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Thread: Writers with Great Dialogue

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    Writers with Great Dialogue

    Title says it all, which writers do you find have the most authentic, powerful, memorable, or skillful dialogue?

    I would say Raymond Carver, Ernest Hemingway, and occasionally Don DeLillo just to name some of the more recent writer's I've read.

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    Cool Alexandre Dumas is said to have written great dialogue,

    particularly in the Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo/

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    My mind's in rags breathtest's Avatar
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    Faulkner
    'For sale: baby shoes, never worn'. Hemingway

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    For skillful dialogue is saying Austen or Wilde too obvious?

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    Registered User the facade's Avatar
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    I agree, Don DeLillo is a virtuoso of realistic dialogue that he manages to impregnate with poetry and meaning that corresponds to the general theme of his works.

    Out of Milan Kundera's books, I have only read "The Unbearable Lightness.." but found the dialogue there particularly striking.

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    Registered User Desolation's Avatar
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    William Gaddis...He puts more emphasis on dialogue than description, and manages to give each character such a distinct voice that you are aware of who's talking even when no name is given (and it usually isn't).

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    Registered User hawthorns's Avatar
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    Steinbeck
    Wilde
    Faulkner
    Joyce

    My .02

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    In the fog Charles Darnay's Avatar
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    Have to give this one to Joyce.
    I wrote a poem on a leaf and it blew away...

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    There's very little dialogue in the Faulkner and Joyce I've read (Absalom, Absalom! S&F, and P of A). It's all monologue. i would have to give this to Harper Lee.
    Talk to me sometime. http://dysfunctional-harmony.tumblr.com/

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    Registered User PoeticPassions's Avatar
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    Steinbeck, for sure.
    "All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours." -Aldous Huxley

    "Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires." -William Blake

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    Quote Originally Posted by Desolation View Post
    William Gaddis...He puts more emphasis on dialogue than description, and manages to give each character such a distinct voice that you are aware of who's talking even when no name is given (and it usually isn't).
    I just finished reading JR and I do agree with you in that his characters are readily identifiable through their dialogue, yet I must say that a large portion of what is said pointless, though that was probably Gaddis' point, along with how the characters always talk past each other, rather than interact in coherent conversation.

    I didn't enjoy reading JR very much, which was disappointing because I enjoyed The Recognitions and Agape Agape a lot, have you read JR, if so, what did you think of it?
    Last edited by ChicagoReader; 03-15-2012 at 05:15 PM.

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    Registered User WyattGwyon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChicagoReader View Post
    I just finished reading JR and I do agree with you in that his characters are readily identifiable through their dialogue, yet I must say that a large portion of what is said pointless, though that was probably Gaddis' point, along with how the characters always talk past each other, rather than interact in coherent conversation.
    Another vote for Gaddis here. The dialogue in The Recognitions I like even better than that in JR—less inane and more interesting topics (to me). Also great for dialogue is David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest.

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    Registered User /dev/null's Avatar
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    Cortazar.

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    Registered User Desolation's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChicagoReader View Post
    I didn't enjoy reading JR very much, which was disappointing because I enjoyed The Recognitions and Agape Agape a lot, have you read JR, if so, what did you think of it?
    Nope, not yet...I have it, though, and I loved The Recognitions so much that I was tempted to start JR immediately.

    Gaddis took a hell of a lot outta me, though. It might be a few months before I get around to his second novel. I hope that I like it whenever I do read it. He's the best new discovery I've made in years.

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    R C Hutchinson. Golding. Scott (in some parts) Stevenson. Burnett

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