>>7380610
Roth or Pynchon from what i've read, but what the fuck do i know i havent read most of them.
>>7380610
>>7380610
Continental or US?
Le Guin or Anne Carson.
>>7380612
>Pynchon
Oh. He's still alive?
>>7380621
>women
No.
>>7380610
mccarthy
>>7380629
Tranny, please.
>>7380621
>le guin
Jesus christ
>>7380610
Pynchon by a wide margin.
>>7380610
Jesus
George RR Martin :^)
>>7380621
Carson is very canadian my dude. Also, no.
>>7380761
This is why I asked for qualifications and gave a second answer. Continental America; Carson. USofA; Le Guin.
Has it been thirty years since we last heard form Pynchon? Does he even like writing anymore?
>>7380769
Bleeding Edge
>>7380769
Keep up, Grandpa. Pynchon has written three novels in the last decade, one of them being one of the best novels of the century.
>>7380771
OH. I do see the title around here. Never looked. Sorry.
>>7380769
the guy in the room who waits with bated breath for a reply from a bunch of strangers on an image board instead of doing a cursory google search,
im not even calling you out it just seems odd
Against the Day is a really overlooked novel. I'd consider it equal to The Crying of Lot 49. Pynchon has 5 masterpieces and a few more decent novels under his belt. He's somehow underrated. I don't get how people don't think of him as up there with Joyce and Proust and Shakespeare.
>>7380779
>one of them being one of the best novels of the century.
These people can't be serious !?
>>7380799
Ehh, I love Pynchon (not exaggerating), but I think that his genius is different from Joyce's and Proust's and Shakespeare's.
>>7380792
I'm just not interested in him is all. No offense intended.
OP asks a valuative question and I gave my answer. "No" Yes, anon.
Just take it as a recommendation.
>>7380811
Nigga, Against the Day is fantastic.
>>7380799
He's underrated because most people can't sit through a Pynchon novel in one go. He's brilliant if you get it, if not then he just flies way over your head.
No Delillo? I am dissapointed
Hardy Boys author
Me, but you guys will never guess
>>7380950
Roth pls go. You're too old for 4chan
>>7380621
wut
/thread
>>7380621
Anne Carson is completely fantastic.
This question is easy: Edward Albee
Annie Dillard, obviously.
Might've gone for Roth; but just saw the news. :(
No love for Ashbery or Merwin?
Gass, McElroy, Coover, Ford and Dixon are all worthy of consideration too, as would be Salter and Doctorow if they hadn't died this year.
>>7382576
Basically this
>>7382576
America includes Canada.
>>7382576
I guess almost everyone consider Roth and Pynchon.
Oddly enough none of them won the Nobel Prize.
I wonder why
OP here. I'm Brazilian (which is also on America), but I meant US only.
>>7382764
>Barth
Wow, I didn't realise he was still alive.
Gene Wolfe desu
>>7382576
You forgot Gass and McElroy.
>>7382764
>Then so does all of Central America
No way. Culturally, Canada is nearly identical to the US. Central America is very different.
>>7382635
>>7382764
Gass just came out with another collection if novellas, pretty insane to be publishing at 91.
As for McElroy, his piece on 'Water' has been gestating for like 12 years now, it better be amazing.
Anyone have any recs on where to start with Vollman? I've got Imperial, Dying Grass, and Europe Central all sitting unread. I've read Kissing the Mask and loved it.
Ben Lerner is one novel away from being considered the best american and contemporary writer.* Mark my words.
*and 80% of lit have not read him yet
I am.
>>7383989
Hi Papa Pynchon. :)
>>7383936
>only one Wolfe post ITT
what's happening to /lit/?
>>7383989
>greatest American living writer writes Sci-fi and Fantasy
I find Wolfe great, he only loses for Herbert and Tolkien IMO in his realm, but I don't think we can consider a genre fiction writer so good.
>>7383981
He's alright, but
>American writer who lives in a big city writes about a writer's struggles
nooo thank you
Stephen king
>>7380769
>Does he even like writing anymore?
Against the Day is a masterpiece you troll
>>7382576
ishmael reed,
no toni
plz at least consider
If poets can be included, Cynthia Huntington no doubt
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/245092
>>7382576
>>7382635
Ashberry is the clear leader in poetry, and Morrison and Pynchon would have to mud wrestle for the title in prose.
It's not really a point worth arguing though. Anyone considered the best alive is bound to have their best works behind them. Why make a distinction for the old writers who haven't died yet?
>Why make a distinction for the old writers who haven't died yet?
BecauseThose who haven't died yet can still give us some great works
Roth's gonna die tomorrow. You heard it here first.
>>7380828
You ask any real writer and DeLillo's their answer. DFW said so in an interview some years back. Also--Franzen is very underrated on this board
>>7384234
Unlikely though. Will Ashberry produce anything significant in the next few years?
