The best American author of the 20th century is....

[cold_cash]

Ready.....GO!

[Rushmore]

Henry Miller

[shadow29]

Faulkner, William.

[Boris]

Not Cool! (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=3243146&page=&view=&s b=5&o=)

[kipin]

Ray Bradbury

[TylerD]

harper lee

[RunDownHouse]

Are we counting TS Eliot as American or British?

[cold_cash]

Hey man, just looking for some suggestions.

And at least I'm sober.

I would have just put "Tell me your favorite..." if I knew "The best" was going to bunch your undies.

[diebitter]

Stephen King by a mile

[Rushmore]

[ QUOTE ]
Are we counting TS Eliot as American or British?

[/ QUOTE ]

British, I assume.

If we are counting him as American, he wins...

...and it's not close.

[thatpfunk]

ernie hemingway

[hobbsmann]

[ QUOTE ]
Henry Miller

[/ QUOTE ]

[Hamish McBagpipe]

Steinbeck.

The first one to say Bret Easton Ellis gets a smack.

[A_C_Slater]

Hunter Stockton Thompson.

(I expect to be flamed for this so FU in advance.)

[Pocket Trips]

[ QUOTE ]
Stephen King by a mile

[/ QUOTE ]

The question was who is the best not who used to be a good writer but has been pumping out as many books as he possibly can before the public catches on to the fact he hasn't written a good book in about 10 years

[Boris]

HST is OK. If anyone nominates Kurt Vonnegut they should get banned.

[tbach24]

If we were discussing non-fiction, how would Michael Lewis fare? I enjoy his non-fiction books way more than any fictional ones.

[The Yugoslavian]

Walker Percy

Yugoslav

[Blarg]

Raymond Carver.

[Bill Murphy]

I would say that Philip Roth & Joyce Carol Oates have to be near the top, at least in terms of technical skill w/the English language. Can't fault anyone for picking Papa or Bradbury, of course.
This guy (http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Literary_Arts/coover.htm) ain't bad either, tho I've only read the baseball book. /images/graemlins/blush.gif

Steve King will always be my personal fave, but as has been noted his fiction has been at least 90% crap for the last 15 years. He's actually gotten much better as an essayist in that time, when he's not whining about politics. The best thing he's written since Different Seaons is prolly the thing about his kid playing Little League.

Hey, is Ayn Rand American? /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[scott8]

Erskine Caldwell.

(Tobacco Road and God's Little Acre)

[Amid Cent]

Neal Stephenson

[lapoker17]

One of the first names that came to my head - And I've read all the classics by those old white guys.

BTW, if you like his stuff you should read "When Genius Failed", "Den of Thieves" and "Conspiracy of Fools" in that order - All phenomenal business non fiction.

[jdl22]

Hemingway, Ernest

[Rockatansky]

[ QUOTE ]
Faulkner, William.

[/ QUOTE ]

[wayabvpar]

Ernest Hemingway
Joseph Heller
Robert Ruark
John Steinbeck

Can't really go wrong with any of them.

[hobbsmann]

[ QUOTE ]

Hey, is Ayn Rand American? /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Kind of.

[Blarg]

I'll put Catch 22 extremely high, but as for its author -- did anyone read anything else he wrote?

[lu_hawk]

you are right on about this. the reason this 'best of' thread is worse than most is because people are going to list a lot of authors that they don't know real well and don't like that much, but that they heard in literature class were pretty good.

[A_C_Slater]

[ QUOTE ]
you are right on about this. the reason this 'best of' thread is worse than most is because people are going to list a lot of authors that they don't know real well and don't like that much, but that they heard in literature class were pretty good.

[/ QUOTE ]


Exactly.

I can't imagine a 20 something year old can more easily identify with things from a Hemingway book than a Thompson book, unless they haven't read one.

[Danenania]

First is certainly John Barth. Hemingway is second (though of more historical importance than Barth). Third I think is Don Delilo. I haven't read Faulkner or Henry Miller yet so I don't know about them. If we include immigrants then the winner would be Nabokov.

[Danenania]

[ QUOTE ]
I'll put Catch 22 extremely high, but as for its author -- did anyone read anything else he wrote?

[/ QUOTE ]

Haven't myself but a friend read Something Happens and told me it was good.

