The three greatest living authors.
Apr. 26th, 2004 10:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davywavyA week or two ago I succumbed to the ‘ask me three questions’ meme. Most of the questions asked were fairly run of the mill and easily dismissed, but ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
twicedead threw me a proper curve ball: who, in my opinion (he asked) are the three greatest living authors?
This question is a complete bugger and a half, but I said I’d think about it and come back to it, and so I am.
The first problem with assessing living authors is that they aren’t dead. Dead ones are so much easier to assess as a body of work, because there’s no danger that they’re suddenly going to pop out another bestseller and throw out all your calculations. Living authors are harder to judge as a body of work because their body of work is often not finished, so how best to judge them? Any judgment is going to be highly objective and liable to change with what one has read recently and where ones sympathies lie on that particular afternoon.
It is a good deal easier to name the authors who aren’t the greatest living author. After discounting the likes of Amy Jenkins and Tom Holt without having to give their works the time of day, we can get down to the difficult part of winnowing the wheat further, and deciding who is and isn’t chaff.
A lot of authors start with a flash of genius – the book(s) that legend has it everybody has inside them – but then their later work fails to capitalize on this early promise and only disappoints in its shadow. Martin Amis, Joseph Heller, Gore Vidal, Ursula le Guin (have you read Tehanu? Dear, oh dear.*) Iain Banks, and Donna Tartt all fall into this category. Others only put out a very small body of work, meaning that a fair judgment is impossible. Does J.D. Salinger have any more good books in him? We don’t know, because he won’t let us see them, so we have to assume not. Yet others appear to start strongly, but are later discredited as happened to poor old Alex Haley.
It’s fairly likely we can discount any writer whose work has won a major literary prize, because it seems that winning major literary prizes is a case of doing the literary equivalent of furiously tap-dancing for votes (see The curious incident of the dog in the night-time, or The Famished Road, or The English Patient for examples of what I mean).
Once this process of winnowing is complete we’re left with a far shorter list, which mostly includes my favourite authors. Now, I’m not so arrogant as to assume that my favourite authors are the best ones, so out goes George MacDonald Fraser and a selection of others.
It doesn’t leave many left, and of those, the three I came down to as being the greatest living authors** are, in no particular order:
1) Umberto Eco.
Despite only having written one truly complete masterpiece (The Name of the Rose), the quality of Ecos work gives him the head over other authors whose quality might be better on individual works but overall is inferior. The Island of the Day Before is a little gem, let down only by a very weak and unconvincing last fifth, and Baudolino is head and shoulders above most works of literature until Eco degenerates into intellectual and scholarly one-upmanship by showing off his impressive erudition at the end.
2) Douglas Hofstadter
Genius is a word I fling about lightly, especially in relation to myself. However, real genius isn’t something one encounters much, and Hofstadter is the genuine article. I can only imagine him as like something out of Star trek – a giant pulsating brain, or a glowing ball of pure thought that has passed beyond the need for physical form. Godel, Escher, Bach is, without cavil, a work of genius which mere mortals such as I can only gaze at with an expression not dissimilar to how a cow chewing its cud might gaze at a flying saucer which has just landed in its field. Reading Metamagical Themas is like drinking a strong Port, or eating rich chocolate cake; there is only so much one can take before putting down the book, looking at the ceiling, and feeling like one has had rather more than is good for one day.
I don’t believe I have ever read a chapter of Hofstadter without having to reassess my world view in some way. Highly recommended.
3) Arthur C. Clarke
Unlike most authors, Clarke has a significant advantage in that when he writes about science and technology there is a fair chance that he has invented it, perfected it, and patented the idea first. Now a first-rate user of words, but in terms of his influence, and how he has used his literature to influence the word we live in, possibly unsurpassed.
So; I know that any sort of list like this is contentious, so I’m interested in your opinions and who you think are the three greatest living authors. Go on, fire away.
*Apparently Ursula le Guin is currently working on a fifth Earthsea book, which will demonstrate that female power really runs the world and all that male magic is superfluous to requirements.
In other news, Coming soon: A new sequel to Lord of the Rings explaining how it was Rosie Cotton who carried the Ring to the Crack of Doom and not that minor Frodo Baggins character.
** Ask me next week and get an entirely different three.
twicedead threw me a proper curve ball: who, in my opinion (he asked) are the three greatest living authors?This question is a complete bugger and a half, but I said I’d think about it and come back to it, and so I am.
The first problem with assessing living authors is that they aren’t dead. Dead ones are so much easier to assess as a body of work, because there’s no danger that they’re suddenly going to pop out another bestseller and throw out all your calculations. Living authors are harder to judge as a body of work because their body of work is often not finished, so how best to judge them? Any judgment is going to be highly objective and liable to change with what one has read recently and where ones sympathies lie on that particular afternoon.
It is a good deal easier to name the authors who aren’t the greatest living author. After discounting the likes of Amy Jenkins and Tom Holt without having to give their works the time of day, we can get down to the difficult part of winnowing the wheat further, and deciding who is and isn’t chaff.
