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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Greatest living writer

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22:53 / 22.02.07

this guardian article poses the question of britain's 'greatest living author'

got me wondering, what do lither's think about this, and who do they think is their own country's greatest living writer?

for mine, as an aussie, i would probably say david malouf, though i'm sure peter carey will get a mention in any such wider survey. i'd be tempted to add a couple new names, like andrew mcgahan and dbc pierre, while i know i'm excluding playwright david williamson and poets all...

malouf, though, is a wonderful writer. a wee ripper.

(that said, now he's resident in australia i'd unreservedly say jm coetzee, but i guess he's still to be 'claimed' by south africa...)

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:33 / 23.02.07

"If the media refer to Martin Amis as 'Britain's greatest living author' once more," wrote Kathy Love from south London, "I shall kill myself."

If Kathy met me, she would, I think, like me - and I think we should meet, so I can say to her: "Don't kill yourself, Kathy. Kill 'Mart' instead, and while you're at it, kill 'the Hitch', and take a moment to maim Andrew Motion, too."

20:28 / 23.02.07

I have to say Pynchon. No one else is close, in my opinion.

20:56 / 23.02.07

psst! Britain's greatest...

21:27 / 23.02.07

JK ROWLING!

22:00 / 23.02.07

Well astrojax did ask for opinions on their own countries most best-est-evar living writer so Dustos vote of Pynchon in the US is valid.

The whole idea of a GLA is so inane and irrelevant, and one which we've been through on Barbelith countless times before, it seems worthless talking about it. Another excuse to mention a favourite writer or two. There are many other threads for that.

07:21 / 24.02.07

To Martin's credit though, he's apparently signed up as professor of Creative Writing at Manchester University so he can learn from the yout', or some such.

What I think it would be really great to do is get on that course just for a day, as in the episode of 'Peep Show' when Mark went back to college to study history.

All Acting Regiment

16:12 / 24.02.07

To Martin's credit though, he's apparently signed up as professor of Creative Writing at Manchester University so he can learn from the yout', or some such.

What bollocks! I've been out with them all after a poetry reading, he lives in London and only signed up to the university to get more money and to appear on their letterhead. Good novellist, nice chap, shitty Islamophobia and nepotism. Greatest living writer? No such thing, him nor anyone. Back to this thread when I've finnished my saveloy.

16:33 / 24.02.07

Tt. Naughty Martin.

I don't think I can be blamed for believing everything I read in the papers, though.

at the scarwash

17:05 / 24.02.07

Greatest living american writer: probably James Ellroy or Cormack McCarthy. Maybe Gene Wolf.

17:12 / 24.02.07

Not so great that you'd actually bother to learn how they spell their names, though.

17:25 / 24.02.07

Jack Faer is the greatest living American writer.

11:32 / 25.02.07

Don't questions of great British novelists usually descend into a bit of a bun-fight between Julian Barnes and Ian McEwan?

23:36 / 25.02.07

erm, baz... article is britain's best (why do i har myself with a tom baker accent when i write that??) but i was a bit curious as to your country's most goodest...

i know it can be a bit naff, lists and all, but i was hoping some of our lithers from places not america britain australia would add to our knowledge of perhaps undersung writers...

does dead megatron hang out here? any brasilian pensmiths??

23:44 / 25.02.07

zadie smith.
i'm sorry, zadie.

Whisky Priestess

20:52 / 27.02.07

Even The Autograph Man?

Iain Banks or Patrick McGrath get my vote, for what it's worth. I mean if Rowling's a serious contender ...

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

16:02 / 28.02.07

Insofar as Canada is concerned...

Margaret Atwood is generally held up high although I think some of her more recent work is straining my love of her; it feels like a lot of it lacks heat, or passion...although she had a story in one of the McSweeney's Michael Chabon-edited collections of pulp that was quite haunting...

Timothy Findley bores me, never managed to finish one of his.

