[SOON , A TITLE HERE ]

[noob in 89]



How is it that so many of your favorite English prose stylists wrote in other languages? Your number one pick is a translation! Is it the translator or Arenas you nominate? And Edgar Allen Poe, the sing-song man! The reason Poe is so popular in France (or was, anyway) was because they didn't have to read him in English. I don't doubt that Palace of the White Skunks had some great sentences, but I'm talking about consistent excellence throughout a work, not a few flashes in the dark.

Haha, no worries, man. You can append a (10) for attitude. I set out to fill KJ's rec request, but whenever I spot a chance for prose style rankings, OH SHIZ IT'S ON!

Rankings are absurd, but I love them, if only for their tendency to tease out gems like these: Great prose, in my opinion, evokes sensations through the sounds of the words, their subtle plays on meaning and connotation, and of course through their arrangement. Joyce, to me, is like listening to complete music; DFW is like listening to just a very loud, very impressive drum solo.

Also, this talk of consistency intrigues me. I can't quite picture it yet -- do you mean all these non-Joyces are like, failing at a grammatical level too often to be great? I find this doubly intriguing as Portrait is by design so inconsistent. Or at least shifting. (I remember it was your user name that actually alerted me to the exact point in the book that really made me sit up and take notice, prose-wise).

~

Ahem. Gentlemen.

*throws smoke bomb*

** poof **

* vanishes *

 

[pickpackpockpuck]

Hah, yeah, rankings definitely are absurd and totally subjective, and that's part of what makes comparing lists so much fun. I don't mean the non-Joyces are failing at a grammatical level. They're all great writers who excel at using grammar in both traditional and non-traditional ways. I just mean that sentence after sentence is balanced, beautiful, evocative. Even at the beginning of Portrait, when Joyce is still in kind of a baby talk mode, every word, and especially the sounds of the words, provokes my senses and emotions (like the sentence my handle is from, for instance). I get that from Faulkner at his best, too, even though he is a very different writer, and Nabokov, Fitzgerald in Gatsby, Melville in Moby Dick, Steinbeck at times in Grapes of Wrath.

There are writers whose prose is just plain astonishing, even if it doesn't cause the same reaction in me. I feel that way about John Barth, DFW, Bellow, sometimes Cormac McCarthy, Faulkner when he's not at his best (even subpar Faulkner is great). They still write great prose, but in my mind the effect it has on me feels different. It's impressive, but just not as evocative in the same way, if that makes any sense. At this point though the writing is so good that what I'm talking about is probably just subjective and idiosyncratic, and other people may have the same reaction to writers who don't provoke me in the same way. But it's always fun to argue about!

 

[robinsongreen68]



I would also like to add that whenever I mention Joyce I'm talking specifically about Portrait and Dubliners. I actually can't stand Ulysses and Finnegan's. If I just wanted word games I would go play word games.
one more edit: James Agee was definitely awesome. I also like Mary Ann Evans (aka George Eliot) a lot.

dunno how you can not see ulysses as THE great joyce novel. even though i completely agree with you about the beautiful resonant clarity of dubliners/portrait.

also have no idea how noobizor places all those non-english writers above even early joyce.
even nabokov once said something like 'compared with joyce's championship game my sentences are just patball'

 

[pickpackpockpuck]

Ulysses is amazing in many ways, but I find it too obsessed with its own convolution to actually read. Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! is kinda the same way. It's like it's no longer a novel but a work of semiotics masquerading as a novel.

 

[BreezyBirch]

[VIDEO]![/VIDEO]

 

[Lionheart Biker]

That was a cool video. Gyllenhaal nails the psycho killer look with that beard.

 

[Makeshift_Robot]



It's like it's no longer a novel but a work of semiotics masquerading as a novel.

http://www.ubu.com/concept/morris_method.html

 

[the shah]

took some pics , NEX + Olympus OM 50/1.8

 

[snowmanxl]

wow. that last pic is incredible

nice shot shah

 

[Ivwri]

Hey shah, are those with the NEX -5? Great shots.

 

[the shah]

thanks fellas

ya nex-5 and i got an adapter to use some old manual focus glass i had. it's not particularly great lens. the hope is that i will get some leica (pfff yeah right more like m-mount voigtlanders for now) to use, manual focusing is really fun and the new nex firmware update has a peaking mode that helps a bit too.

snow, i was thinking of an idea for a shot, seeing as you're semi-pro and all, could you do some shadow boxing in a smoky gym ? preferably wearing all-white, maybe some ann and damir, a bit like a mix of Kobe's styled shots and Boris BBS pics I've put up.

 

[Ivwri]

You should pick up some of the old minolta glass floating on eBay. The 50mm primes are pretty nice I think.

Your shoot with snow sounds excellent as well. You should also do a vid, something in the vein of Damir's "Waster", yes? Yes.

 

[snowmanxl]

heck yeah ill do it!! you've got some talent there bud.

 

[StanleyVanBuren]

http://www.adme.ru/fotograf/sozdannye-ravnymi-365855/​

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Бездомный / Застройщик, 2002/2005 гг.

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Неимущие / Состоятельные, 2004 / 2004 гг.

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Многоженец / Сутенер, 2004/2003 гг.

 

[KingJulien]

THE COUCH AND ARMCHAIR ARE MADE OUT OF RECYCLED FOAM, THE NATURAL AND COLORFUL SHAPE COMES FROM THE DIFFERENT HACKLED FOAM SOURCE MATERIAL. THE SYSTEM CONSISTS OF TWO BASIC ELEMENTS / PANELS WHICH CAN BE ADDED EASILY TOGETHER BY A SIMPLE CABLE CONTROL FRAMEWORK. BY ADDING THE PANELS YOU CAN EASILY ACHIEVE A WIDE DIVERSITY OF COUCH AN SOFA VERSIONS.



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