Your favorite writer

So who is your favorite writer? Or if there's more than one, list those who used their pen (or typewriter or computer) to speak to you like nobody else seems to. And I said writer, so that includes novelists, poets, short story writers, and everything and everyone in between- basically anybody who has puts words onto paper for us all to enjoy that means something to you.

And for the sake of discussion, give a few reasons as well, even if it seems impossible to put feelings into words.


(Don't worry, mine will be on their way very soon! :) )

When it comes to writers I'm fairly scattered. I read a novel by one author and don't read another by the same one for a year or two, which doesn't give me much of a chance to develop a strong liking for any particular writer.
Except for George Orwell, who I believe is the 20th century's greatest and most important writer. He turned political commentary into an art form with Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, wrote clear, simple yet brilliant prose, and his other novels also contain sharp social commentary worth reading. His works are significant now more than they ever were. By far he is my favourite writer, and is somewhat of a inspiration for me.

Lord Byron, Oscar Wilde, Keats, Shelley, Tolkein, and DH Lawrence

Malory, Dumas, Pratchett, Gaiman.... Pretty eclectic, eh?

"Except for George Orwell, who I believe is the 20th century's greatest and most important writer."

In complete agreement with Munro, Orwell's brilliance is displayed both through his style of writing, and also his incredible ability to forshadow our social and political, self-created fates. Another outstanding writer that comes to mind is Edward Albee, who's exception pieces, "The Zoo Story" and "The American Dream", have also influenced my own artistic capabilities (in terms of writing; cause I am artistically challenged when it comes to drawing).

John Donne is my favorite poet, I don't have a favorite novelist though.

My name is Ian. I'm very very new at this, and I'm having a little trouble figuring it all out so bear with me. I'm a big fan of Greene, Maugham, Mishima, Oe, Forster and Conrad. If anybody would like to...I don't know, chat, or email or whatever you do, give me a yell.

I prefer to speak of writings rather than writers, for obvious reasons, but here are some (no specific order): Jorge Luis Borges, Homer, Aldous Huxley, William Shakespeare, Umberto Eco, Tolkien, Alan Moore, and I'll agree with eric about Gaiman.

There are many authors I like because of one writing only, not included here.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ian Walkinshaw

Greene, Maugham

---

Hey Ian. Glad you could join us here.

Haven't read anything by either of these authors, but have wanted to for a while now. Was wondering what you would recommend.

My favorite writer is Selma Lagerlöf (Nobel Prize winner 1909). Her novels mix the traditional Nordic myths with psychological portraits of amazing characters. Her language is simple but yet so precise - so beautiful it makes me cry… I don’t know how many of her novels are translated into English and how easy they are to get hold of but I recommend you all to read something written by her. My favorite novels by Selma is The Emperor of Portugallia, Jerusalem (or The Holy City as it sometimes has been translated into), and Gösta Berling’s Saga.

Other Swedish writers I like (who I know are translated into English) are Vilhelm Moberg and Marianne Fredriksson.

Some novels I like written by non-Swedish writers are: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, Bless me Ultima by Rudolf Anaya, A Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Michael Dorris and In Country by Bobbie Ann Mason.

And - of course - Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Woolf's To the Lighthouse, and Joyce's The Dubliners

Doyle and Dumas. Robert Jordan is also a great writer in my opinion, even though he doesn't follow the trend of all the other authors mentioned above (i.e. he's not dead).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sofia

And - of course - Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Woolf's To the Lighthouse, and Joyce's The Dubliners

---

There's are all books I've been eyeing lately. I've been told that The Dubliners is the best place to start with Joyce. Would you agree?

And there's another thread currently in GL about Samuel Beckett that you might want to check out.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ian Walkinshaw

... Mishima, Oe, ...

---

since you are already into japanese writes, i guess haruki murakami would be a good read...

cheers

[quote="Zooey"]I've been told that The Dubliners is the best place to start with Joyce. Would you agree? [quote]

Yes, Dubliners (not The Dubliners) is the best place to start for Joyce, and it's also the best place to stop: it's the only decent thing that arrogant prick Joyce ever put on paper.

afterr reading A Portrait of the Artist asa Young Man I hope I never have to read any of Joyce's work again ... :x (oops did I just type that??)

ok as for writers I really do enjoy...