[thatpfunk]

[ QUOTE ]

I can't imagine a 20 something year old can more easily identify with things from a Hemingway book than a Thompson book, unless they haven't read one.

[/ QUOTE ]

1. What does identifying with the details of the book have to do with the quality of the writer?
2. You obvioulsy haven't read The Sun Also Rises

[Boris]

The Sun Also Rises - One of my personal favorites. Should be mandatory reading for any young man planning a Euro back pack trip.

[mslif]

Theodor Seuss and John Steinbeck

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
The Sun Also Rises - One of my personal favorites. Should be mandatory reading for any young man planning a Euro back pack trip.

[/ QUOTE ]

Here's another huge thumbs up for The Sun Also Rises. And it's very easy for a young guy to relate to.

It's very politically correct to discount Hemingway. First it was because he committed suicide, as if that somehow discredited his entire life's work, and then because of the macho factor. Much hatred toward the man, and much posing. But not one in a million of his critics can write as well as he can.

[Subfallen]

Robert Penn Warren? Michael Chabon?

[ QUOTE ]
Theodor Seuss and John Steinbeck

[/ QUOTE ]

Dr. Seuss rules /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[KDawgCometh]

i'm partial to cassady and kerouac, i think going with hemmingway is a little too obvious

[Roy Munson]

H.L. Mencken was very funny. Tom Wolfe also is above average.

[mushi]

David Sklansky, Mason Malmuth, Ray Zee, Lynne Loomis and Edd Miller

mushi /images/graemlins/spade.gif /images/graemlins/spade.gif

Steinbeck hands down

[MikeNaked]

Tim O'Brien, Richard Wright, Maya Angelou, James Baldwin all deserve a mention.

[HtotheNootch]

[ QUOTE ]
ernie hemingway

[/ QUOTE ]

[TheBlueMonster]

Hemingway. There is no comparison. Excluding the fact that all his novels are considered masterpieces, he did more to change the American novel than any other person. In American literature there is before Hemingway and after Hemingway.

[pc in NM]

Walter Mosely

T. C. Boyle

Thomas Pynchon

[TheBlueMonster]

[ QUOTE ]

Quote:

Are we counting TS Eliot as American or British?



British, I assume.

If we are counting him as American, he wins...

...and it's not close.

[/ QUOTE ]

Despite being born in St. Louis, critics consider him both American and British. And he can't be considered the best author cause he was a poet and not an author in the generally held sense of the word.

[imported_anacardo]

[ QUOTE ]
First is certainly John Barth. Hemingway is second (though of more historical importance than Barth). Third I think is Don Delilo. I haven't read Faulkner or Henry Miller yet so I don't know about them. If we include immigrants then the winner would be Nabokov.

[/ QUOTE ]

I just can't get fully into Nabokov. His technical mastery is incredible, but his stuff has a certain artificial quality to it. Really liked Lolita and Glory , though.

Tim O'Brien is a really strong contender for the last third of the 20th century, IMO.

[luckyharr]

Pynchon or Delillo. Still haven't read any Faulkner novels though. I don't think Hemingway is right.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
First is certainly John Barth. Hemingway is second (though of more historical importance than Barth). Third I think is Don Delilo. I haven't read Faulkner or Henry Miller yet so I don't know about them. If we include immigrants then the winner would be Nabokov.

[/ QUOTE ]

I just can't get fully into Nabokov. His technical mastery is incredible, but his stuff has a certain artificial quality to it. Really liked Lolita and Glory , though.

[/ QUOTE ]

It can also be very dry and cold.

Wasn't he born in Russia and didn't he live there half his life? I don't think we can really call that American in terms of anything other than citizenship.

[Danenania]

Yeah as a person he is much more a Russian than an American. However his most famous book, Lolita, is nothing if not an essentially American novel.

[edtost]

[ QUOTE ]
Pynchon or Delillo. Still haven't read any Faulkner novels though. I don't think Hemingway is right.

[/ QUOTE ]

pynchon is awesome, delillo not so much. faulkner is good, hemingway i'm not a huge fan of but i can recognize that he did things in a completely new way and respect that.

no mention of ellison or fitzgerald so far?

[Claunchy]

Top 3.

