Also, that Virginia Wolf was beautiful.
Posted on 07/18/2014 11:34:05 AM PDT by EveningStar
Interesting because I read Babbit a couple of years ago and was thinking of how similar politics and life are today as they were back in the 20's.
All my friends think I m crazy but I like Steinbeck. He had a major shift in politics after his kid was KIA in Nam.
You’re right. Among other things, Hemingway drove an ambulance for the Lincoln Brigade, as I remember.
Hemingway was a pig.
Some of these aren’t necessarily put-downs. Waugh’s “desperate jauntiness of an orchestra fiddling away for dear life on a sinking ship” was a quality he wanted in his prose and something Wilson appreciated. The remarks about Pound and Orwell catch aspects of their personality that might not have affected Stein’s or Connolly’s appreciation of their work. Also, why the long awkward quote from Wallace about Updike when “just a penis with a thesaurus” does the job so much better.
I suppose I should read more than one of the man’s books before dismissing him out of hand, but life is short. There are 100 years worth of back issues of Popular Science on Google Books that I haven’t gotten through yet. It could be awhile before I get around to “Of Mice and Men”.
“[A] hack writer who would not have been considered fourth rate in Europe, who tricked out a few of the old proven ‘sure fire’ literary skeletons with sufficient local color to intrigue the superficial and the lazy.” — William Faulkner
Only having read a few short stories by Faulkner, I tried one of his novels. Could not stand the schmaltzy prose. Faulkner does not stand the test of time like Twain does.
What Faulkner have you read? ‘Absalom, Absalom’ is the great American prose tragedy.
Great list,great fun.
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Faulkner is as big now as he ever was. He’s a huge influence on writers all over the world.
Other than that he was a ball sucking, self angrazing jerk looking for acceptance.
How about the short stories?
Truman Capote was a really weird little fellow but he sure could write.
I can’t read him, his style turns me off.
After visiting Faulkner’s home (Rowan Oak) in Mississippi, I read “Old Man”.
A few years earlier, I had seen the Hallmark Hall Of Fame movie version of “old Man”.
Now I completely understand that a movie and the book will never be the same thing - but my problem was that I couldn’t get into to rhytm of reading Faulkner. His writing style just wan’t for me.
He pretty much revolutionized English prose. All the pulp writers who came after him imitated him.
Besides being very entertaining, this article reminds me of just how competitive most these well known writers were. When all is said and done. they are but human, and don’t want to share the limelight too much. Today, such a list should include Anne Rice. and Steven King. Both very popular writers I tried to like, but found most their work almost “Proust-Like”, with endlessly entertwined monolouges spoken by somewhat disgusting Protaganists who elicited little empathy or sympathy from me. I was impressed with the stylization of their prose, some of it fine, flowery and florid. Nobody talks like that anymore, or if they do, it’s usually restricted to print form communique.
He created a diction like no other.
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