I am very much into the poetry of edna st. vncent millayand edwin arlington robinson. I am very fond of millay's imagery and robinson's inscrutable yet touching characters.

Dramatists I enjoy include Millay, Susan Glaspell, and Sophie Treadwell their plays offer inspiring glimpses into the lives f ordinary people, especially women. I also adore Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, and Arthur Miller, because while these three men have ery different styles each is able to peer away the veneer of society to expose the secret desires of their characters. I think Pinter and Stoppard are remarkably good at this as well.

Lastly, novelists:
Thomas Hardy and Joseph Conrad are writers I once disliked but have anew perspective on. In addition, Wilde's The Pcture of Dorian Grey, Bronte's Wuthering Heights, Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Cather's The Professor's House Ford's The Good Soldier, and Cisneros' The House on Mango Street. There are a million other's I have left out to be sure, but these come immediately to mind. Oh and I must reiterate, Orwell is a genius!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Robert E Lee

Yes, Dubliners (not The Dubliners) is the best place to start for Joyce, and it's also the best place to stop: it's the only decent thing that arrogant prick Joyce ever put on paper.

---

Oh Lee, you never fail to amuse me. I imagine you feel that Ulysses as well as Finnegans Wake aren't worth a second, and obviously your allowed to have such an opinion, but just because you don't like them does not make you some sort of superior critic who has broken through the mindless hoard that is popular opinion. It just means you have a different opinion. As I have a different opinion than you . . . but once again, that doesn't make me better.

Thanks Zooey, for bringing up my thread.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zooey

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ian Walkinshaw

Greene, Maugham

---

Hey Ian. Glad you could join us here.

Haven't read anything by either of these authors, but have wanted to for a while now. Was wondering what you would recommend.

---

I am sorry to barge in, but I am also a great admirer of Maugham's works and I thought I could recommend a thing or two. I read almost all his short stories and now am finishing his most famous novel, "Of Human Bondage". It is generally agreed among critics that W.S. Maugham is one of the best short-story writers in English literature, if not peerless. Some of the especially dramatic stories that made a profound impression on me are:

"Unconquered"
"Mackintosh"
"The Alien Corn"
"The Door of Opportunity"
"The Human Element"
"His Excellency"
"The Fall of Edward Barnard"
"The Pool"

What to say of "Of Human Bondage"? It is the story of my life, if you lop off the details :)

I've never read anything from Maugham yet, but out of cuiosity what was "Mackintosh" about? And, because I'm not familiar, what sort of writer is he? You see, my maiden name was the same of this title only it was spelled 'McIntosh'. :)

As a reply to Shea's recent post:

I believe you have a wonderful discovery ahead of you then, if you're still unfamiliar with W.S. Maugham. Read any opinions on-line (I have no doibt, you'll find plenty of them), but to save you some clicking, I'll just mention that one famous critic said that for an intelligent and educated person in 20th century it is simply unforgivable to ignore Maugham's works.

He was called one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century, one of the finest masters of English language and an unmatched explorer of human character.

Although, not all the critics were so benevolent:

"[Maugham], is perhaps the outstanding contemporary British novelist in the naturalistic tradition. He is prolific both in fiction and in drama, but his serious reputation rests essentially upon "Of Human Bondage (1915)", which is generally considered the best of the frank, unsitimental autobiographic novels... Maugham has much culture, competence, and urbanity; but he has no poetry, no philosophy, and little imagination; and like all materialists he finds no significance in life..."

Mackintosh is the name of the person who was an aide of the governor of a small island, a colony of Britain in the 19th century. Secretly hating the governor, Mackintosh uses his intelligence to indirectly goad a native into commiting an enormity over his boss...

As soon as I've settled Monte Cristo, I think Mackintosh will be my next adventure! Thanks!

George Orwell without a doubt in my mind is the greatest novelist. His books 1984 and Animal Farm are two in which have paved a way in the political world today.

