/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.5237808]

who are the greatest prose stylists of all time?

pic definitely related

[Anonymous No.5237814]

Sorry, wrong pic. Fixed.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.5237817]

>>5237808
Walter Pater

[Anonymous No.5237913]

F. Scott Fitzgerald

[Anonymous No.5238004]

>>5237913
>this is bait

[Anonymous No.5238012]

What is the point in an author having distinctly stylistic prose? It doesn't change the story or meaning. Once the writing reaches a certain level of competency it shouldn't matter anymore. It's like talking about a sports team's jerseys.

[இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ— No.5238019]

>>5238012

Rather reminds me of raw food as compared to cooked food. You could try to wolf down 'unstyled' prose (if it could exist), but it would be far less palatable.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.5238044]

Loving/seeking a style is like loving/seeking a genre.
It should suite the piece of course.
And thoroughly competent writer be able to mimic two or more styles to suite her or his audience.

[Anonymous No.5238107]

>>5238012
>reads for plot
>2014

[Anonymous No.5238109]

mervyn peake

[Anonymous No.5238126]

[Anonymous No.5238143]

>>5238012
It would be impossible for me to disagree with your post more. The way the writer tells the story makes the story. Any asshole with a pen and paper can say "And them I walked into this shitty inn and saw some crazy-ass painting that I guess wqa supposed to be a huge fucking whale leaping out of the water and going all kamikaze-style on a goddamn ship!" Only Melville could come up with the beginning to chapter 3 of Moby Dick.

[Anonymous No.5238150]

>>5238143
Yeah I don't remember to proofread posts when I'm fucked up and its 5:30am. I stand by my point.

[Anonymous No.5238155]

>>5238150
who said anything about proofreading?

[Anonymous No.5238164]

>>5238012
Haha get the fuck outta here

[Anonymous No.5238240]

Everyone knows it's Conrad.

[Anonymous No.5238254]

>>5238012
>entry level

[Anonymous No.5238287]

>>5238143
I'm not saying literature should read like a children's pop-up book. And I agree that prose is how we get into an author's head. My argument I guess comes from enjoying Russian lit recently and simply wondering how much gets lost in translation, and how much it even matters.

[Anonymous No.5238292]

TAO
LIN
TAI
PEH

[Anonymous No.5238307]

>>5238287
A lot gets lost in translation, you are basically reading a whole new book, the translator's book, especially if it is translated from russian.

[Anonymous No.5238334]

Aren't there some Hemingway fans around to back me up (I'm really gonna get hate now)?

>>5238307
So when I read TBK them feels of all feels I get are truly different from what I'd experience reading the Russian? I'm not saying nothing at all is lost, but is anything really vital contained in word choice? No one but Philip K. Dick could have written Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep, but I'd describe his prose as serviceable at best.

[Anonymous No.5238340]

>>5238334
(samefag) Or Kafka, who is noted for a style that uses the particular sentence structure of the German language for effect. Is someone not able to understand German unable to understand something to be "Kafkaesque?"

[Anonymous No.5238378]

>>5238340
I couldn't say I don't read german but I know that translations of Flaubert for instance have nothing to do with the original (I speak french), same with Céline, Proust, or numerous other french authors.As far as I know from a russian friend it is the same for russian literature.The are exceptions, especially in the english language where the prose is neutral in a lot of books (I think of Asimov for exemple) and some translations are of exceptional value (Nietzsche said that his books were to be read in french instead of german, not because of the quality of translations but because the german language in itself was not adapted to his philosophy).

[Anonymous No.5238384]

>>5238378
He didn't say that.

[Anonymous No.5238399]

>>5238334
>Hemingway
What? Hemingway's exhibit A for the importance of style. Try imagining The Sun Also Rises as written by Nabokov, or Conrad, or any other writer. Shit would be completely different.

[Anonymous No.5239698]

>>5238240
Conrad? I duno. He's pretty good, but sometimes he feels a little overwrought. I'm only halfway through Heart of Darkness though.

[Anonymous No.5240253]

joyce, obvi

[Anonymous No.5240619]

Waugh, Proust, Faulkner, Conrad, Wodehouse

[Anonymous No.5241930]

DFW

[Anonymous No.5242076]

>>5238126

>dat taste

Would buy beer for.

[Anonymous No.5242096]

Douglas Adams

[Anonymous No.5242190]

nobody's said Pynchon yet so I'm going to toss that in

>kids shooting water guns NO WAIT THAT'S A REAL GUN THIS IS A REAL BULLET zinnnngggggg! Sorry, Pop, but you're not fast enough for the Kid today!

