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Thread: Who is your favourite writer and why? | This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · NEXT» |
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watcher83
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posted November 02, 2010 07:46 AM |
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Who is your favourite writer and why?
I for one just love Mario Vargas Llosa's work.I first discovered him a while ago (6 years?) while I was studying law, and just couldn't stop untill I read all his work ( which was translated into Romanian, since one novel and two other minor works haven't been), his novels are deep, funny, angry,... and give a complete image of what was life like at a certain point in time and space. From the addictive fun and criticism in Pantaleon y las visitadoras to the masterpiece that Conversacion en la Catedral is, I recommend him to everyone. According to the saying too little too late he won the nobel prize this year, which in my book means absolutely nothing.
Anyway... I'm curious to hear about your favourites, so pls do.
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AlexSpl
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posted November 02, 2010 08:33 AM |
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Edited by AlexSpl at 11:02, 02 Nov 2010.
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I like to read books by Kurt Vonnegut. His unique style of writing and excellent sense of humor, I liked them a lot when I was a student.
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JollyJoker
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posted November 02, 2010 09:41 AM |
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That changes a lot, doesn't it?
In my youth I read a lot of Science Fiction. Philip K. Dick, Norman Spinrad, Piers Anthony, Daniel F. Galouye would be my favorites.
Then came the time of Stephen King, and in that wake Clive Barker and Dean Koontz, even though Koontz got old fast.
I also liked Michael Crichton a lot.
I've always liked crime stuff.
Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett.
Rex Stout, James Hadley Chase, E.S. Gardner.
Of course the great Sjöwall/Wahlöö. Those I read in my youth.
Later on Ian Rankin.
Currently I think highly of Joe Abercrombie - over him I forgot the disappointing development that George Martin's saga of Ice and Fire took.
For serious fiction I admire Hubert Selby Jr. for his absolutely unompromising and radical style of writing which I find brilliant.
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Salamandre
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posted November 02, 2010 10:40 AM |
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Herman Hesse. Fabulous style and deep feeling about the human nature.
@JJ you are off top (I know you like sooo much to point it for others). It is about favorite writer, not what you've read in your life
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Doomforge
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posted November 02, 2010 10:43 AM |
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Vladimir Nabokov. I love his style and his humor.
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JollyJoker
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posted November 02, 2010 11:18 AM |
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Salamandre, the question after favorite writer oder musical artist makes no sense when you've read or heard things your whole life. It may look like a complete list of what I read, but isn't, not by far.
I have absolutely no idea, how people can come up with ONE favorite. For me, there is no such thing, and what's more, it CHANGES - necessarily so, since there's always new stuff coming.
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JoonasTo
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posted November 02, 2010 11:23 AM |
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Quote: I have absolutely no idea, how people can come up with ONE favorite. For me, there is no such thing, and what's more, it CHANGES - necessarily so, since there's always new stuff coming.
This
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Salamandre
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posted November 02, 2010 11:47 AM |
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JJ, there is a difference between curiosity, enjoying, and loving something. A favorite writer, a favorite composer, a favorite painter, it is common sense. It is the one who speaks directly to your heart, more than others. It may change, as you said, but there is still one you prefer among all. At least that's how it works with all people I know and myself.
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JollyJoker
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posted November 02, 2010 12:21 PM |
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What exactly are you trying to tell me?
That you have to have a favorite author that speaks directly to your heart more than everyone else and that that is common sense?
I wouldn't know about others and common sense - I just know that one artist cannot cover every direction, every style, every issue, every nuance, and I have rather varying interests, even more so over time.
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Salamandre
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posted November 02, 2010 12:23 PM |
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Right, you speak about interest and curiosity. When you will identify with one, you'll find your favorite.
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JollyJoker
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posted November 02, 2010 01:01 PM |
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Huh? Why would I identify with an author?
That's something kids do. When you grow up that changes.
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Salamandre
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posted November 02, 2010 01:23 PM |
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Identifying with an author means he answered the closest possible your questions, about who you are, what is your destiny, why you are alive, why you feel this and that. That's how a lot of people find their favorite artist.
Some enjoy art to satisfy their curiosity, other to get answers that they can't get elsewhere. There are hundred of styles and personalities, as you said, but one has to be closer to you. That's the one which you will need to return to, every time you are in doubt or simply because you lost faith.