Jane Austen is another favourite, her books are a great read and allow you to relax and enjoy yourself with a serious yet humorous text.

And for poetry, Wilfred Owen is by far one of the best i have had the pleasure of reading. His war poems are tremendous and go into great detail the life during and after the War.

I do love Albert Camus' "The First Man" although it is incomplete. The other one is Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness". I read it with an adoring feeling that he could wrote a novel in a foreign language so fluently.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Apathetic

George Orwell without a doubt in my mind is the greatest novelist. His books 1984 and Animal Farm are two in which have paved a way in the political world today.

---

You should read 'We' by Yevgeny Zamyatin if you think Orwell is such a great novelist. Big Brother, the Telescreens, the clandestine love story beneath the political climate, &c. were all torn from Zamyatin's original dystopia. At least Huxley had the common decency to admit his debt to the exiled Russian author who--unlike Orwell--actually lived through the Bolshevik revolution and the years of Stalin that ensued. 1984 is a great story, but Orwell is given far too much credit for his minimal contribution to high-school literature.

Yeah all this Orwell hype gets tedious very quickly. I think stop signs made a more remarkable literary contribution to modern thought. Sure, hundreds of thousands of people are influenced by his writing, but the die-hard cynics like myself will continue to say things like this that actually say nothing but may at times sound worthwhile











still say he's not worth it though. Give me a few hundred lines from sara teasdale any day of the week

Personally, I prefer Tolkien, Homer, Lewis, Herbert, and Doyle.

I would say that all the Orwell critics here should perhaps read a few of his essays before they denounce the man so quickly. His major contributions to the English language and to history are in his essays and less in his novels, of which only a couple are recognised as classics. Read Shooting and Elephant, Notes on Nationalism and Can Socialists Be Happy? As for his experience with communism, he experienced it first hand when fighting the Spanish Civil War alongside the communists and anarchists.
Aldous Huxley was a brilliant man, more of an intellectual aristocrat than Orwell, from a rich background, unlike Orwell. However they are not to be compared, they were very different writers, and only one of their many works each are similar, and solely because they are dystopian. Other than that they didn't have much in common except that they were brilliant.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Munro

I would say that all the Orwell critics here should perhaps read a few of his essays before they denounce the man so quickly. His major contributions to the English language and to history are in his essays and less in his novels, of which only a couple are recognised as classics. Read Shooting and Elephant, Notes on Nationalism and Can Socialists Be Happy? As for his experience with communism, he experienced it first hand when fighting the Spanish Civil War alongside the communists and anarchists.
Aldous Huxley was a brilliant man, more of an intellectual aristocrat than Orwell, from a rich background, unlike Orwell. However they are not to be compared, they were very different writers, and only one of their many works each are similar, and solely because they are dystopian. Other than that they didn't have much in common except that they were brilliant.

---

Yeah . . . hmmm . . .

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Munro

I would say that all the Orwell critics here should perhaps read a few of his essays before they denounce the man so quickly. His major contributions to the English language and to history are in his essays and less in his novels, of which only a couple are recognised as classics. Read Shooting and Elephant, Notes on Nationalism and Can Socialists Be Happy? As for his experience with communism, he experienced it first hand when fighting the Spanish Civil War alongside the communists and anarchists.
Aldous Huxley was a brilliant man, more of an intellectual aristocrat than Orwell, from a rich background, unlike Orwell. However they are not to be compared, they were very different writers, and only one of their many works each are similar, and solely because they are dystopian. Other than that they didn't have much in common except that they were brilliant.

---

is 'Huxley was an aristocrat' your best link? Sorry to rain all over your parade, but the aristocracy in England fell over a century ago.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Munro

I would say that all the Orwell critics here should perhaps read a few of his essays before they denounce the man so quickly. His major contributions to the English language and to history are in his essays and less in his novels, of which only a couple are recognised as classics. Read Shooting and Elephant, Notes on Nationalism and Can Socialists Be Happy? As for his experience with communism, he experienced it first hand when fighting the Spanish Civil War alongside the communists and anarchists.
Aldous Huxley was a brilliant man, more of an intellectual aristocrat than Orwell, from a rich background, unlike Orwell. However they are not to be compared, they were very different writers, and only one of their many works each are similar, and solely because they are dystopian. Other than that they didn't have much in common except that they were brilliant.