Paulette Jiles has done lots of interesting things, and Carol Shields wrote dull novels but absolutely beautiful short stories that did wonderful things with perspective...

I dunno. There's lots of writers over here.

21:27 / 28.02.07

Papers: Re: Canadian greats - What about Robertson Davies? Used to be he was hands-down the guy most Canadians would name as their "greatest."

My knee-jerk vote for the US would be the afore-misspelled Cormac McCarthy. But then, I've said the same about Pynchon as well.

"Best" is a weird thing, yeah? And "writer" - what of that term? The literal implication of superiority in "best," coupled with the intent of the exercise to fathom "importance," leads me to consider that the "best" writer would be one who is accomplished at writing novels, stories, plays, and essays. McCarthy and Pynchon don't write short stories or frequently publish essays or reviews. They are novelists, for the most part.

"Best US writer" - that might be Norman Mailer. After all, like him or not, he's got a mountain-sized pile of novels, short fiction, essays, and even a few other genres in his list of accomplished works.

22:20 / 28.02.07

pynchon did publish 'slow learner', a collection of short stories (i wish i knew where my copy has vanished to - i hate lending books i love when they don't come back; i am loathe to lend now, having been burnt too often), but they were from his 'yoof'...

is annie proulx canadian or american? does she rate? and what, americans, about toni morrison?? a nobel winner? she not rate a mention?

00:35 / 01.03.07

Aside from Slow Learner, I'd throw in that Pynchon considers The Crying of Lot 49 to be a story that was "marketed" as a novel. And he's written a few insightful essays, as well (on Sloth, the Watts Riots, and 1984). And as for poetry, he often includes lyrics in his novels.

I, for one, find Toni Morrison to be one of the most overrated writers I've ever come across. Perhaps I just don't understand her, but she seems hopelessly melodramatic, to my sensibilities. Almost as bad as Jeanette Winterson.

00:38 / 01.03.07

For sheer read-ability, Robertson Davies is the man. He's one of the most widely read Canadians. I throw Margaret Lawrence into the ring, too. The Stone Angel? Fucking classic.

01:07 / 01.03.07

Whatever Robertson Davies' literary merits—and for the record, I like him an awful lot despite a worrying tendency to plagiarize his own works—he hasn't been the greatest living anything for twelve years now.

02:00 / 01.03.07

i think 'the autograph man' is the greatest novel in the history of english literature. we're just too lazy to understand its greatness. this makes zadie very sad.

02:17 / 01.03.07

I wonder about Robertson Davies; whether he's alive or dead, 'The Lyre Of Orpheus', if it's at all typical of his work, seemed a bit like something John Cowper Powys and Barbara Cartland might have come up with over a few lagers.

As a self-hating Scot, I'm torn between Ian Rankin and Irvine Welsh; there's 'Lanark' by Alasdair Gray, to be sure, but I don't know if he's ever really followed it up. Whereas Rankin and Welsh both seem to be engaged in this sort of ongoing, bleak Dickensenian journey to the core of the nation's rotten, cancerous soul. Rankin's quite disciplined, as you'd expect from a crime writer, and Irvine Welsh isn't, really, but in both cases there's a sense of the author trying to put his country on the dissecting table, which seems to be the best thing to do with the thing.

11:52 / 01.03.07

he hasn't been the greatest living anything for twelve years now.

Well who the hell have I been having over for tea, then?

13:11 / 01.03.07

I'm not Scottish myself (except by heritage), but Alasdair Gray is my favorite Scottish writer. Lanark is very good, but Poor Things is great. A History Maker ain't half bad, either. And Unlikely Tales, Mostly is one of my favorite short story collections by anyone.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

17:11 / 01.03.07

Davies - "Murther and Walking Spirits" caught my attention, way back, but it had a weird Buddhist Deadman thing happening. I should read more of his stuff, I know, but never felt too much inclination. Maybe he doesn't have enough short stories out there? I tend to prefer a writer with a solid short story.