>>7384275
Eesh, if I made a list Franzen wouldn't be any higher than 40. His writing seems so lifeless and calculated to have people who haven't read much think he's "great."
DeLillo should certainly be up there though.
>>7384275
>REAL writers only
>fucking Franzen
>>7382576
>Toni Morrison
>Ursula K Le Guin
>Phillip Roth
just stop
![Cvk10ngl6A4uX1mRO6b2fDzfyWTgbe9L8wEuT9OHczh--YRFsLSW8_pwlC_olnvA3jXlvYaRIH6w1Fe_rJx_F71In5xxXlWP9RD6rtxRVwd8tCeZFv4[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/9TLPFrc.jpg "Cvk10ngl6A4uX1mRO6b2fDzfyWTgbe9L8wEuT9OHczh--YRFsLSW8_pwlC_olnvA3jXlvYaRIH6w1Fe_rJx_F71In5xxXlWP9RD6rtxRVwd8tCeZFv4[1].jpg")
>>7384275
>DFW is the arbiter of good writing
>he's a real writer
>because DFW loved to rip off DeLillo, DeLillo is the greatest American writer alive
No.
>>7384379
Not everybody solipsistically circlejerks over their obscure tastes, anon. Popularity doesn't discount merit.
>>7383950
Barth and Vollmann, too :(
>>7384201
I've actually heard good things about Mumbo Jumbo. Bloom praises it, so it can't be terrible. Any thoughts?Also, I don't actually enjoy Toni Morrison's work all that much, but as wannabe literati, it's our job to acknowledge her work and its place in the canon. Realistically, her writing has probably been far more widely read than the majority of writers mentioned here, even Pynchon.
>>7384379
>black
>woman
>jew
Either you're a bigot or have shit taste. Portnoy's Complaint is fucking hilarious. Morrison might not be everyone's cup of tea but the woman can still weave a beautiful and harrowing tale of oppression like none other. And Left Hand of Darkness (something I'm sure you're very familiar with despite not having read the book) didn't win the two biggest science fiction lit awards for nothing, no matter how much you try to argue "rewards determine nothing, literature is subjective, jimbobimboflambo."
>>7384229
And ironically, I agree. The rank of artists is a fruitless high-rise, indeedy.
>>7384741
I'd argue Morrison's strength isn't her ability to describe bitter political situations, but the way she genuinely loves her characters. There's a lot of joy and wonder in her most gruesome scenes, and that's because she believes in their reality.
She can also write a disgustingly good sentence when you least expect it.
>>7384118
Why not? McCarthy writes Westerns. Why can't a genre writer be the greatest writer alive in America?
I think Wolfe has a powerful case for it. I certainly prefer him to a lot of modern writers. I fucking prefer him to Franzen and DeLillio, definitely.
>>7382731
>Taking any literary award seriously (besides the NBA).
>>7380610
Wolfe, to be completely honest, pater familias.
>>7384782
true that anon, true that
You guys just don't fucking get it. Jesus. I mean, how can so many people posing to be so many things get so much so wrong so often and so completely implausibly? I just can't even begin to grasp the grease soaked truth that is all of your undeniable pads of intellectual shoulder meat that you braise in the overly reductive bourdelaise sauce stirred by nature's nefarious specter of gloom and his sommelier buddy George who's just here for the weekend.
I mean, FUCK. You guys just think that you're all the tartest in the smarties bag don't cha? Just the shiniest scalp at the old people's home? Just the wettest pair of panties at church, huh? The deadest joke ITT, yeah?
Well You've got at least one other thing coming your way from my way that you didn't see coming your way cuz they call me Nighthawk.
Remember that name.
Nighthawk will strike with his [my] tumescent talons, my scalpael sharp talons of justice and pugnity, forged from Haepheastean steel and made with the finest oils made from God's most delicous of fish in the clearest sea on the shore with the most beautiful Brazilian women who you can't even really tell have had kids because for some reason that skin just snaps back like a fresh leathercowhide rubber band made of the freshes mozambiquean rubber (that's where they get the gest rubber).
NIGHTHAWK: prowler of truth and sanctifier.
>>7384741
had no idea barth was still alive
Some names that haven't been mentioned:
N. Scott Momaday
Louise Erdrich
Marilynne Robinson
Lorrie Moore
Lydia Davis
Ann Beattie
Joy Williams
Diane Williams
George Saunders
Richard Powers
Denis Johnson
>>7384392
He is a memer, just ignore.
From what I've read Gene Wolfe by a large margin.
>>7383999
It's ok, I posted it too just now.
>>7385720
Thank you for this list. Where to start? What do you recommend?