1. Hemingway, slam dunk. How dare you for thinking anything else.
2. Don DeLillo
3. Charles Bukowski

[luckyharr]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Pynchon or Delillo. Still haven't read any Faulkner novels though. I don't think Hemingway is right.

[/ QUOTE ]

pynchon is awesome, delillo not so much. faulkner is good, hemingway i'm not a huge fan of but i can recognize that he did things in a completely new way and respect that.

no mention of ellison or fitzgerald so far?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not Delillo? Just surprised is all considering you like Pynchon. I do confess that I'm an ex baseball player I the first 60 pages of Underworld just blew me away.

With you on Ellison and Fitzgerald but I don't think they were prolific enough? Granted, I've only read Invisible Man and Gatsby.

[nothumb]

[ QUOTE ]
Are we counting TS Eliot as American or British?

[/ QUOTE ]

I say we keep credit for him for everything until he joined the Church of England, which gives us most of his great poems and cuts out the plays, which I mostly don't like.

NT

[daryn]

ralph waldo ellison

[pryor15]

Allen Ginsberg
Ken Kesey

[scalf]

/images/graemlins/smirk.gif mario puzo

gl

/images/graemlins/smile.gif /images/graemlins/club.gif

[hobbsmann]

[ QUOTE ]
i'm partial to cassady and kerouac, i think going with hemmingway is a little too obvious

[/ QUOTE ]

Aside from Neal Cassady being a badass, which he was, he wasn't really a great author.

[UseThePeenEnd]

Hemingway when he wasnt being precious.
Faulkner, drunk OR sober.
George Garrett
John Dos Passos
Steinbeck

[edtost]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Pynchon or Delillo. Still haven't read any Faulkner novels though. I don't think Hemingway is right.

[/ QUOTE ]

pynchon is awesome, delillo not so much. faulkner is good, hemingway i'm not a huge fan of but i can recognize that he did things in a completely new way and respect that.

no mention of ellison or fitzgerald so far?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not Delillo? Just surprised is all considering you like Pynchon. I do confess that I'm an ex baseball player I the first 60 pages of Underworld just blew me away.

With you on Ellison and Fitzgerald but I don't think they were prolific enough? Granted, I've only read Invisible Man and Gatsby.

[/ QUOTE ]

they probably aren't prolific enough to be near the top of the list, but i was just suprised no one had mentioned either one yet.

as far as delillo is concerned, maybe i should give underworld a shot; the only one of his i've read is white noise and i considered it kinda meh at the time, though part of that may have been having to read it in a week for a lit class.

for pynchon, the crying of lot 49 is probably my favorite book ever, but i enjoyed gravity's rainbow enough to finish it.

[The Ocho]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
i'm partial to cassady and kerouac, i think going with hemmingway is a little too obvious

[/ QUOTE ]

Aside from Neal Cassady being a badass, which he was, he wasn't really a great author.

[/ QUOTE ]

Point in fact, he was horrendous. Most "Beat" literature was pretty terrible. Even the best only had like a 25% success rate.

[edtost]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
i'm partial to cassady and kerouac, i think going with hemmingway is a little too obvious

[/ QUOTE ]

Aside from Neal Cassady being a badass, which he was, he wasn't really a great author.

[/ QUOTE ]

kerouac wasn't all that great either.

[Michael Davis]

Well, unfortunately he didn't write much, but if quantity isn't a consideration, Ralph Ellison is vying for the top spot.

-Michael

[Matt Flynn]

Gary Trudeau

[gumpzilla]

[ QUOTE ]

as far as delillo is concerned, maybe i should give underworld a shot; the only one of his i've read is white noise and i considered it kinda meh at the time, though part of that may have been having to read it in a week for a lit class.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've read White Noise and Ratner's Star, and found them both pretty thoroughly unremarkable. I don't get the hype, in DeLillo's case.

[ QUOTE ]

for pynchon, the crying of lot 49 is probably my favorite book ever, but i enjoyed gravity's rainbow enough to finish it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I liked Gravity's Rainbow more, but I can't say it made too much sense, obviously.

To toss out a name that I don't think I've seen mentioned yet but seems to not infrequently enter these discussions, how about Toni Morrison? The only thing of hers that I've read is Song of Solomon, but I thought that was quite good. And I'd also like to read some Dos Passos at some point.

[sam h]

Obviously it is all just subjective, but I would rank Faulkner first due to creativity + pathos + unique American idiom.