A lot of authors start with a flash of genius – the book(s) that legend has it everybody has inside them – but then their later work fails to capitalize on this early promise and only disappoints in its shadow. Martin Amis, Joseph Heller, Gore Vidal, Ursula le Guin (have you read Tehanu? Dear, oh dear.*) Iain Banks, and Donna Tartt all fall into this category. Others only put out a very small body of work, meaning that a fair judgment is impossible. Does J.D. Salinger have any more good books in him? We don’t know, because he won’t let us see them, so we have to assume not. Yet others appear to start strongly, but are later discredited as happened to poor old Alex Haley.
It’s fairly likely we can discount any writer whose work has won a major literary prize, because it seems that winning major literary prizes is a case of doing the literary equivalent of furiously tap-dancing for votes (see The curious incident of the dog in the night-time, or The Famished Road, or The English Patient for examples of what I mean).
Once this process of winnowing is complete we’re left with a far shorter list, which mostly includes my favourite authors. Now, I’m not so arrogant as to assume that my favourite authors are the best ones, so out goes George MacDonald Fraser and a selection of others.
It doesn’t leave many left, and of those, the three I came down to as being the greatest living authors** are, in no particular order:
1) Umberto Eco.
Despite only having written one truly complete masterpiece (The Name of the Rose), the quality of Ecos work gives him the head over other authors whose quality might be better on individual works but overall is inferior. The Island of the Day Before is a little gem, let down only by a very weak and unconvincing last fifth, and Baudolino is head and shoulders above most works of literature until Eco degenerates into intellectual and scholarly one-upmanship by showing off his impressive erudition at the end.
2) Douglas Hofstadter
Genius is a word I fling about lightly, especially in relation to myself. However, real genius isn’t something one encounters much, and Hofstadter is the genuine article. I can only imagine him as like something out of Star trek – a giant pulsating brain, or a glowing ball of pure thought that has passed beyond the need for physical form. Godel, Escher, Bach is, without cavil, a work of genius which mere mortals such as I can only gaze at with an expression not dissimilar to how a cow chewing its cud might gaze at a flying saucer which has just landed in its field. Reading Metamagical Themas is like drinking a strong Port, or eating rich chocolate cake; there is only so much one can take before putting down the book, looking at the ceiling, and feeling like one has had rather more than is good for one day.
I don’t believe I have ever read a chapter of Hofstadter without having to reassess my world view in some way. Highly recommended.
3) Arthur C. Clarke
Unlike most authors, Clarke has a significant advantage in that when he writes about science and technology there is a fair chance that he has invented it, perfected it, and patented the idea first. Now a first-rate user of words, but in terms of his influence, and how he has used his literature to influence the word we live in, possibly unsurpassed.
So; I know that any sort of list like this is contentious, so I’m interested in your opinions and who you think are the three greatest living authors. Go on, fire away.
*Apparently Ursula le Guin is currently working on a fifth Earthsea book, which will demonstrate that female power really runs the world and all that male magic is superfluous to requirements.
In other news, Coming soon: A new sequel to Lord of the Rings explaining how it was Rosie Cotton who carried the Ring to the Crack of Doom and not that minor Frodo Baggins character.
** Ask me next week and get an entirely different three.
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no subject
Date: 2004-04-26 03:49 pm (UTC)Well, it's always good to know that people read Hofstadter.
I'd have to disagree about Clarke. Also I am not convinced that Iain Banks' earliest material was his best. Never been greatly struck by The Wasp Factory. I'm waiting for him to come up with something to compare with The Crow Road or Whit. That's why I buy his stuff the moment it gets into paperback. I live in hope. But, much as I enjoy his work, I don't think he's one of the three greatest living writers. If he was, his SF would be better.
A. S. Byatt I tend to buy in hardback because I can't wait for the paperbacks to emerge. I think I would have to class her as one of the 3 greatest.
I'm reading the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night at the moment. Started it this morning and am rather enjoying it. I adored the Life of Pi and am not yet sure why I'm thinking of the two books in the same breath (since the latter is indisputably better in every possible way).
I would have said Sam Delany but I have been re-reading recently and am noticing much awkwardness. Gaiman is at least close to being as good.
So, apart from A. S. Byatt.... Eco is certainly a strong contender.
Salman Rushdie. A writer who is actually as good as his hype.
Still having problems with the third. Doris Lessing, though I am not very tempted to read her most recent work. Still, for someone so prolific, she has written a lot that is very good.
So, Byatt, Rushdie and, in third place, a tie between Delany and Lessing.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 01:32 am (UTC)Whit and The Crow Road were amongst his weakest (although not as bad as Excression).
I've always disliked the showboating of his undeniable cleverness that Delaney indulges in.
Life of Pi was indeed a cracking book, but I don't think that one can call someone one of the greatest writers on the basis of one book.
Rushdie is just a brand and not a writer, I feel.
Not read any Byatt or lEssing, so can't comment.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 02:20 am (UTC)Are we thinking of the same writer?
Some of the coprophagia gets to me occasionally. Cleverness, no.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 02:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 02:36 am (UTC)I was confused because the other Delaney (the one who writes comics, who I also like) has an 'e' and Sam Delany doesn't.