Mr. William Faulkner - Nobel Prize Winner
The All-Time Greatest American Author
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I welcome your nominations. Mine’s locked in.
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Haven't read much of either, but given the choice between the two, I'd choose Hemingway over Faulkner.
And since I'm a sucker for a well-crafted short story, let me throw Edgar Allan Poe and Flannery O'Connor into the hat.
Faulkner had a writing style unlike anyone else I’ve ever encountered. He was notorious for very looooong sentences. The Sound and the Fury is probably my favorite, Absalom is probably his most popular book. Here’s a list of some of his more famous books. https://theculturetrip.com/north-am...est-books-by-william-faulkner-you-should-read
Which book would you recommend by her? I’m not sure I can recall reading her works, but I definitely know the name.
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O"Connor wrote two novels, Wise Blood and The Violent Bear It Away, but I have read neither as yet. Two volumes of short stories were published, A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories, and Everything that Rises Must Converge.
I have the posthumous The Complete Stories, which includes the contents of the first two plus previously uncollected stories (many of which were early, and not of the same quality as her later ones). I would recommend that one. My favourite stories of hers in particular are "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," "Good Country People," and "Revelation."
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Hence my preference for Hemingway. The tech writer in me prefers short and straightforward sentences. I assume it was the influence of his journalism career. In my American lit course in university, I was captivated by Hemingway when we read In Our Time. It was probably my favourite book on the syllabus.
But while I enjoyed As I Lay Dying, it didn't thrill me half as much. A little too circumspect in places, maybe? I haven't figured out why Faulkner's style wasn't influenced by his writing B-movies. I'd read it again, and the rest of his books (and Hemingway's) are definitely on my list for when I get around to them.
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There was an author whose books we had to read in high school that were like that. I think it was Henry James. I recall one sentence (which was well-crafted) was over 200 words long. That was a fun one to diagram...
I’ll never argue against Hemingway. I haven’t read all of his books, but the few I’ve read are excellent. Of course I’m biased toward The Old Man and The Sea.
Faulkner held the record for longest sentence at 1,288 words. I remember the first time I read it I thought there was some type of major publishing error. https://mymodernmet.com/longest-run-on-sentence-william-faulkner/
I did a Google search on him but the only thing I’m pulling up is a cartoonist. Is that who you’re referring to?
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Yes sir. No one stated any parameters for writers.
True Dat!Yes sir. No one stated any parameters for writers.
Well if cartoonists are fair game, then Al Capp and Bill Watterson tie for first place.Yes sir. No one stated any parameters for writers.
As far as prose is concerned, Twain is, hands down, the top dog, and only one of two American authors imposed upon students that I could actually read for pleasure. The other was Ring Lardner.
As a juvenile, which was the time I did most of my fiction reading, I enjoyed the Hardy Boys series, and the series billed as Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators.
The Little House in the Big Woods was read to me in the third grade.
I think Laura Ingalls Wilder told better stories, and was a better writer than most so-called 'greats' dreamed of, but hers wasn't an indictment on Western society in general, or the American people in particular, or of Christianity in effigy like much of the heady and cynical claptrap billed as American masterpieces.
In my short stint as a high school English and drama teacher, after units on Twain and Poe, I told the students to leave their literature books full of elitist drivel in their lockers, and I introduced them to short stories from the anthologies I would check out of the public library and had fun reading.
(My class were the sweathogs, now called 'at-risk' students.)
I showed up at the school at 5am and ran the photocopier out of toner. They ate that stuff up.
Tons of great authors out there.
As a juvenile, which was the time I did most of my fiction reading, I enjoyed the Hardy Boys series, and the series billed as Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators.
The Little House in the Big Woods was read to me in the third grade.
I think Laura Ingalls Wilder told better stories, and was a better writer than most so-called 'greats' dreamed of, but hers wasn't an indictment on Western society in general, or the American people in particular, or of Christianity in effigy like much of the heady and cynical claptrap billed as American masterpieces.
In my short stint as a high school English and drama teacher, after units on Twain and Poe, I told the students to leave their literature books full of elitist drivel in their lockers, and I introduced them to short stories from the anthologies I would check out of the public library and had fun reading.
(My class were the sweathogs, now called 'at-risk' students.)
I showed up at the school at 5am and ran the photocopier out of toner. They ate that stuff up.
Tons of great authors out there.
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The funniest book I’ve read is this: 
Unfortunately, Toole only wrote two books. The other one is the Neon Bible. It’s a good book as well, but it’s a bit on the simple side because he was only 16 years old when he wrote it. 
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I read this last year. It was prophetic. If Toole had written it 50 years later, Ignatius would have been a terminally online Redittor.