Other favorites:

Bellow
Fitzgerald
O'Connor
Ellison
Exley

[Danenania]

I'm surprised that people dislike White Noise. I actually think it's a better novel than Underworld.

[edtost]

[ QUOTE ]
To toss out a name that I don't think I've seen mentioned yet but seems to not infrequently enter these discussions, how about Toni Morrison? The only thing of hers that I've read is Song of Solomon, but I thought that was quite good.

[/ QUOTE ]

the only one of hers i've read is beloved, and i hated it, though i don't even think i made it all the way through, so maybe she deserves a little more consideration that that.

[UseThePeenEnd]

Cant complain about Flannery O'Connor

[Rushmore]

[ QUOTE ]
And he can't be considered the best author cause he was a poet and not an author in the generally held sense of the word.

[/ QUOTE ]

South Park mom's voice: "Wha what WHAT??!"

An author writes. That much is indisputable. Whether he writes poems or prose is not "generally held." If you feel that Elliot failed to express as much or more in The Hollow Men or The Wasteland as Fitzgerald did in Gatsby or Miller did in either of the Tropics, well, that's just a matter of opinion.

[Victor]

no ones mentioned vonnegut.

my favorite has always been hemingway tho.

[MyTurn2Raise]

Ken Kesey
Douglas Coupland (Canadian..close enought)

[jesusarenque]

Gabriel García Márquez

[smokingrobot]

i dont if anyone ever reads modern drunkard but there was a great story involving hemingway in a recent issue about 1.5 months ago.

[Rushmore]

[ QUOTE ]
Raymond Carver

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a genuinely viable response.

An argument could easily be made that Carver was distinctly American. His poetry and prose are both excellent, and unlike Bukowski (who I love) his craft was finely honed.

Goddamn it, his stuff was great. There was a passage in a short story called "Menudo" that I read over and over again, it was so perfectly written. His poems are unbelievably good.

I never thought he got the credit he deserved.

Thank you for bringing him up.

[Rushmore]

[ QUOTE ]
Obviously it is all just subjective, but I would rank Faulkner first due to creativity + pathos + unique American idiom.

Other favorites:

Bellow
Fitzgerald
O'Connor
Ellison
Exley

[/ QUOTE ]

Bellow. Yes.

[diebitter]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Stephen King by a mile

[/ QUOTE ]

The question was who is the best not who used to be a good writer but has been pumping out as many books as he possibly can before the public catches on to the fact he hasn't written a good book in about 10 years

[/ QUOTE ]
Nope, I was answering the OP question. 'The Body', 'Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption' and 'It' are beautifully written, for example.

I'd agree his later works aren't up to the same standard as these at all, though.

[Rushmore]

[ QUOTE ]
John Dos Passos

[/ QUOTE ]

Dos Pasos doesn't hold up. I don't know how long it's been since you read Death on The Installment Plan or the trilogy or Journey To the End of the Night, but I recently revisited this stuff and found it lacking.

[sfer]

To not answer your question, the best English language writer was Orwell, and I can make a strong case that The Great Gatsby is the best novel of the century.

[slavic]

[ QUOTE ]
no ones mentioned vonnegut.

my favorite has always been hemingway tho.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok I'll goive a thumbs up for Kirt but mainly for his short stories. Slaughterhouse 5 was just not for me, Player Piano was good, but his shorts were excellent. Really some of the best stuff you could find.

One interesting author Ken Kesey, OWFOTCCN is a great book, wonderfull stryline, biting political and social message. A book for it's time. It makes one wonder if he had cut back on the acid if he could have continued to produce like this. Alas we will never know.

[TheBlueMonster]

[ QUOTE ]
An author writes. That much is indisputable. Whether he writes poems or prose is not "generally held." If you feel that Elliot failed to express as much or more in The Hollow Men or The Wasteland as Fitzgerald did in Gatsby or Miller did in either of the Tropics, well, that's just a matter of opinion.

[/ QUOTE ]

An author responds. I don't deny that the two above mentioned poems are amoung the greatest works of English ("The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock" remains my favorite poem of all time incidentally).
However, I think in "polls" such as this the term author should only include primarily prose writers because when comparing a poem and novel, there is no way of saying which one is a better work (The Wastelands vs. Farewell to Arms??)
I am not espousing the merits of one over the other, I'm just saying let's compare apples to apples, not "Absalom,Absalom" to "Song of Myself"

[TheBlueMonster]

[ QUOTE ]
Nope, I was answering the OP question. 'The Body', 'Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption' and 'It' are beautifully written, for example.

