What book rivals Lolita in terms of stylistic prowess?

[manuscript]

I think it is tied to meaning but not inextricably. In English anyway there are several
ways to say the same thing and any choices an author makes are mixtures of intention, irrational personal taste, general linguistic ability and unconscious impulse. It is interesting to take sometimes the numerical linguistic features of a text and then ask ourselves why does writer X use so many of Y linguistic features. ' Course we may have worked it out as we read without going to that analytical extent.

maybe the meanings in some texts depend more on style than that in others. like catcher in the rye for example. but i remember once trying to paraphrase a piece of middle english poetry for a class and realising that the point of the exercise was understanding its futility; the meaning absolutely refused to transpose. and usually when i am reading a really great novel i get the feeling that nothing about it has been left to chance. but youre right, its silly to believe that an author can control everything.

if it is only a question of style there are many works of literature to rival Lolita. two that i think have not been mentioned on the thread are E M Forster's A Room With A View and Austen's Persuasion, both master works in their way. but where style has been specifically constructed as an important interdependent component of meaning in a text then i think Lolita might be more special. but as i write this i find that i am considering other possibilities, some very unusual! it is really interesting to think about.

[TheFifthElement]

Angela Carter
Don DeLillo

[dfw]

what else

[skyrise]

I'm not sure if rival is the right word but the Irish author John Banville is a foremost prose stylist in the english language and an admirer of Nabokov. I'm surprised that I can't find any discussion on this site about Banville.

[aaron stark]

Don't forget Italo Calvino

[Hal]

One might not like Madame Bovary (I haven't), but calling it a "very ordinary and simply descriptive" is just foolish.

literature should not be briefly flipped through. Good literature is not the equivalent of a copy of the latest National Geographic.

[Cleft]

literature should not be briefly flipped through. Good literature is not the equivalent of a copy of the latest National Geographic.

I agree. Your point being?

[LaMaga]

Interesting question because I've often wondered the same thing.

I can't say I agree that Kafka or Stein come close to possessing Nabokov's style. Not to say they aren't tremendous writers in their own right, I just don't see how they compare. And as much as I love Faulkner, I don't see it either.

[dfw]

^yeah

banville i kind of see actually

martin amis is a self-proclaimed nabokov follower i believe

there must be other modern guys

[Ser Nevarc]

I consider Nabokov to be the 20th century's best prose stylist, myself. Please don't say I'm not well-read, those of you who shout down from the academic peaks. It's not from a lack of exposure, but from a personal response to the most basic levels of his writing. He had a very strong proficiency of language not as something that simply replicates experience, but seems to contain it.

[LaMaga]

I absolutely agree with you, Ser.

[Gregory Samsa]

Joseph Conrad and Gustave Flaubert.

"Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars."

From Madame Bovary.

[ladderandbucket]

Some of Cormac Mccarthy's earlier work -Outer Dark, Suttree and Blood Meridian.

Not the same as Nabokov but he is clearly contesting for the title of supreme prose stylist.

[PeterL]

SInce the responses to the question have already become humorous, I suggest that Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and Mark Twain both had prose styles that compared favorably with Nabokov's style, and they had themes that were as odd.

[TaxMan]

flaubert?
i briefly flipped through his madame bovary and his prose seemed very ordinary and simply descriptive

Were you reading the original translation, because you can't really judge accurately anything other than the translation, if the latter.