BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
This is an archived site closed to new users and posts
If you'd like to find out more read the FAQ


Greatest living writer

 
  

Page: 1(2)

 
 
miss wonderstarr
06:25 / 05.03.07
Sure, "wrong approach" is the wrong approach to apply to a discussion of writing. To write prose like a poet could certainly be interesting. I wouldn't see it as any guarantor of good prose, though, because I think the poem and the novel are very different forms. I was probably a bit quick to respond because I think there's a common idea that poetry is "better" than prose ~ purer, tighter, more difficult ~ and a consequent assumption that to write prose in a poetic way would be to elevate the former through association with the latter.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
14:50 / 05.03.07
I was probably a bit quick to respond because I think there's a common idea that poetry is "better" than prose ~ purer, tighter, more difficult ~ and a consequent assumption that to write prose in a poetic way would be to elevate the former through association with the latter.

I can see what you're saying but I think that "common idea" is some leftover from a days when fictional prose was younger and more people actually read poetry - and exists only as an undercurrent, maybe. I tend to associate "poetic" - when used as an adjective for prose - with a certain musicality and rhythms that don't normally show up in the works of, say, Ernest "Just The Facts" Hemingway.

Which is a bit of a red herring because his prose is poetic too.

I wouldn't see it as any guarantor of good prose, though, because I think the poem and the novel are very different forms.

Ah, but a fair amount of schlock has been produced using a prose-specific (?) approach, so that's not much of a guarantee, either.
 
 
astrojax69
00:47 / 06.03.07
'artisticated', papers?

word of the day, then?? or another bushism!! ;) love it...

(mebbe we need a thread for these?)
 
 
Scarlett_156
18:04 / 12.03.07
Jack Vance is one of the best writers of english prose ever. As far as british writers are concerned, I would have to say Doris Lessing-- although I have to be in the right mood to read her stuff, it usually ends up making me feel very depressed.
 
 
penitentvandal
07:53 / 13.03.07
Four words:

'Hawksmoor, from the bleed.'
 
 
Eli
05:28 / 14.03.07
I was just about to mention Jack Vance. Maybe it makes me a philistine, but damn, I wish I knew English like that.

I did enjoy Vernon God Little quite a bit. I've avoided Annie Proulx, Cormac McCarthy, and their ilk, in part because I (perhaps) took B.R. Myers's bit in the Atlantic a bit too seriously, and in part due to an encounter with an overzealous McCarthy enthusiast.
 
  

Page: 1(2)