---

Hee hee hee hee. You're right . . . just because I didn't mention 'Shooting an Elephant', &c. means I haven't read them. Please, for your own sake, come down off that ivory tower.

As much as it pains me to engage in quasi-intellectual discussion with artsy dilettantes, I should like to point out that Orwell's contribution to the sum of human knowledge is almost exclusively political. The fact is, Orwell should have stuck to writing essays . . . 1984 and Animal Farm--both political and social allegories of the Bolshevik uprising (which he did not partake in)--are poorly rounded justifications for the debunking of Marxism (but, perhaps, legitimate towards Stalinism too a small extent). If I had a nickel for every time some assclown shouted out in class that 'Hitler was a Commie', I'd have enough to buy a gun and shoot myself.

Then again, Orwell was right on the nose when he said that 'when the white man turns tyrant, it is his own freedom that he destroys.' But trying to relate that to anything other than Imperialism or Deconstruction is a waste of breathe. Then again, you'd probably say that it is entirely debatable, which is fine. But how is that literary? Because Orwell wrote political stories that could be passed off as classic literature? Well, he wasn't the first. And I would be much more cautious when stating that two notable authors 'are not to be compared'. They might be incompatible, but they are most certainly comparable. I could compare Orwell to Joyce(!), given the right context. Anyway, let's keep those discussions literary.

Quote:

---

Yes, Dubliners (not The Dubliners) is the best place to start for Joyce, and it's also the best place to stop: it's the only decent thing that arrogant prick Joyce ever put on paper.

---

Come on, Robert E. Lee. Don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tabac

Quote:

---

Yes, Dubliners (not The Dubliners) is the best place to start for Joyce, and it's also the best place to stop: it's the only decent thing that arrogant prick Joyce ever put on paper.

---

Come on, Robert E. Lee. Don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel!

---

Robert E. Lee should read the Richard Ellemann biography of Joyce before assaulting people with trite comments, useless pop trivia (actually, Lee, it is 'the Dubliners'--though not in the title, 'the' has become commonplace when speaking of the Dubliners), and other atrocities.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man shows a Joyce who has matured far beyond the artist who wrote the Dubliners as a hostile retort to the Irish culture that framed his self-image (except, of course, for 'The Dead', which shows the germs of sympathy that would be cultivated in Ulysses and, finally, in Finnegans Wake).

I recall the forbiddingly difficult third episode of Ulysses, as well was the seemingly endless array of mindless pleasures in Finnegans Wake. But, in spite of all the criticism surrounding him, Joyce is a salutary splash of water in the face of modern literature. In the opening episode of Ulysses, for example, the sun is not rising over the sea, it is 'merrying over the sea'. It's the attention to detail that makes Joyce, not a 'literary' genius, but a man whose works contain, within themselves, a rainbow's manifold of genius. Anyway, all three novels are fraught with riddles (especially the latter two), and it goes without saying that, not only has Joyce changed the way we read literature, he has changed the way we read the world around us. After all, the fluid flow of Finnegans Wake is 'the brook of life'.

Hi,
I don't have no doubt about it .I feel Dostoevsky is the greatest writer that has ever walked on this earth.My other favourite writers are Leo Tolstoy, Albert Camus. :D

i really, really like mary higgins clark.... i like her because she really makes good, unique stories and admirable flow of events... shes not like other authors who tend to replicate stories again and again... roll which made her earn the title "queen of suspence." wink

Gabriel García Márquez is way up there on the list for me.

Adbo Rinbo, I enjoyed your fiery reply very much. You write very well.
I actually said "more of an intellectual aristocrat than Orwell, from a rich background, unlike Orwell." An intellectual aristocrat is an aristocrat not in the sense of wealth and social status, but as you might concede by the precedent to the word in question "intellectual", I actually meant that Huxley had descended from a remarkable background of arts and sciences (the poet Matthew Arnold and the scientist Thomas Huxley, both of whom were pioneers of their fields at their times), not necessarily a rich one. Your rain, therefore, is not falling after all.
I concede I was mistaken in saying that the two authors were 'not to be compared', and the correct word is 'incompatible', as you propose.