>Of American novelists, Harold Bloom declared in 2003 that "there are four living American novelists I know of who are still at work and who deserve our praise". He claimed that "they write the Style of our Age, each has composed canonical works," and he identified them as Thomas Pynchon, Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, and Don DeLillo. He named their strongest works as, respectively, Gravity's Rainbow, The Crying of Lot 49 and Mason & Dixon; American Pastoral and Sabbath's Theater; Blood Meridian; and Underworld. He has added to this estimate the work of John Crowley, with special interest in his Aegypt Sequence and novel Little, Big saying that "only a handful of living writers in English can equal him as a stylist, and most of them are poets ... only Philip Roth consistently writes on Crowley's level".
>>7385887
Housekeeping, Chilly Scenes of Winter, Jesus' Son and House Made of Dawn.
>>7384379
>implying Roth isn't the objective answer for this thread
This meme really needs to die. It's indeed /lit/'s worst meme, and it's making this board even more plebeian.
1 roth
2 pynchon
3 Wolfe
4 delillo
5McCarthy
Niggers, kikes and genre fiction writers.
>>7384741
pynchon is pretty much unknown outside america
>>7387540
Just here to let you know that your Dad nation likes him too.
>>7385720
goodtaste.jpeg
>>7380610
My top five, off the top of my head, would be:
Coetzee
Erdrich
McCarthy
Morrison
Vollmann
But that might change tomorrow
honestly, and imo, I feel as if delillo takes himself farrr too seriously in most of his works to be a proper contender for "greatest american writer alive" (however much i think that that phrase is both horrible and horribly written)
>>7384223
Pretty good.
>>7387597
>Coetzee
>American
has anyone read this Adam Johnson fella?
>>7380610
>alive
me
/thread
g2bed
>>7380828
His next novel comes out in May.
in terms of posterity, think McCarthy is a lock. His output combines:
The critically acclaimed aesthetic 'masterpiece'
An Oprah bestseller
A book taught in schools (All The Pretty Horses)
An academy award winning film
What is happening tomorrow? Many people have said something about something tomorrow in this thread.
Roth died like two years ago you fucking dumbasses
>>7387631
My B no joke thought it was generic that said a few others in this thread just got btfo
>>7387941
No he didn't. If this is a meme, it isn't funny. Don't post in this thread again.
>>7387913
Roth is dying tomorrow
For my money, and from what I've read, I'd choose McCarthy. I used to think Pynchon was untouchable, but then I read Blood Meridian. I can't think of a a better American novel. (If we look at literature from a purely aesthetic perspective, I think McCarthy looks even better. His prose is untouchable.)
Haven't read Roth, so I can't comment on him, sadly. He's on my list, though.
Also, Morrison is better than people in this thread are giving her credit for. Beloved is a tremendous book, and not at all what I expected. It lives up to the hype, and that's saying something.
>>7388084
WTF are you trying to say?
>>7380610
franzen and danielewski
>>7382635
Bumping for good post with good taste.
Ashbery might be the best out right now.
If an American was to win the Nobel prize next year I'm almost certain that it'd be Albee, Ashbery or Roth. And of course Morrison has already won it.
America is too insular and ignorant to challenge Europe as the center of the literary world.
>>7388109
Roth is dying tomorrow
>>7382635
Patrician detected. Feel good about yourself.
Jean Woolf, the great black wiccan lesbian urban vaginal fantasy author.
>>7380610
Terrance Hayes
>>7380610
Joyce Carol Oates
>>7390470
Sadly this is true.
>>7384741
>Portnoy's Complaint is fucking hilarious
humor has evolved since 50 years ago dude, it wasn't funny at all
>le jewish masturbation novel
>>7390538
>humor has evolved since 50 years ago dude
I bet you watch Family Guy.
>>7384852
>pater familias
>his flaunts his Latin but it's grammatically incorrect
>>7389713
>Nobel
The nobel in the past 30-50 years has specifically been given to writers of obscurity, mostly foreign writers the world is not acquainted with and THEN upon receiving the Nobel translators are basically forced to start translating and or spreading their books globally to reach a wider audience. This is what the prize is for.
/lit/ is retarded though and we still seem to have a thread every year circlejerking about why Pinecone or DFW didn't win. It's because they're already globally well known and widely translated
>>7390564
nope and nope, sounds like you're just autistic and or Jewish and thought that niche brand of "humor" was generalizable to normal people in 2015
>>7390598
>mostly foreign writers
>>7390601
surely you aren't retarded and know what I meant
>>7390626
I do, but tell me anyway.
>>7390598
>The nobel in the past 30-50 years has specifically been given to writers of obscurity, mostly foreign writers the world is not acquainted with and THEN upon receiving the Nobel translators are basically forced to start translating and or spreading their books globally to reach a wider audience. This is what the prize is for.
That's not true.
>>7389713
Why not Pynchon?
Technically, Alice Munro is American.
f...r..a...n...z....e...n
>>7392038
Is he that good? That he deserves that stretch?
>>7392060
franzen is thef trollope of our time.
>>7392067
so he's a copycat?
>>7390600
You're talking to the wrong person.
>>7385952
Thank you. Much appreciated.
