So I'm pretty sure no one can compare to Nabokov..

[dfw]

i'm not very well read (i'm 18), but reading Lolita, I find it very hard to imagine that there are many people who can/have/will ever come close to him

i mean that prose, oof


rereading currently

taking my sweet time, want to glean as much as I can from him

"surely, you all know those redolent remnants of day suspended, with the midges, about some hedge in bloom or suddenly entered and traversed by the rambler, at the bottom of a hill, in the summer dusk; a furry warmth, golden midges"

"There, on the soft sand, a few feet away from our elders, we would sprawl all morning, in a petrified paroxysm of desire, and take advantage of every blessed quirk in space and time to touch each other: her hand, half-hidden in the sand, would creep toward me, its slender brown fingers sleepwalking nearer and nearer; then, her opalescent knee would start on a long cautious journey; sometimes a chance rampart built by younger children granted us sufficient concealment to graze each other's salty lips; these incomplete contacts drove our healthy and inexperienced young bodies to such a state of exasperation that not even the cold blue water, under which we still clawed at each other, could bring relief"

[Charles Darnay]

I think you sum this up pretty nicely with "I'm not very well read."

Don't get me wrong, Lolita is wonderful. But hardly the pinnacle and end-all of literary achievement - if such a thing were to exist.

[Ser Nevarc]

Mr. dfw, I think Nabokov's an amazing prose stylist, too. :)

[PeterL]

I think that there are quite a few authors who compare well with Nabokov. I think that his use of unreliable narrators is more notable than his prose style.

[kelby_lake]

Fitzgerald has gorgeous prose.

[dfw]

i'd love to hear about those whose compares with nabokov

[PeterL]

i'd love to hear about those whose compares with nabokov

You might try reading more.

[kelby_lake]

Here's something from Tender is The Night: “The voice fell low, sank into her breast and stretched the tight bodice over her heart as she came up close. He felt the young lips, her body sighing in relief against the arm growing stronger to hold her. There were now no more plans than if Dick had arbitrarily made some indissoluble mixture, with atoms joined and inseparable; you could throw it all out but never again could they fit back into atomic scale. As he held her and tasted her, and as she curved in further and further toward him, with her own lips, new to herself, drowned and engulfed in love, yet solaced and triumphant, he was thankful to have an existence at all, if only as a reflection in her wet eyes.”


And some more:
"He knew that there was passion there, but there was no shadow of it in her eyes or on her mouth; there was a faint spray of champagne on her breath. She clung nearer desperately and once more he kissed her and was chilled by the innocence of her kiss, by the glance that at the moment of contact looked beyond him out into the darkness of the night, the darkness of the world."

[dfw]

what about banville

martin amis

[aaron stark]

In my opinion, Kundera comes close as well. I'm not sure whether this is also the case for his English translations, but I do know for sure that his French (auto)translations contain some wonderful prose.

[Ser Nevarc]

Wait why did you make two identical threads?

[Buh4Bee]

I have only read Lolita, but I can say I have always recognized Nabokov as a great writer. Should read more.