Writers with Great Dialogue

[ChicagoReader]

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.

[dfloyd]

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

[breathtest]

Faulkner

[LitNetIsGreat]

For skillful dialogue is saying Austen or Wilde too obvious?

[the facade]

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.

[Desolation]

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).

[hawthorns]

Steinbeck
Wilde
Faulkner
Joyce

My .02

[Charles Darnay]

Have to give this one to Joyce.

[dysfunctional-h]

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.

[PoeticPassions]

Steinbeck, for sure.

[ChicagoReader]

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?

[WyattGwyon]

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.

[/dev/null]

Cortazar.

[Desolation]

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.

[ennison]

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

[WICKES]

If you mean which writer creates the most plausible/realistic dialogue (where you feel "ah, yes, this is just how people talk") I couldn't say. But for brilliant, witty, urbane dialogue, where people talk as you wish you could talk, then obviously Oscar Wilde. Aldous Huxley is also great, especially in his early novels. The same is true of Evelyn Waugh (read the Anthony Blanche passages in Brideshead Revisited). Of course, all three had been educated at Oxford, at a time when conversation was considered an art. No one speaks like that now – no one can! I'd also suggest P G Wodehouse. The dialogue between Bertie and Jeeves (Bertie, the imbecile, speaking a weird mix of Edwardian upper class slang and '20s Jazz, and Jeeves the urbane butler, replying with a wonderful, polished scorn and contempt).

[mortalterror]

When I think of great dialog I think playwrights like Tennessee Williams, Tom Stoppard, Eugene O'Neil, Tony Kushner, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, James Goldman, Paddy Chayefsky, Oscar Wilde, etc.

[ssubterranean]

Wilde! The Importance of Being Earnest is an all time favorite.

[kev67]

I thought Anthony Powell wrote great dialogue, if you're into 1930's Oxbridge talk. George Gissing used to write long, two-handed confrontations. Elizabeth Gaskell used to be great at writing monologues, but I am not sure they many of them could be classified as dialogues.

[ennison]

I should have added Gaddis to that list.