Proulx is...um. I'd put her as a halfer. Half American and half Canadian, depending on where she's living. I think she's splendid but...grr. I find the whole question weird, actually. I'm not sure I'd put her at the top. The first section of the Shipping News was really great but after that it lost me...

Whisky Priestess

00:56 / 03.03.07

Now, before I make any further suggestions in this thread, can anyone tell me whether Lee Child ought to be considered an English or an American author?

miss wonderstarr

07:12 / 03.03.07

I believe he's English living in America, so I'm not sure about that one.

I would say Britain's best wordsmith was Martin Amis. I don't think he's actually great (anymore, perhaps) at the business of plot, character and basic storytelling that makes you a novelist, but even a single book like Money or London Fields is just a supernova of incredible language.

Actually, though I find him patchy, I don't think there are strong contenders against McEwan for Britain's best novelist. Entirely unlike Amis, he seems to study and love the craft of the novel in terms of structure and story.

Again, though he is patchy, I think Updike's Rabbit... quartet or whatever you call it (quadrilogy?) makes a very strong case for him as greatest American novelist.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

00:48 / 04.03.07

I believe he's English living in America, so I'm not sure about that one.

England always seems to claim Eliot (TS, not George). I reckon the best bet on that one is wait until he dies and see where he's buried. Like dusting off and nuking the site from orbit, in terms of ways to be sure, I reckon.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

00:51 / 04.03.07

Seriously, though, wordsmithery-wise, I'd say Iain Sinclair. Every sentence is beautifully composed. People say he over-writes, and his prose is too dense, but look at a paragraph of his and tell me what you could remove without crippling it. He writes prose like a a poet, and to me (obviously YMMV) that's a wonderful thing.

16:18 / 04.03.07

Yeah, there's a case for 'Lights Out For The Territory' as greatest British novel of the 20th century, even if, strictly-speaking, it isn't one. If nothing else, I'm not sure if there was a better book about London.

Ian McEwan's reputation has to be a bit in question now, though. 'Atonement' was great, but I wonder if he shouldn't have been shot for 'Saturday' and the air of affluent mid-life self-satisfaction that hangs over the narrative like some sort of thick, toxic cloud. In a bad way, rather than an interesting one.

23:47 / 04.03.07

agreed. shoot him.

i was once in great hope that mcewan would be the next great thing. sadly, saturday. and really, i didn't rate atonement, or amsterdam, very highly either... c'est la vie.

miss wonderstarr

04:22 / 05.03.07

He writes prose like a a poet, and to me (obviously YMMV) that's a wonderful thing.

Briefly, I'm not sure about that. I don't think writing music lyrics like a poet, or writing novels like a playwright, or writing poems like a novelist, would be a wonderful thing. It would be using the wrong approach for the form, which might be interesting but wouldn't guarantee anything valuable. Your suggestion seems perhaps to imply that poetry is a higher form than prose.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

05:01 / 05.03.07

It would be using the wrong approach for the form, which might be interesting but wouldn't guarantee anything valuable. Your suggestion seems perhaps to imply that poetry is a higher form than prose.

Think of it as artisticated synthesthesia, maybe? Poetry isn't a higher form but taking lessons from its discipline and applying them to prose does wonders for a writer's sentences. And I'm not sure wrong approach is a helpful statement, either, Miss W - just a different approach and highly honourable. Taking the right approach to a form doesn't necessarily generate anything valuable either.

I've still be trying to get a handle on the "Greatest Canadian Author" as an idea, for the last few days. I stared at Davies's books in a second-hand shop today, couldn't be bothered. Ivan E. Coyote's doing some interesting stuff right now but ze's still in hir infancy.

I'm just not sure what the parameters are for "greatest." Largest number of books which captivate? Size of canon, period (in which case Joyce "I shit six stories before breakfast" Carol Oates wins the American slot, no?)? Critcal acclaim?

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