I'd agree his later works aren't up to the same standard as these at all, though.


[/ QUOTE ]
As a King fan I regretfully must say that he won't be considered a 'great' until 75 years into the future. Dickens wrote commercially successful "fluff" but now we consider him a master.

[TheBlueMonster]

someone could always make the case for Phillip Roth.

[STLantny]

Hugh. Heffner.

Close second: John Steinbeck. The pearl is one of my all time favorite stories.

[thatpfunk]

[ QUOTE ]
It makes one wonder if he had cut back on the acid if he could have continued to produce like this. Alas we will never know.

[/ QUOTE ]

A serious and troubling question. Every time I reread Nest I am amazed at how perfect the novel is.

[pryor15]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
i'm partial to cassady and kerouac, i think going with hemmingway is a little too obvious

[/ QUOTE ]

Aside from Neal Cassady being a badass, which he was, he wasn't really a great author.

[/ QUOTE ]

kerouac wasn't all that great either.

[/ QUOTE ]


read "Visions of Gerard" and "the Town and the City"

[diebitter]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Nope, I was answering the OP question. 'The Body', 'Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption' and 'It' are beautifully written, for example.

I'd agree his later works aren't up to the same standard as these at all, though.


[/ QUOTE ]
As a King fan I regretfully must say that he won't be considered a 'great' until 75 years into the future. Dickens wrote commercially successful "fluff" but now we consider him a master.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, anyone who reads a lot/broadly will consider it pretty obvious IF they read The Body or It, say. Each page is quality through and through, in the same way something like 'The Old Man and the Sea' is quality through and through.

Unfortunately, his horror/'populist' rep will stop a lot of literary people reading him, and if they did, they'd keep quiet about what they thought anyway.


Dickens is a great equivalent, BTW.

[Michael Davis]

"To not answer your question, the best English language writer was Orwell, and I can make a strong case that The Great Gatsby is the best novel of the century."

OK we're in total agreement on Gatsby, but come on, Orwell's prose is at times horrible. I don't know what you mean by best English language writer. If you mean to praise specifically his language and his ability to weave words I strongly disagree.

-Michael

[private joker]

[ QUOTE ]
Richard Wright

[/ QUOTE ]

[Unabridged]

[ QUOTE ]


Thomas Pynchon

[/ QUOTE ]

/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[thatpfunk]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Nope, I was answering the OP question. 'The Body', 'Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption' and 'It' are beautifully written, for example.

I'd agree his later works aren't up to the same standard as these at all, though.


[/ QUOTE ]
As a King fan I regretfully must say that he won't be considered a 'great' until 75 years into the future. Dickens wrote commercially successful "fluff" but now we consider him a master.

[/ QUOTE ]

Quite a few Lit snobs & profs consider Dickens garbage. I won't argue against that claim.

[ChipWrecked]

Steinbeck.

[diebitter]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Dickens wrote commercially successful "fluff" but now we consider him a master.

[/ QUOTE ]

Quite a few Lit snobs & profs consider Dickens garbage. I won't argue against that claim.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, whatever makes em feel 'special'.

[HesseJam]

Hemmingway, Miller, Steinbeck have been named already a lot. They are obvious but excellent choices for the attribute "great".

I'll second the two posters who mentioned Charles Bukowski. He is great! I read all of Joseph Heller's books which are all pretty good but do not come close to his masterpiece Catch22. I like John Irving very much but he is not great like Hemmingway et. al. Lewis Sinclair is also very good!

[Rushmore]

[ QUOTE ]
An author responds. I don't deny that the two above mentioned poems are amoung the greatest works of English ("The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock" remains my favorite poem of all time incidentally).
However, I think in "polls" such as this the term author should only include primarily prose writers because when comparing a poem and novel, there is no way of saying which one is a better work (The Wastelands vs. Farewell to Arms??)
I am not espousing the merits of one over the other, I'm just saying let's compare apples to apples, not "Absalom,Absalom" to "Song of Myself"

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok, fair enough. I think maybe it should have been "novelist" or "short story writer" or "poet" then, so that we might have avoided this unfortunate digression.
/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[imported_The Vibesman]

Personal fave is Raymond Chandler, I love the noir-mystery genre, and he was the best. S. King, Hemingway, Ellison, H. Thompson, all good choices as well.