[Anonymous No.5242218]

>How Did Dexter Make His Money ye says bying whale bone for staing for ships in grosing three houndred & 40 tons --- bort all in boston salum and all in Noue york under Cover oppenly I told them for my ships they all laffed so I had at my oan pris I had four Counning men for Rounners thay found the horne as I told them to act the fool I was full of Cash I had nine tun of silver on hand at that time --- all that time the Creaters more or less laffing it spread very fast here is the Rub --- in fifty days they smelt A Rat --- found where it was gone to Nouebry Port --- spekkelators swarmed like hell houns --- to be short with it I made seventey five per sent --- one tun and halfe of silver on hand and over --- one more spect --- Drole a Nuf --- I Dreamed of worming pans three nites that thay would doue in the west inges I got no more than fortey two thousand --- put them in nine vessels for difrent ports that tuck good hold I cleared sevinty nine per sent the pans thay made yous of them for Coucking --- very good masser for Coukey --- blessed good in Deade missey got nise handel Now burn my fase the best thing I Ever see in borne days I found I was very luckky in spekkelation. I Dreamed that the good book was Run Down in this countrey nine years gone so low as halfe prise and Dull at that --- the bibel I means I had the Ready Cash by holl sale I bort twelve per sent under halfe prise thay Cost fortey one sents Each bibbel --- twenty one thousand --- I put them into twentey one vessels for the west inges and sent a text that all of them must have one bibel in every familey or if not thay would goue to hell --- and if thay had Dun wiked flie to the bibel and on thare Neas and kiss the bibel three times and look up to heaven annest for forgivnes my Captteins all had Compleat order --- here Coms the good luck I made one hundred per sent & littel over then I found I had made money anuf I hant speckalated sence old time by government secourities I made or cleared forty seven thousands Dolors --- that is the old afare Now I toald the all the sekrett Now be still let me A lone Dont wonder Noe more houe I got my money boaz.

[Anonymous No.5242311]

>>5242218
>Though they were both in their linens, to wit, shirts and drawers, without any other apparel, and in all out ward conveniences equally adjusted, the Italian, with redoubling hisstroaks, foamed at the mouth with a cholerick heart, and fetched a pantling breath ; the Scot, in sustaining his charge, kept himself in a pleasant temper, without passion, and made void his designes ; he alters his wards from tierce to quart ; he primes and seconds it, now high, now lowe, and casts his body, like another Prothee, into all the shapes he can, to spie an open on his adversary, and lay hold of an advantage, but all in vain ; for the invincible Crichtoun, whom no cunning was able to surprise, contrepostures his respective wards, and, with an incredible nimbleness of both hand and foot, evades the intent and frustrates the invasion...Matchless Crichtoun, seeing it now high time to put a gallant catastrophe to that so long dubious combat, animated with a divinely inspired servencie to fulfil the expectation of the ladies, and crown the Duke's illustrious hopes, changeth his garb, falls to act another part, and, from defender, turn assailant ; never did art so grace nature, nor nature second the precepts of art with so much liveliness, and such observancie of time, as when, after he had struck fire out of the steel of his enemie's sword, and gained the feeble thereof with the fort of his own, by angles of the strongest position, he did, by geometrical flourishes of straight and oblique lines, so practically execute the speculative part, that, as if there had been Remoras and secret charms in the variety of his motion, the fierceness of his foe was in a trice transqualified into the numbness of a pageant.

[Anonymous No.5242351]

>>5242311

>Now Mister Printer sir: I was at New Haven 7 years and seven months past at a commencement (college) degrees on 40 boys, who took degrees to do good (or not good). The old man with the hat told them to study human nature, walk as a band of brothers from that time to this day. I thought that all those that was brought up to college, the meaning was to get their living out of the laborer. If the colleges were to continue one century and keep up the game, reckon the cost of all from their cradle to 22 years old, all their fathers and guardians to lay out one hundred years interest upon interest --- guess at it & cast it. See how many hundred thousand millions of dollars it would come to make rouges and thieves to plunder the laboring man that sweats to get his bread. Good common learning is the best, some good books is best, well understood. Be honest, don't be priest-ridden: it is a cheat. All be honest in all things, no fear. Let this go, as you find it. My way (of) spelling how is the strangest, man.

T DEXTER

[Anonymous No.5242374]

>>5238240

I realized this the other day. ENGLISH ISN'T EVEN HIS FIRST FUCKING LANGUAGE. He's like the god of prose.

[Anonymous No.5242386]

>>5238107
this

[Anonymous No.5242399]

>>5242374
Do you mean to reply to >>5237808?

[Anonymous No.5242627]

>>5242374
it was his third language, in fact. crazy.

[Anonymous No.5243100]

>>5238109
agreed