I think William Faulkner is a terrible writer.

[overcoming hope]

I started reading Sanctuary and I was blown away with what a crappy writer this man is. He describes eyes as "black rubber knobs" and he was so into this description that he brings it up a couple more times in a few pages.

black rubber knobs?

This guy writes like Dean Koontz.

and also Hemmingway is pretty crappy too.

that is all.

[Sepka]

I think Hemingway has to be one of the most over-rated writers ever. It amazes me how professors of literature roll over and piddle themselves whenever the man is mentioned. He writes like an unimaginative newspaperman, making no real effort to bring his settings or characters to life, simply restricting himself to 'He said X. Y happened'. He's interesting as a product of his times - the austerity of style, the simple stories, and the deliberate 'tough guy' persona certainly resonated with popular audiences in the Depression. As literature, though I can't understand how he's still taught as anything more than a footnote.

Faulkner does at least seem to be putting some effort into it, even if he's not quite hitting the mark.

[Eldritch]

I started reading Sanctuary and I was blown away with what a crappy writer this man is. He describes eyes as "black rubber knobs" and he was so into this description that he brings it up a couple more times in a few pages.

black rubber knobs?

This guy writes like Dean Koontz.

and also Hemmingway is pretty crappy too.

that is all.

Well, I won't comment here on whether these guys were "good" writers or not, but I will say this: they actually completed some things.

I know a lot of would-be writers that take it upon themselves to trash both the deserving and the undeserving—but have never finished a God-damned thing themselves.

In my no-account, humble opinion, those are the real "knobs."

[compared2what?]

Faulkner is not one of my personal favorites, but I wouldn't say he was a "bad" writer, stylistically. Sanctuary is a conscious exercise in pulp fiction, which he claimed to have written for money, though he may have been fronting in saying so. But it's actually the only book of his for which I have any real feeling. I recognize the virtuosity of his more characteristic Southern Gothic and/or ostentatiously complex stream-of-consciousness/fractal/multi-dimensional work -- as in [/i]The Sound and the Fury[/i] -- and admire it in a clinical kind of a way. But it leaves me cold.

Hemingway is not very dear to me either, but he was a genius on the level of skillz, in a writerly sense. If his work is read superficially, it might seem like there's no there there (owing to, you know, the minimalism). His work deals with stuff that's much more interesting to me than Faulkner's does, and while still not caring for it all that much, I am therefore more interested in it.

Liking or disliking Faulkner, imo, is a question of taste not quality. As for Hemingway, however little I myself enjoy or do not enjoy his writing -- and I don't enjoy it much -- seriously, anyone who really thinks that he didn't know how to write simply does not know how to read, or at least not on a level that's much more evolved than being technically literate. If doing the work necessary to distinguish between a flaw in one's own understanding of Hemingway and a flaw in Hemingway seems like more effort than it's worth, I recommend F. Scott Fitzgerald, where the reading is easy, and the deep thinking is both clearly visible and rarely more than an inch or two deep. (And some of whose writing I personally both enjoy and admire, I should say, in the spirit of giving respect where due.)

And....I guess that as long as we're flaming revered writers of fiction, I should take advantage of the opportunity to assert that if there has ever been a duller great novelist working in the English language than Henry James, I have not yet encountered him or her. But de gustibus non est disputandem. I understand that many people think very highly of him.



[/i]

[IanEye]

I should take advantage of the opportunity to assert that if there has ever been a duller great novelist working in the English language than Henry James, I have not yet encountered him or her.

[overcoming hope]

I started reading Sanctuary and I was blown away with what a crappy writer this man is. He describes eyes as "black rubber knobs" and he was so into this description that he brings it up a couple more times in a few pages.

black rubber knobs?

This guy writes like Dean Koontz.

and also Hemmingway is pretty crappy too.

that is all.

Well, I won't comment here on whether these guys were "good" writers or not, but I will say this: they actually completed some things.

I know a lot of would-be writers that take it upon themselves to trash both the deserving and the undeserving—but have never finished a God-damned thing themselves.

In my no-account, humble opinion, those are the real "knobs."

then having an opinion about published authors is out? I applaud Faulkner for getting published, but I found sanctuary laughable.

[barracuda]

I hold a mild dislike for Faulkner, and yet he holds a place in my heart for his great screen adaptations. He wrote (or was a principle writer on) the screenplays for the Howard Hawks versions of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep and Hemmingway's To Have and Have Not, both starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. His contribution to these two seminal Hawks films is arguably more important in a wider sense to American culture than his novels, even though it may be said that his contribution can largely be summed up by the aphorism "first, do no harm."

When disliking Faulkner, it is usually good to dislike him in small doses. This is why I recommend beginning with "A Rose for Emily," his famous (and brief) southern-style gothic horror story, which can be read online here. For longer periods of dislikefulness, the murder mystery novel Intruder in the Dust is lighter and easier fare than most Faulkner.



Gotta say, the guy cut quite a figure in boxers and socks. Ahh, get Faulknered.

[sunny]

Oy, The Big Sleep..what a convoluted mess and I still love it.

Faulkner gives me a headache but every now and again some phrase of his clicks and I get why he supposed to be great. I put him in the same category as Steven King-great story ideas, which is why they both translate so well to the screen, and lousy prose.

Hemingway pulls me in on a visceral level. Some kind of alchemy was at work there..

[compared2what?]

I should take advantage of the opportunity to assert that if there has ever been a duller great novelist working in the English language than Henry James, I have not yet encountered him or her.

I've never read it.

But



is fantastically good.

[brainpanhandler]

Hemingway is a tragic figure. The final years of his life were not pretty. I bought a book of his poetry on the advice of a friend. Ugh. He was an awful poet.

The best poem in the whole book is the last, written 5 years before he committed suicide.

If my valentine you won't be....

If my valentine you won't be,
I'll hang myself on your christmas tree.

Finca Vigia, Cuba, 14 February 1956
How it Was (1976)

[marmot]

...

[Sepka]

When disliking Faulkner, it is usually good to dislike him in small doses. This is why I recommend beginning with "A Rose for Emily," his famous (and brief) southern-style gothic horror story, which can be read online here.

My tastes have changed since last I looked into Faulkner, it seems. I found that quite to my liking.