I don't understand this obsession with lists and ratings. Is there really any point in comparing Dickens and Joyce and ranking them in relative terms? What a bizarre notion!
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I don't understand this obsession with lists and ratings. Is there really any point in comparing Dickens and Joyce and ranking them in relative terms? What a bizarre notion!
i may have missed his name but no Kerouac?
Hate to dump on the list like so many others have, but come on! No Cervantes? I checked three times, I must be blind. Someone tell me I missed it, please. I'm just going to pretend that I did.
You could hardly believe, but outside of USA American writers are not very high rated.
I'd believe that...though I think Twain, Poe, Hemmingway, and maybe Dickenson and Tennessee Williams hold some clout overseas, Twain honored overseas, ditto Hemmingway, Poe and Dickenson have more European styles, and Williams is a playwright and those tend to do better across the Podn, I think than HERE (sadly.)
And as much as I respect Dostoyevsky...Shakespeare should be #1, I'm sorry...
Simply put, quantitative measures of qualitative expereinces are never going to hit the mark completly. As for people getting upset about authors being a place or two off where they think they should be, that's just being silly. I love that this disscussion exists. As someone who is just getting back into reading after years of being rather crule to my brain I must say I found the list a vluable resource. So from a new member to this forum, thankyou very much.
Hooray Steinbeck! :D
Happy to see Dostoevsky on top, though i do think Nietzsche deserves more than 1 vote.
Yea for Thomas Hardy!
Dostoevsky no. 1? Let me sneer snidely
Hooray for Dostoevsky! He caused me so much pain when I was a uni student - the sort of pain one remembers fondly in the years to follow ... Sadly, I see some of these authors as 'bucket list entries' - people whose books I should read, but don't really enjoy. Finishing Heart of Darkness, for example, gave me a sense of achievement but very little satisfaction. I knew that I had read something important and very worthy, but didn't feel any richer for the experience.
I didn't notice. Was Joseph Conrad even on the list? He usually shows up on these sorts of things.
That is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard. I'm from Sweden and here we appreciate Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Emily Dickinson, Whitman, Melville just as highly as Dostoevsky or anybody else (or higher as in my case). American literature is extremely diverse and has some of the finest and some of the worst writers ever.