Greatest Living Author?

[rach2jlc]

Originally Posted by jonglover

How can you guys include Pynchon on your lists but not Salinger and vice versa? They are, in fact, the same person.

Pynchon is a real guy; various journalists have found him and talked to/interviewed him over the past few years, especially after "Mason&Dixon" was published. The whole Salinger/Pynchon thing was a myth created a few decades ago (there was also a time when people thought Vonnegut was Pynchon). The real Pynchon is just a regular guy living in NYC, enjoying being a brilliant writer without having to do any of the fawning or publicity that other writers have to do.

 

[Manny Calavera]

Originally Posted by smentz

not an author but a writer. Larry David.

No! This has to be a novelist list, as everyone knows the best writing is now being done in the comics.

Originally Posted by rach2jlc

Pynchon is a real guy; various journalists have found him and talked to/interviewed him over the past few years, especially after "Mason&Dixon" was published. The whole Salinger/Pynchon thing was a myth created a few decades ago (there was also a time when people thought Vonnegut was Pynchon). The real Pynchon is just a regular guy living in NYC, enjoying being a brilliant writer without having to do any of the fawning or publicity that other writers have to do.

I know.

 

[rach2jlc]

Originally Posted by jonglover

I know.

Oh, okay. You didn't put a ubiquitous "sarcastic" smiley in there and so I wasn't sure.

 

[gdl203]

there is a striking resemblance...

 

[rach2jlc]

Originally Posted by gdl203

"Simpsonize" that picture of Pynchon and I think you will get the above. Coincidence?

 

[Baron]

The thing about Salinger is he supposedly has completed 4 or more novels since he stopped publishing and will publish them all posthumously. I hope he doesn't freak out and burn them all.

 

[rach2jlc]

Originally Posted by Baron

The thing about Salinger is he supposedly has completed 4 or more novels since he stopped publishing and will publish them all posthumously. I hope he doesn't freak out and burn them all.

I'm curious to see what happens with this, too. My personal thought is that Salinger simply said what he wanted to say and then quit. As well, I think having such a phenomenal success right out of the gate can be a terrible thing for a writer (Harper Lee, Margaret Mitchell, etc.)

In general, though, novelists are like directors or any other artist, if they don't keep doing it, they stagnate. Part of that process is publishing and having your work reviewed, read, critiqued, and interacting with others (even Pynchon interacts with SOMEBODY and his work is part of the public sphere).

Salinger hasn't been doing that for half a century and, honestly, I feel like his work might suffer for it, especially because it is a "social" type of work... it isn't Walden or anything.

We'll see, but I just don't think Salinger is the amazing creative genius many make him out to be, or that I myself once made him out to be when I felt like his work really clicked with my life. I agree with the earlier statement that "Nine Stories" had some amazing stuff in it, but beyond that, the only other non-mainstream published late work of his, "Hapworth 16, 1924" (or something like that... it's been a few years since I found the old New Yorker it was in and so I may be off on the title) was seventeen times too long, drawn out, and without the "punch." In short, it was withheld from general publication not due to Salinger's hermitism, but probably because it was just an inferior work that really didn't need to be held up with the others.

What more, as a hermit, does Salinger have to add to a world that has long since left him behind (and that he left behind first)?

 

[chorse123]

Originally Posted by rach2jlc

Part of that process is publishing and having your work reviewed, read, critiqued, and interacting with others (even Pynchon interacts with SOMEBODY and his work is part of the public sphere).
Well, sure, his wife (Melanie Jackson) is a literary agent. I think that the director analogy is useful in another way--a lot of what we think of as a writer's work is someone else's, namely editors and copyeditors. Similar to film editors, I guess. But Roth is the better kind of recluse. He's locked away in Connecticut writing. He doesn't do big book tours or endless NPR interviews or go on Oprah (****, Cormac McCarthy went on Oprah, although it's hard to fault him for that). He doesn't blog about what he had for breakfast. He writes.

 

[rach2jlc]

Originally Posted by chorse123

--a lot of what we think of as a writer's work is someone else's, namely editors and copyeditors. Similar to film editors, I guess.

This is very true and often gets overlooked in search of our romantic love and idea of the lone, great artist. Many of the best elements of a work come from an editor's suggestion and any good novelist will tell you that it is foolish to ignore the critical suggestions of a good editor (my freshman creative writing students never learn this... they just ***** and moan that nobody "gets it" when they write something poor but can't take the criticism). Anyway, this collaborative effort goes for the greats we are talking about on this thread as well as for mainstream "popular" fiction writers and for everybody in between at each level of the publishing world.

 

[chronoaug]

I can't believe no one brought this up





i can't find the video from this scene though

If i were to ever break my 40 years of silence, i'd like it to be on the simpsons.




edit: is there no way to embed youtube clips? I know super future uses
IMPORTANT NOTICE: No media files are hosted on these forums. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website. We can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. If the video does not play, wait a minute or try again later. I AGREE

TIP: to embed Youtube clips, put only the encoded part of the Youtube URL, e.g. eBGIQ7ZuuiU between the tags. . Someone needs to get on this *cough* J *cough

 

[Vintage Gent]

Seamus Heaney

 

[Kai]

George R.R. Martin

(Just hope he will stay living long enough to finish the series he's working on.)

 

[novalis]

In addition to Marquez:

VS Naipaul
JM Coetzee

 

[Aspiringtobe]

Sign me up for Philip Roth as well.

* * *

I would put Murakami Haruki on that list if he would just quit writing the same two books all the time. If you only read two or three of his books (and they are the right two or three), I could see one finding him brilliant. QUOTE]

Murakami uses the same themes, but Roth does not.

Both would appreciate the irony of your position.

 

[dusty]

Originally Posted by chronoaug

If i were to ever break my 40 years of silence, i'd like it to be on the simpsons.

Sure beats doing it on Oprah (I'm looking at you, Cormac).