I'm not sure if this question belongs in this part of the forum but I thought it might make for an interesting, and maybe a helpful discussion. Mods, please move it if necessary.
Are there any modern authors who's writing style makes your heart leap? I'm not talking about a favorite book or story; I'm talking about the writer's actual word or sentence structure and craftsmanship.
I would have to choose Anita Brookner and Wendell Berry. It takes me such a long time to get through one of their books. I have to keep stopping to re-read and savor a particular sentence or phrase over and over.
Someone said that when Anita Brookner speaks, her English is so exquisite and precise that you can actually hear each comma and semi-colon.
So, for those of us who need all the help we can get, who's writing would you recommend as an example of perfect English?
Hi Polly - I love Anita Brookner too. Also Ann Tyler - whose work reminds of Brookner's a bit. Discovered a couple new authors who knock me flat: Colum McCann, Irish guy, I'm reading Let the Great World Spin - an amazing book - can hardly put it down - his writing is incredibly intense, powerful. Also David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas - his most recent, an utterly amazing work. Totally different than anything I've read. These two guys just work differently with language, and reading them is like getting socked in the gut with meaning. Love Selma Jeter Naslund - Ahab's Wife. And for sheer writing chops - there's Annie Proulx; not to mention Annie Dillard.
Pat Conroy, Larry McMurtry, Gary Jennings, Stephen King. All great storytellers. Haven't dissected their writing, but I'm guessing if I did, they wouldn't win awards for prose and literary writing so much as being excellent communicators. Hmmn, maybe not. If I recall, Conroy's cookbook was a good read! Who reads cookbooks for fun? But he's a master.
Recently, my 3-year-old has been carrying around a James Clavell paperback off my bookshelf (he calls it his "sword book") and I keep thinking I need to re-read it. I enjoyed Ahab's Wife but it wasn't one that really sticks out in my mind as an all-time favorite. There was another literary book about a girl and a lighthouse that was beautifully written but I can't remember a thing about it other than it was beautifully written.
Magnus Mills - his books are so wonderfully weird, especially Three To See The King. And his prose is so straightforward, something I struggle with everyday! I also love Jose Saramago - his work is all run-on sentences and page long paragraphs, and there's not a single quotation mark in any of his books. Ed would scream in terror. But somehow, it works brilliantly. I highly recommend Death With Interruptions.
I always find that I write better when I'm reading the classics, Austen and Dickens especially. The more formal writing style rubs off on me. I think anyone trying to learn the ins and outs of the English language should start with the classics.
And Celeste, I happen to love reading cookbooks - especially the ones about dessert! But I also read The Origin of Species for fun, so maybe I'm not the best gauge for what's normal reading material
Robert Jordan (who also died a few years ago) and Tolkien. I never understand why it is so commonly believed that novels should be short, action-packed, not have too many characters, not have too much description, etc. Jordan, Tolkien and Rowling have probably the most sales of any and yet all are tomes that between them break all those "rules".
Tolkien is my favourite for his style of writing, though I do prefer something a little faster-paced at times. Currently I am re-reading the Belgariad. It's actually quite well written - something I did not appreciate when I read it the first time all those years ago.
I cannot get into popular mainstream novels (at least the ones I've tried). Dan Brown I did not like at all.
Barbara Kingsolver, Robin Hobb, Patrick Rothfuss, Jim Butcher (Fury series, not Dresden Files), John Twelve Hawks, David Sedaris, Johnathan Stroud (Bartameus Trilogy especially), Robin McKinley , just to name a few.
I've never read any of Patrick O'Brien's books but my Dad talks about them quite often. I'll have to check them out.
Two books that I particularly enjoyed that my friends just couldn't get into – presumably because of the unusual writing style- were, The Greenlanders by Jane Smiley, and an old book, Precious Bane by Mary Webb. I have an Icelandic friend and I could hear his voice throughout The Greenlanders. It amazed me that she could convey that Norse sentence structure so well. Precious Bane is written in the ancient dialect of the English county of Shropshire. You can almost smell the air of the countryside she describes.
Another more recent book which, to me, has a wonderful texture is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Dark but beautiful. Anyone else enjoyed it?
And yes, that should have been “whose” not “who's”. How embarrassing.
Stephanie Meyer: I admit I love the "fluff" of her writing. The Twilight series for me brought back memories of my own "OMG, I am SO in love with so-and-so and if he rejects my life is over!" feelings in high school. Yes, I know, vampires and werewolves, but beyond that I see an opportunity to escape to a time when who we were dating was the only real problem in our lives. Plus, to have the poise and grace to take some of the criticism handed to her? I would just die is Stephen King called me out as a terrible writer. Well maybe not, when was the last time Stephen wrote a romance novel?
Sophie Kinsella: It takes a real knack for hitting on a note of real life at a slightly uncomfortable volume for the reader yet keep them turning pages for more. The Shopaholic series reached me at a time in my life when I was giving up the "Rob Peter to pay Paul" lifestyle. And when I was in my third trimester re-reading Shopaholic and Baby? I laughed until I cried and nearly peed my pants about her friend's T-shirt design. What woman hasn't dealt with buying more than she wanted, hating her husband's work schedule, and being jealous over an old flame? Thankfully few of us act like Rebecca, but it doesn't mean in our fantasy worlds we don't all wish we could!
Jeffrey Archer: Sometimes all I have time for is a really good short story. The twists are always so neat, and the European settings challenge my American predispositions. I admire his writing, his criminal record and politics not so much.
Linda Berdoll: She takes fan fiction to an impossible extreme. Her continuations of Pride and Prejudice are like Jane Austen having a typewriter and living another 20 years. Who knew you could make 18th/ turn of the 19th century sex steamy? Ever woman should have a Mr. Darcy, that's all I'm saying.
Sorry, if you had asked me 3 years earlier this list would be completely different, far more academic. Today, I just want a book to entertain me. I spend too much time writing serious stuff.
I write fiction for young adult and midgrade readers, and the YA world is just filled with great stuff. Right off the top of my head, some great ones are The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, and Looking for Alaska by John Green.
Also like Truman by David McCullough, as well as any of President Truman's writings. He's one of the best.
Yes it is!! Glad to hear someone acknowledge that -- the point wasn't even brought up when I studied it in college. I was even tempted to write my paper on the humor in the book, but opted for another topic instead.
One thing I noticed, a little to my dismay, was that some of the humor seems to have been borrowed many years later by P.G. Wodehouse -- one of my all-time favorite authors. Anybody else notice that?
And continuing the discussion, another one of my faves is Iris Murdoch.
You know, 4rumid, I never realized that, but I read Wodehouse in high school and listened to Great Expectations last year on audiobook. I'll have to go back and take a look at Wodehouse in that light.
I have to say that when I read Wodehouse in high school, I despaired that I would never ever make a plot work out so perfectly the way he did. And what do you know, I still can't!
I forgot to mention Margaret Atwood, Graham Greene, A.S. Byatt...after these people it's really hard to settle for mediocre writing if I'm going to devote my precious time to a book. There is a lot of good literature out there though. I used to believe the Faulkner quote that you have to read the good and the bad so that you can learn the difference. But once you've read O'Brian and the like, it's hard to swallow writing that may as well be the novel adaptation of Pretty Woman or something like that
