who are the best american writer/novelist?

[Walt Liquor]

GRRM!!!!!!!!!

The GOAT.

Good work Piggy and Lowkey

[StarshipTrooper]

Melville? Seriously!? Without a doubt Moby Dick is the absolute worst thing I have ever read. I mean Catcher in the Rye was shit but at least it had the good grace to be short. Moby Dick was a monstrous rambling jumble of wordiness that certainly captured the essence of sitting in a whaling vessel for months on end with nothing to do. What a bag of turds.

That's a cultural thing. Americans can say the same thing about Dickens (wrongly I believe): A massive rambling jumble of wordiness that certainly captures the essence of life sucking in Victorian Britain.

Poet

[New England]

Melville? Seriously!? Without a doubt Moby Dick is the absolute worst thing I have ever read. I mean Catcher in the Rye was shit but at least it had the good grace to be short. Moby Dick was a monstrous rambling jumble of wordiness that certainly captured the essence of sitting in a whaling vessel for months on end with nothing to do. What a bag of turds.

i figured a man who hates everything would identify heavily with the whale killing lot on the pequod


let piggy beware of piggy.

[Danny Gunz]

Strong lack of Cormac Mccarthy in this thread

[res]

Like the Faulkner pick.

[TredKiller]

He's a bad author. Bad. His writing is terrible.

Ever watch Garth Marenghi's Dark Place? The character is based on Stephen King.

thats a FORCE lol

the green mile
under a dome
stand
shinning
salems lot
duma key
exc exc.

written some of the most twisting story plots in history imo

[NEETzsche]

That's a cultural thing. Americans can say the same thing about Dickens (wrongly I believe): A massive rambling jumble of wordiness that certainly captures the essence of life sucking in Victorian Britain.

Poet

tbf melville is a completely different kettle of fish to dickens. dickens would be indistinguishable from every other victorian melodramatist if it weren't for a knack for quirky characters and a socialist stick up his arse. it is good quality plot-driven narrative fiction and nothing more. moby-dick, on the other hand, is timeless; it's not something you read but something you live. it has more in common with paradise lost than great expectations.

"bartleby the scrivener" and "billy budd" are classics in their own right, too.

[NEETzsche]

thats a FORCE lol

the green mile
under a dome
stand
shinning
salems lot
duma key
exc exc.

written some of the most twisting story plots in history imo

i read it once. i enjoyed the first third, it was creepy and seemed to be leading somewhere interesting, but then the pacing just ground to a standstill and the plot seemed to completely fizzle out . . . that is, until the child orgy. suffice it to say i've not bothered checking out any of his other work.

[Drunken Cat]

Hunter S. Thompson hasn't been mentioned. He's one to check out.

[StarshipTrooper]

tbf melville is a completely different kettle of fish to dickens. dickens would be indistinguishable from every other victorian melodramatist if it weren't for a knack for quirky characters and a socialist stick up his arse. it is good quality plot-driven narrative fiction and nothing more. moby-dick, on the other hand, is timeless; it's not something you read but something you live. it has more in common with paradise lost than great expectations.

"bartleby the scrivener" and "billy budd" are classics in their own right, too.

Bear in mind I appreciate both Melville and Dickens. I'm just pointing out how the perceptions of them can be culturally driven

Poet