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Memorable Authors
Dimmukane:
Maybe Asimov??? He has books in almost every section of the Dewey Decimal system. I mean, there are some writers who can be compared to classical authors, but I haven't seen any compare to Shakespeare. Vonnegut is kinda like Swift, Asimov/Heinlein/Clarke are kinda like Verne/Wells, but I can't really think of a good comparison to Shakespeare. Wouldn't they have to be a playwright/poet, anyways? How many of those do we have now.
MusicScribbles:
The big comparison I'm making is that Shakespeare is basically the go to for, as Harold Bloom would say, the 'invention of the human'. Shakespeare--whether or not he was Sir Francis Bacon--is considered to have written in the greatest examples of the English language, or used it the most beautifully. Now, my question is whether or not our time might have a writer of any kind whose influence is not seen for what it is now, but will be remembered hundreds of years from now as extremely genius as Shakespeare. This person does not need to be a playwright or poet, but that doesn't mean that they can't be. A requirement must be simply, absolutely timeless writing.
My vote goes with Philip K. Dick. This is mostly because I'm having trouble remembering all of my favorite authors. Remember that the sixties can still be considered a part of our time, considering the span of time in which Shakespeare was unrecognized. I would have liked to say, potentially Neil Gaiman, because I feel that if he continues for a while, his material might become such that much greater. Also, I say Dick because we need a sci-fi Shakespeare.
Thoughts? Personal nominations? Should this be a seperate thread?
Johnny C:
--- Quote from: KharBevNor on 06 Dec 2007, 11:41 ---Also, on the subject of genre fiction, raised earlier, I would like to enquire why someone who only (or mainly) reads genre fiction (sci-fi, fantasy, horror, historical, war, detective, thriller) is so easy to criticise, but someone who never reads genre fiction is alright.
Science fiction, I would argue, has been the most important literary genre in the second half of the twentieth century, for many reasons. This is not just my own geekery talking. It has shaped our cultural discourse and attitudes to technology and its social and personal ramifications in ways no other genre has. Information technology, the internet, surveillance, conspicuous consumption, the war on drugs, the war on terror: science fiction wrote about them first and best.
--- End quote ---
Genre fiction can be decent and science fiction and fantasy both have an awful lot to offer, and they've proven this over and over again. Besides Asimov and Heinlein ther are a bunch of authors in the genre who've created great works.
But there are some brilliant people out there writing fucking incredible books that don't come with their own little genre stickers at the library and it always pisses me off to hear people ramble on about how brilliant Clive Cussler is and nobody has the taste to mention Jonathan Lethem or Michael Chabon or Mordecai Richler or Timothy Findley. Hell, since we're largely ignoring the "of the last thirty years" bit, where the fuck are Henry Miller and Charles Bukowsk and Vladimir Nabokov and Joseph Heller (and yes I know most of his stuff was released in the last thirty years)? At the end of the day these people have written masterpieces - in some cases, multiple masterpieces - and they don't get the recognition they deserve for breathing new, beautiful life into thousands of tired words.
I'd also like to meet these people that don't read any genre fiction ever. I personally don't know any of them. I do know plenty of people who only read genre fiction and series fiction.
EDIT: I forgot "be." "Science fiction can decent." AWESOME.
Tom:
Sci-fiction and fantasy provide a wide array of tools and accessible to themes to explore topics that my be considered taboo, Animal Farm through political allegory, or are just hard to cope with.
Johnny C:
Yeah, I know.
--- Quote from: Johnny C on 07 Dec 2007, 12:27 ---science fiction and fantasy both have an awful lot to offer
--- End quote ---
What I'm suggesting is there is so much out there that isn't science fiction that is good literature.
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