In music, for me Bach is the one, for example. There are tens of music styles (not speaking about simplistic musics as rock, pop or whatever), but not all make me feel everything is harmoniously having a sense in the big design, as Bach does. And explaining what is this feeling would take some space, of top from this thread.
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JollyJoker
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posted November 02, 2010 01:48 PM |
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For me it's different.
It's not "the truth" I look for - something that comes closest to me.
Instead I try a lot and look what the artist may have to say, why, from what point of view and so on. With Bach, for example, I can appreciate the mathematical purity and clearness - however, with Mozart I can appreciate the playfulness and easy virtuosity. Depending on day and mood I'd prefer one about the other.
With book authors it's even more difficult. For example, I used to gobble up everything Phil Dick wrote, since his one big issue was the nature of (personal) reality and the uncertainty of it, and he packed that into very imaginative tales and scenarios. I found that quite interesting.
However, this is just one aspect.
When I read Raymond Chandler I relly loved his understated style of narration, his main character, the picture of the time he sketches and the complexity of his stories.
A completely different thing, and both very dear to me.
So, no, I cannot share your point of view. I don't even have an interest in finding a favorite.
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Salamandre
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posted November 02, 2010 01:52 PM |
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We are all different and artists as well, they are different. Hopefully everyone gets what he is looking for, the world art database is immensely rich.
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DagothGares
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posted November 02, 2010 02:23 PM |
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[totally inoring the previous discussion]
What I read is a bit average, usually I spend my time reading "the greats" and "the classics" and this has given me a pretty high tolerance of even authors of the realistic style of writing (you know who I mean: those turn-of-the-century authors who find the very fact that a table is made of mahogany infinitely more fascinating than, say, the fact that, hey, Mr. Hyde brutally killed a man with a cane!) Some are okay, though, like anything written by Alexandre Dumas Père, who was the pulp fiction writer of his time.
I also read awful literature, like Stephenie Meyer's inbred brainchildren and Austen's Pride and prejudice, which is so old-fashioned that I don't understand how anyone could like it.
So I don't have a lot of authors I love. There are authors I like, like Raymond E. Feist, Stephen King, Vladimir Nabokov and Orson Scott Card, but it hasn't happened a lot to me that I actually wanted to continue reading a book all the time until it was finished. However there is one author I always enjoy reading and that's K.J. Parker. It's hard to explain what I like so much about her. Well, her stories are entirely character-driven, has a special style of narration that I haven't encountered a lot, though some literary veterans probably have. It's a style in which the narrator takes on the perspective of a character, whil still descroibing that character in the 3rd person, as if that character is recounting the tale later and as if the character is not talking about himself. I really like that, because Parker employs this in such a way that the perspective of several charactes can be switched without necessarily having to change the style of narration (in "the escapement" a chapter ends through the POV of a captured soldier and the next chapter begins through the eyes of his interrogator).
Of course, this is all stylistic, but her stories have everything I want in content, as well. The engineer trilogy basically starts with the question: "Why do we do what we do?" and through a vast array of characters Parker comes up with several possible answers to this question (the most boring being of course "because it's the right thing to do.")
Parker is often classified as a writer of low fantasy, but doesn't need magic for plot devices and doesn't need other races to give the feeling of the uncanny. Oh, and of course it has fencers, because the measure of a story is the amount of fencers it contains.
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Corribus
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posted November 02, 2010 02:48 PM |
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I agree with JJ - hard to come up with a single favorite, even for a one genre. However, if I was standing in front of a firing squad and had to come up with an answer or die, I'd probably have to go with Dan Simmons.
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Lord_Woock
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posted November 02, 2010 03:25 PM |
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Pratchett I've read by far the most of, but Frank Herbert wrote my favorite book (the follow-up of which was a sordid disappointment).
Right now I'm finishing Ubik and have a craving for more Dick. Yeah, I know it sounds wrong, but what can you do.
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Ebonite
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posted November 02, 2010 04:01 PM |
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R.A Salvatore for me (always been a fan of fantasy fiction). His characters are great and love the way each fight scenes are described blow by blow - really gets you right into the story.
Been reading his books for years now and planning to restart the cleric quintet as soon as exams are over.
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JollyJoker
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posted November 02, 2010 04:05 PM |
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Doesn't sound wrong at all. Plus, he has written a lot which is great.
Moreover, he, as well as Stephen King, have made interesting contributions to the forlorn art of writing short stories.
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baklava
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posted November 02, 2010 04:51 PM |
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Stephenie Meyer of course.
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