[Paluka]

I'm not well read enough to really contribute here, but I have a few things to add:

1) Vonnegut seems like he has written a ton of good stuff, but very little great stuff.

2) Catch 22 alone should be worth a mention for Heller.

3) Charles Dickens blows.

[sam h]

[ QUOTE ]
3) Charles Dickens blows but he's british anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]

FYP

[TheBlueMonster]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, fair enough. I think maybe it should have been "novelist" or "short story writer" or "poet" then, so that we might have avoided this unfortunate digression.


[/ QUOTE ]
/images/graemlins/laugh.gif Oh without a doubt. But then again how much thought goes into the original posts in OOT.....

[edtost]

[ QUOTE ]
To not answer your question, the best English language writer was Orwell, and I can make a strong case that The Great Gatsby is the best novel of the century.

[/ QUOTE ]

Gatsby isn't even the best Fitzgerald novel of the century.

[sfer]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
To not answer your question, the best English language writer was Orwell, and I can make a strong case that The Great Gatsby is the best novel of the century.

[/ QUOTE ]

Gatsby isn't even the best Fitzgerald novel of the century.

[/ QUOTE ]

Say that louder and you'll get kicked out of clown college on general principle.

[thatpfunk]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
To not answer your question, the best English language writer was Orwell, and I can make a strong case that The Great Gatsby is the best novel of the century.

[/ QUOTE ]

Gatsby isn't even the best Fitzgerald novel of the century.

[/ QUOTE ]

shush. perhaps this deserves its own thread, sorry daryn.

[trotski]

Steinbeck
Hunter S. Thompson
Heller
Vonnegut

[Paluka]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
3) Charles Dickens blows but he's british anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]

FYP

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm well aware that Dickens is British, but there was some discussion of him in this thread.

[edtost]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
To not answer your question, the best English language writer was Orwell, and I can make a strong case that The Great Gatsby is the best novel of the century.

[/ QUOTE ]

Gatsby isn't even the best Fitzgerald novel of the century.

[/ QUOTE ]

Say that louder and you'll get kicked out of clown college on general principle.

[/ QUOTE ]

while i prefer tender is the night, clown college may well have an affinity for this side of paradise, which i still would rank above gatsby.

[PokerFink]

[ QUOTE ]
Tim O'Brien is a really strong contender for the last third of the 20th century, IMO.

[/ QUOTE ]

I second that. He is my favorite author.

[Rushmore]

[ QUOTE ]
Oh without a doubt. But then again how much thought goes into the original posts in OOT.....

[/ QUOTE ]

Simply reply "Here I am, rock you like a hurricane."

[Hoi Polloi]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
3) Charles Dickens blows but he's british anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]

FYP

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm well aware that Dickens is British, but there was some discussion of him in this thread.

[/ QUOTE ]

British, 19th century, but I still think he should be in the running. That Dante dude was pretty good too.

[Hoi Polloi]

Maybe not the greatest, but he should certainly be better known: Stanley Elkin. He's an amazing writer and fantastic satirist. The Franchiser is a great place to start.

Hemingway
Roth
Pynchon
Elkin

[Hamish McBagpipe]

[ QUOTE ]
"To not answer your question, the best English language writer was Orwell, and I can make a strong case that The Great Gatsby is the best novel of the century."

OK we're in total agreement on Gatsby, but come on, Orwell's prose is at times horrible. I don't know what you mean by best English language writer. If you mean to praise specifically his language and his ability to weave words I strongly disagree.

[/ QUOTE ]

I can not disagree with this more. I recently picked up a book of his collected essays and they are absolutely brilliant in my opinion. I strongly recommend a read of his essays. You can see where a lot of ideas for 1984 come from but more importantly it is his very quest for improvement in the use of the written English language that is so evident. Discussions about subjects ranging from British breakfasts to the War jump out at you like noone you have ever read. As a novelist it is tough to rank him high but I'd agree with sfer's assesment of Orwell as the best English language writer.