If you believe that political writing doesn't qualify as literature, then I suppose that you will be willing to denounce poets like Shelley, Yeats and Neruda as 'not literature' because their writing was political, despite it's beauty and brilliance? I suppose then, according to you, that Arthur Miller's plays shouldn't be considered literature, as they were political also? Political writing can be art, and it was what Orwell intended to achieve before his death. Politics affects society, and writers respond to society, and therefore one would affect the other.

I agree with a lot of your reply, and your views interest me greatly, but I especially agreed with this: Let's keep this discussion literary, and not personally insulting. If you are brave enough to converse with quasi-intellectuals and artsy-dilettantes like myself, then go a bit further to do so with respect for our opinions, and try to stifle that contempt for the lessers you obviously find so repulsive.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Munro

If you believe that political writing doesn't qualify as literature, then I suppose that you will be willing to denounce poets like Shelley, Yeats and Neruda as 'not literature' because their writing was political, despite it's beauty and brilliance? I suppose then, according to you, that Arthur Miller's plays shouldn't be considered literature, as they were political also? Political writing can be art, and it was what Orwell intended to achieve before his death. Politics affects society, and writers respond to society, and therefore one would affect the other.

---

When the 'literature' suffers as a result of the political aspect . . . it ceases to be literature. Shelley was a great poet, as well as a captivating thinker (politically and otherwise), but his political commentary couldn't have saved him had he written poetry as lame and useless as Joyce's (I'll be the first to admit it). Orwell, on the other hand, had the grace of political eloquence, but was not a profound novelist in my opinion; so, subsequently, we should look to his political essays for the good stuff.

We have to be careful, though. Right before Operation Iraqi Freedom there were some very heated debates going on . . . none which were in the least bit literary. I'm sure a lot of people simply quit frequenting this board altogether because of the constant bantering back and forth. I apogize for my little outburst, but condescending presuppositions like 'I would say that all the Orwell critics here should perhaps read a few of his essays before they denounce the man so quickly' only invite hostile retorts. You are obviously an admirer of Orwell, and I am a firm believer that (as Henry James once wrote--and I'm paraphrasing) 'the only obligation a novel has is that it be interesting'.

Orwell does interest me . . . but what makes a novel interesting and what makes a novel a work of literature are two questions that are almost entirely exclusive. But isn't that the reason why we have these forums--to ponder what it is that makes art so profoundly human?

Shakespeare
Oscar Wilde
Pushkin's prose
Gogol

Fav writers

Christopher Marlowe
Dante Alighieri
Homer
Virgil
Aeschyles
plutarch
sophocles
Shakespeare
William robert shepard
Maynard James Keenan

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rafewheadon

Maynard James Keenan

---

Héé héé héé héé. That's funny.

Aldous Huxley, Kurt Vonnegut, Evelyn Waugh, Oscar Wilde, Aristophanes (read Nicholas Ruddal's translation of Lysistrata, its the closest translation to the original Greek that I've ever seen), Tom Robbins, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

And by the way, Orwell was a fool, plain and simple. If you really take the time to re-read and digest his works, you find that he cuts off almost every idea very short, almost as if he is affraid to truly express himself. To me, this is a very serious crime, as literature is an art form, and there are no restrictions in good art. Don't get me wrong, he has my utmost respect. Even though there are many flaws in his writing that can ruin the work, the ideas are just gold, pure gold. And for those who love 1984, read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, then re-read 1984. You will see what I mean.

Sorry for going off on a tangent here, but 1984 goes down as one of the worst written books I've ever read. His ideas are brilliant, but he does so many things that are absolutely disgusting. For example, when Winston et. al. first hear the voice from the telescreen, "You are the dead," the chapter should have ended. The following six pages are boring, and completely ruined the novel for me. Ponder on this: Wouldn't the book be better without that crappy, boring part that completely killed the climax?