even pick the best one (Laurence Sterne - although, to be fair, he was Irish).

The greatest novelist of all time is Miguel de Cervantes, followed closely by Rabelais, Boccaccio (if you consider the Decameron a novel), Laurence Sterne, Flaubert, and perhaps James Joyce.

Then we have the psychological novelists, such as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, as well as Proust and Conrad. These writers were great, but added nothing to the form - they merely added new books to a form that had been perfected by Flaubert.

English novelists like Dickens, Austen, Bronte, and Eliot are only relevant in the English-speaking world. Dickens was relevant for some time internationally, but I don't think he is anymore - maybe, in his particular case, I am wrong. Truth is that they are all kitsch and the French and Russians were much superior.
Writer like Carlyle, Stevenson, and Oscar Wilde were better than their contemporary English counterparts, and probably had a larger influence internationally. Borges, for instance, was a great fan of Carlyle. The Americans - Poe, Melville, Emerson, and to a smaller extent Hawthorne - were also immensely superior.

>> No.16104844

>>16104768
I'm surprised google hasn't blackwashed it yet.

>> No.16104849

my diary desu

>> No.16104853

>>16104829
I shouldn't have included Emerson, by the way, as he was not a novelist.
If essayists are to be included, however, then I suppose there were some fine Englishmen, such as Coleridge, Matthew Arnold and John Stuart Mill.
The best Englishmen of those times were all poets, however - Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Tenneyson, the Brownings, the Rossetti, Hopkins...

>> No.16104856

Cao Xueqin

>> No.16104866

>>16104853
read Carlyle you dilettante loser

>> No.16104894

>>16104829
based taste. i'm reading tristram at the moment and it is an unending delight. i remember absolutely loving rabelais when i read him a while back. these people are almost pathologically inventive, it's like they can hardly stand to go a single page without discharging some kind of lexical electricity in the direction of the reader.

>> No.16104895

>>16104856
Do you read Dream of the Red Chamber? Is it good?

>> No.16104914

>>16104894
Indeed, and very erudite too. The Latin bits of Tristram are actually the funniest ones, which is why they are in Latin.

>>16104866
He was a very great stylist.

>> No.16104951

>women among the greatest novelists of all time
baasedglets are ngmi

>> No.16104954

>>16104829
Henry Fielding is first great novelist in English. Agreed about Dickens, but his rival Thackeray is still among the greatest.

>> No.16104959

>>16104829
based, anglos seething

>> No.16104983

>>16104829
The popularity of Dickens in 2020 has almost disappeared. Shitty Genre fiction such as Tolkien and Agatha Christie is more popular.

>> No.16105082

>>16104768
David Foster Wallace
/thread

>> No.16105114

>>16104829
>The greatest novelist
>Emerson
>Poe
What did he mean by this

>> No.16105125

>>16104895
Not him, but the story isn't half bad. I am Chinese myself, so it felt comfy and gave a sense of longing for a time long since past. I think the plot gets sort of random, and kinda reads like a drama, but overall it is a pretty alright book.

>> No.16105132

>>16104829
Get a load of this Flaubertard

>> No.16105485

Flowbear

with an honorable mention to Juan Rulfo

>> No.16105525

>>16104768
jk rowling obviously? stats speak for themslf

>> No.16105554

>>16104829
This taste is way too patrician for all the plebs on lit to understand. Good job anon.

>> No.16105564

>>16104894
How tough is Rabelais' French?

>> No.16105623

>>16104768
Cao Xueqin

>> No.16105628

>>16104829
Subtle, the pseuds have outed themselves.

>> No.16105655

>>16105564
>Je trouve, par les anciens historiographes et poetes, que plusieurs sont nez en ce monde en façons bien estranges, que seroient trop longues à racompter : lisez le VII livre de Pline, si avés loysir. Mais vous n'en ouystes jamais d'une si merveilleuse comme fut celle de Pantagruel : car c'estoit chose difficile à croyre comme il creut en corps et en force en peu de temps. Et n'estoit rien Hercules qui, estant au berseau, tua les deux serpens, car lesdictz serpens estoyent bien petitz et fragiles. Mais Pantagruel, estant encores au berseau, feist cas bien espouventables. Je laisse icy à dire comment à chascun de ses repas, il humoit le laict de quatre mille six cens vaches et comment, pour luy faire un paeslon à cuire sa bouillie, furent occupez tous les paesliers de Saumur en Anjou, de Villedieu en Normandie, de Bramont en Lorraine, et luy bailloit on ladicte bouillie en un grand timbre, qui est encores de present à Bourges, près du palays ; mais les dentz luy estoient desjà tant crues et fortifiées qu'il en rompit, dudict tymbre, un grand morceau, comme tres bien apparoist.

the retarded spelling takes some time getting used to

>> No.16106618

>>16104768
>anglos and russians
yikes this is terrible

>> No.16106794

>>16105628
It is commonly known Anglos, even those well read (someone like Bloom, for example), have very little interest in knowing other country's literature (except superficially), which leads them to vastly overrate their own literature. That is not to say anglo-language literature is bad, it is really good, I think the other anon exagerates a bit, but it's not particularly better than the literature of other languages. The saddest result of their anglocentrism is how Anglos ignore the literature written in english from the caribbean, which seems to be large in quantity and in quality. It also happens with literature from Africa, but in that case everyone does it not only Anglos.

