New Author V.S Author SHowdown: Proust VS Joyce VS Faulkner

[stlukesguild]

I'm sorry, but I'll have to side with Mortal here. As usual JBI falls for whatever candy-coated views of history he is getting from his current college courses... as long as they are anti-American. Mao is responsible, directly and indirectly, for more deaths than Hitler and Stalin. I am of German heritage myself, but in no way would I make the least attempt to justify the actions of Hitler and the Third Reich ("Well just look at how the French and English mistreated the Germans with all those reparations after WWI. They were just acting as expected.") Seriously, the mere attempt to defend Mao by citing other atrocities, whether that of the Mongols, American Slavery and the treatment of the American Indians, the Inquisition, etc... is simply pathetic and doesn't change the fact that Mao was a dictator behind some of the worst atrocities and genocides in the history of humanity. Whether he was a good or bad writer is another question altogether.

the population of China is big, the numbers are big

The fact that China's population is big allows for us to simply accept the deaths of millions as no big deal? Instead of getting all your information on Mao from college professors that would never dare to challenge the official view of history, perhaps you might want to talk with some who lived through the atrocities of those years, such as my studio mate and his parents.

[stlukesguild]

Mao's cultural revolution after the Great Leap Forward (which was a failure) made China the economic giant that surpassed the US and still surpasses it.

Jeremy, China isn't even close to having surpassed the US as an economic giant. It hasn't even surpassed Japan yet and was not predicted to do so even at the pre-recession growth rate for another 25 years. Exaggerated claims of the US being surpassed by this or that nation have been going on since the US first took its position following WWII. The Soviets were going to "bury us". Then the Japanese who also bought huge percentage of the US debt. Now the Chinese are next in line... followed no doubt by India. The reality is that the world economy has changed greatly since the days immediately after WWII in which the US was virtually the only Western nation with its industrial base left largely intact. As a result, the American economy boomed like no tomorrow. Western Europe has since rebuilt as well as China and Japan and Korea and India and Russia are gaining. This means certainly that an absolute hegemony is a thing of the past... the US is not likely to roll over any more than Britain did following their fall from World domination. In many ways, the British citizens are better off today than they were during the height of the British Empire when huge percentages of their budget needed to be spent simply on military forces to maintain control. The Soviet Union imploded as a result of these costs.

[stlukesguild]

The whole idea of some must get rich first makes sense, except when you realize the poor seem poor and the rich are so rich it is stupid. The corruption is so apparent here that people do not even point it out anymore.

And in Russia... and in the US. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find any government or economic system free of corruption.

[stlukesguild]

Back to the OP... this discussion seems to have run its course, devolving into a political discussion of Mao. Perhaps a compare/contrast that discusses the actual strengths and weaknesses of the authors?

[country doctor]

well no other writer has written longer, more beautiful sentences than proust...

[Jeremydav]

What weaknesses can we say these writers have? Anyone who's read any of them knows how important stream of consciousness is to their styles. In my opinion, Joyce comes closest to formal perfection. Faulkner stumbles sometimes, mixing up dates and having characters be simultaneously 33 years old and 40 or something. I know this happened in Light in August. But is such a fault really something that should upset his position in the lineup?