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Is there any living author who can be considered a GOAT?

SoundCheck

SoundCheck

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
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So I was thinking about the some of the important writers who have died in recent years and I began to wonder if there are any living author who can be considered one of the greatest of all time. On the same level as Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Garcia Marquez, Hemingway etc ...

Toni Morrison, Vargas Llosa, Ishiguro and Kundera are great but aren't on the same level as the others cited above.

I never read Murakami so I can't speak about his work. Is there anyone alive that can be considered a GOAT?

(Also, yes, I need book recommendations)
 

Deleted member 8861

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Oct 26, 2017
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More than a year ago I would've said Le Guin. :(

Murakami is nice but I'm starting to feel that his output is more geared towards a particular audience and isn't a more generally resonant work.
 
daft_cat

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Murakami carries on the magical realism torch from Garcia Marquez. Hard to say where his legacy will fall, but his major works make him worthy of discussion amongst the GOAT.

Cormac McCarthy is up there with novels like Blood Meridian and Suttree.

Pynchon with behemoths like Gravity's Rainbow.

Don Delilo (Underworld, White Noise).

Was going to suggest Philip Roth but google informs me he died last May. Shame.

And of course David Foster Wallace should be here as well, but... well, fuck depression.
 

Deleted member 11113

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I would definitely put Morrison on the same list as the authors you mentioned, and I'd add Cormac McCarthy.
 
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SoundCheck

SoundCheck

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
2,489
Oh yeah I still need to read something from McCarthy. I will read The Road next week then. Thanks for remembering me era.
 
daft_cat

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Funyarinpa said:
More than a year ago I would've said Le Guin. :(

Murakami is nice but I'm starting to feel that his output is more geared towards a particular audience and isn't a more generally resonant work.
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His later output is good, but also a little derivative of his earlier, better novels. Wind-Up Bird Chronicle in particular. I think the widespread critical success of that one novel set a foundation that Murakami has worked within every since. As a result, many of his subsequent novels (like IQ84 and Killing Commedantore) have been more predictable in their strangeness. Even Colorless Tsukuru can be seen as an attempt at writing something a bit more grounded like Norwegian Wood, only not as good.

Still, with classics like Hard Boiled Wonderland and Kafka on the Shore (along with the two I just mentioned), he definitely belongs in the conversation. He's yet to have his true watershed moment here in the west, but I think appreciation for his work will only grow with time.

SoundCheck said:
Oh yeah I still need to read something from McCarthy. I will read The Road next week then. Thanks for remembering me era.
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Blood Meridian is probably my favourite novel and a great place to go next once you're finished with The Road. Not only does it have some of the most incredible prose I've ever read, but the character of the Judge is one of the greatest antagonists of all time. Think a more charismatic Anton Chigurh mixed with the devil himself.
 
Creatchee

Creatchee

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Oct 26, 2017
1,805
Sarasota, Florida
butalala said:
People are going to poo-poo this one, but I don't think you can deny that he's achieved remarkable things in his career. Certainly a GOAT in my book, whether you're talking literary or genre fiction.


This is a good answer too.
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It depends on if you are focusing on pure writing talent or ability to craft a world and a memorable and resonating story. King isn't as up there on a technical level in the first category as others are, but he is second to few if any in the latter two.
 
liquidtmd

liquidtmd

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Oct 28, 2017
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Alice Walker and Bret Easton Ellis in their respective fields are highly influential to me

Came to say King, whilst agreeing with Creatchee above

Quite partial to Bill Bryson in the travel category
 
daft_cat

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Creation_Scapes said:
No love for Stephen King?
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On the one hand, most of his work doesn't strive to be anything more than great genre fiction* (by his own admission). Yet at the same time, King basically is the genre. So it's kind of underselling his impact to dismiss his work entirely from the GOAT conversation. And to be fair, there are probably more people on the planet who would count King's novels amongst their favourites than any other author mentioned in this thread.

Still, whereas the work of strange fiction authors like Ligotti or Lovecraft operates on multiple levels, I think King is perfectly happy just to entertain his readers with his penchant for interesting characters and chilling scenarios.

*The Stand might be the one exception. I think that books operates on another level altogether.
 
H.Protagonist

H.Protagonist

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Oct 26, 2017
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Keldroc said:
A master at his craft would be better at endings than King is.
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Haha. I don't disagree with you exactly, but I don't think he's striving for perfection, just...enjoyment? Readability? Interesting things that evoke some kind of feeling in the reader be it horror or discomfort or macabre fascination, etc. And that he does excel at and delivers time and time again.
 
Grenouille

Grenouille

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Nov 26, 2017
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Are all these posts comparing Stephen "fast food" King to Dostoevsky and Tolstoy just trolling?
Btw I like King.
 
H.Protagonist

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Grenouille said:
Are all these posts comparing Stephen "fast food" King to Dostoevsky and Tolstoy just trolling?
Btw I like King.
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Stand By Me, The Shawshank Redemption , Carrie, Cujo, Pet Semetary, Salem's Lot, The Shining, Misery, Dolores Claiborne...fast food? C'mon. Yeah, not everything of his is brilliant or ties up neatly, but those are memorable. Great, even.
 
flook

flook

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Oct 28, 2017
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I need to read more McCarthy but what I've read has been excellent. (The Road and No Country)
For me its got to be Neal Stephenson.
 
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SoundCheck

SoundCheck

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
2,489
King is good, I love him, and he will be remembered forever, but I really think we can't put him on the same level as Tolstoi, Joyce etc.
 

Ravensmash

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Oct 25, 2017
8,797
From authors I've read, Gaiman has to be up there.

American Gods is epic.

And Cormac McCarthy: The Road, Child of God, and No Country for Old Men are superb.

I'd say Ishiguro for Never Let Me Go too.

Fuck, now I want to reread all of the above :(
 
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