Your favorite writer

[AbdoRinbo]

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'.

[pankaj]

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.

[pooh_bear]

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

[Tamara Kaye Sellman]

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

[Munro]

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.

[AbdoRinbo]

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?

[Aurica]

Shakespeare
Oscar Wilde
Pushkin's prose
Gogol

[rafewheadon]

Fav writers

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

[AbdoRinbo]

Maynard James Keenan

Héé héé héé héé. That's funny.

[gterpenkas]

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?

[Phoenix_Tears]

My favourite writer would definitely be J.K.Rowling. She has her faults to be sure, but i cannot help losing myself for hours immersed in the Harry Potter realms. Stephen Kking criticized her work saying that she used many expressions in how her charactours talked, expressions that were not supposed to be used in the way she used them. 'he spoke angrily' for example. you do not speak angrily, you speak in an angry tone. But i am a big fan of J.K.Rowling.

[Arteum]

Is it allowed to pronounce such names as J.K. Rowling and Stephen King at a literature website?? :-? :evil: These authors stand in the same relation to literature as Spice Girls do!

[Blackadder]

The question was who's your favorite writer, Arteum, not which writer will you claim to like in order to impress others. Give them a break, please.

[Phoenix_Tears]

My dearest Arteum!
It was not fair for you to take a go at me so. The topic was merely what my favourite authour was. Must i be persecuted for telling the truth?! It is not for you to judge Mrs. Rowling or Stephen King. When Mr. King's books have made many a classic movie and Mrs.Rowling's books fly off the shelves faster than the people can stock them. I believe you owe me an apology. Why must you be such an ***?
-Phoen-X-

[gatsbysghost]

For sheer entertainment value I have to go with Douglas Adams. I didn't find anything really groundbreaking or revolutionary in the Hitchhiker's series but at the same time I couldn't draw myself out of that world until he ended it. So he must have done something right.

Aldous Huxley and George Orwell for chilling portraits of the future, which appear to be ringing more true as time goes by.

Mark Twain for taking on the social ills of his time in a light hearted manner that makes for good reading today.

And F. Scott Fitzgerald for teaching me that revision is the most effective route to excellent storytelling.