>> No.16108392

>>16104768
Tolkien.

>> No.16108400

>>16104768
Why the fuck are most of the anglos, and two women?

>> No.16108469
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16108469

>>16104829
>James Joyce
Opinion discarded.

>> No.16108470

>>16104829
Dickens is as relevant and influential as Flaubert, his influence is so great that we take it for granted and most don't even realize it (just like with Flaubert). He has a lower reputation because he wrote more "popular" stuff that was and is more accesible to the masses, but he is still a giant and, as far as English authors go, as important as Shakespeare.

>> No.16108483

>>16104829
Where my Stendhal at ?

>> No.16108503

>>16108470
Based. Dickens is the perfect pseud filter

>> No.16108977

>>16104768
>>16104829
It's joyce. anyone who tells you otherwise hasnt read his novels. Cervantes is a close second however. Joyce is certainly the most complex novelist

>> No.16108999

>>16104829
>Cervantes
based
>Poe
KILL YOURSELF.

>> No.16109001

>>16104768
UPDIKE
20th century writers, as a whole, had a much better grasp of how language works, and as such they made earlier novelists look like amateurs

>> No.16109265

>>16108392
lol

>> No.16109290

>>16104768
Proust and if you disagree you are mentally ill

>> No.16110086

>>16104768
i like faulkner

>> No.16110338

>>16104959
>it was real inside my mind

>> No.16110563

>>16104768
Other than artificially bumping 2 wahmen for PC Points, and F Scott b/c one short book, the rest of the results are pretty based

>> No.16110580

>>16104768
Melville

>> No.16110582

>>16106794
I've never even considered reading something from the Carribean. Any recs?

>> No.16110586

The novel as a literary form peaked in the late Victorian period.

>> No.16110644

>>16104768
These sorts of inane threads should be deleted.

>> No.16110653

>>16104829
This is a horrible post. I don’t like Dickens that much, but how can anyone say Austen, Bronte, and Eliot are not top-tier?
George Eliot’s wit in Middlemarch remains unmatched in my reading to this day. I’ve never encountered another author, except perhaps Shakespeare, who has such a sharp wit. The novel itself is solid, with a tragic plot, great characters, and nice 19th century style formal writing. This is enough to make it a good novel, but what makes it great is its authors wit, which is displayed on almost every page.
Bronte — Wuthering Heights is undoubtedly a top-tier novel. How can anyone say it isn’t? It is emotional, philosophical, structurally sound, and technically perfect. It explores the antagonism between mindless passion and rational, real, quotidian love. That’s probably an inadequate summary of its theme, but the point is it’s not “kitsch” at all.
From Austen I’ve only read Mansfield Park, which was also great. Tracks the life of a virtuous, morally sensitive girl living in a corrupt world, up until her marriage. The novel is funny, witty, edifying, and well-written. It has actually enlightened me a lot on what it means to be virtuous and have a good character.
I have a feeling your post is overblown, since that’s sadly what it takes to get (you)s on here, but I don’t understand how anyone with taste could deride these authors.

>> No.16110655

>>16110563
Virginia Woolf and Eliot are unequivocally among the GOATs, and if you fail to see it, it is because your hatred of tumblrinas has clouded your aesthetic judgment.

Hemingway doesn't deserve it, neither does Salinger, neither does Orwell.

It's artificial as fuck, yes, but not in favor of political correctness, but in favor of Americans. They have Faulkner and Melville (and they omitted Melville).

>> No.16110732

>>16110655
I said they were bumped for PC, not included for PC. I can't take it seriously when it places Dostoevsky at the end and Jane Austen of all people at #2. I stand by my claim.

And I can agree on Salinger and Orwell, though I will disagree on Hemingway and Melville.

>> No.16110759

>>16104768
Franz Kafka....so much potential...

>> No.16110769

>>16110759
He couldn't even finish one novel, of course he's not the best novelist

>> No.16110805

>>16110769
better than finishing tons of half assed ones

>> No.16110958

>>16110732
Jane Austen is better than Dostoyevsky.

>> No.16110974

>>16110732
It’s not even an ordered list is it? It seems like a randomly ordered collection of novelists.

>> No.16112395

>>16104768
Tolstoy

>> No.16112534

Any one of Musil, Broch and Kafka

>> No.16112543

>>16104768
Why, it's James Joyce, of course.