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#71
08-31-2005, 01:31 AM
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Re: The best American author of the 20th century is....
[ 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. 
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#73
08-31-2005, 01:38 AM
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Re: The best American author of the 20th century is....
Ken Kesey
Douglas Coupland (Canadian..close enought)
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#74
08-31-2005, 01:39 AM
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Re: The best American author of the 20th century is....
Gabriel García Márquez
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#75
08-31-2005, 01:41 AM
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Re: The best American author of the 20th century is....
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.
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#76
08-31-2005, 01:41 AM
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Re: The best American author of the 20th century is....
[ 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.
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#77
08-31-2005, 01:42 AM
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Re: The best American author of the 20th century is....
[ 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.
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#78
08-31-2005, 01:45 AM
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Re: The best American author of the 20th century is....
[ 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.
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#79
08-31-2005, 01:45 AM
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Re: The best American author of the 20th century is....
[ 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.
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#80
08-31-2005, 01:46 AM
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Re: The best American author of the 20th century is....
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.
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