# Contemporary Masters



## Buddy Glass (Oct 29, 2007)

I invariably go through phases of feeling either very cynical about most contemporary writers, or feeling very pleased and optimistic about them. In so far as one can assume he's still writing, J.D. Salinger would be my favorite. There seems to be documented evidence that he is still writing and has - apparently - cabinets filled with unpublished manuscripts.

Ian McEwan is a steady favorite. _On Chesil Beach_ was fascinating and in my opinion proves - once again - that McEwan is unrivalled in the psychological depth and accuracy of his characters. There was an interesting review in some newspaper of the novel by a female journalist who wrote at length about the claustrophobia of the female body. Anyway, _Atonement_, _Enduring Love_ and _Amsterdam_ are excellent novels, but I'm personally very fond of his darker and earlier writing, i.e. _First Love, Last Rites_.

There are others: Richard Ford, Peter Hoeg, early Martin Amis. To get to the point: who are the contemporary masters of literature?


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## ClancyBoy (Oct 30, 2007)

Dan Brown.


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## mwd (Oct 30, 2007)

I wonder what will happen to Salinger's writing when he dies.  Some of it might actually see the light of day, I hope.  Or maybe he'll pull a Charles Strickland and burn it all.

Richard Ford is great.  Rock Springs is one of my favourite short story collections, and the Bascombe books are all really quite excellent.  I was let down by The Lay of the Land for a while, but I've warmed up to it.  The three books together are wonderful, much better in my opinion than Updike's Angstrom novels, which they often seem to be compared to.

Joyce Carol Oates, I'd say.

When it comes to short fiction there's Alice Munro, and I think I'd include David Foster Wallace as well.

Of course the term "master" itself is awfully silly.  So mostly it comes down to what one prefers.  What one reader deems a master will seem to another reader merely competent, or vice versa.


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## ClancyBoy (Oct 30, 2007)

Kidding.

I like Harper Lee, Kurt Vonnegut, William Faulkner and Graham Greene.


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## Shawn (Oct 30, 2007)

Seconds on Vonnegut.

I grew up with Roald Dahl books... so I'll have to say him. (I'm so literary)

Lessing is a blessing.

Kenneth Roberts, though not really contemporary, is a favorite of mine.


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## Patrick (Oct 30, 2007)

Ian Banks can be a bit of a genius but a bit hit and miss. "The Wasp Factory" is probably his best.


Graham Swift never fails to capture me.


Ye, I've said all of these before, but Robert Harris and as you said, Buddy glass, Ian McEwan.


Mark Billingham writes a good "who dunnit".


As far as fantasy goes, Philip Pullman is probably the best in that area.


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## Buddy Glass (Oct 30, 2007)

ClancyBoy said:


> Kidding.
> 
> I like Harper Lee, Kurt Vonnegut, William Faulkner and Graham Greene.


 
But the last three are dead... hardly contemporaries.


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## quarterscot (Oct 30, 2007)

As usual, mostly blokes. They usually are in these sort of lists. Personally I think us men are lagging behind in contemporary literature. There isn't anyone who can touch Margaret Atwood. Then you've got Beryl Bainbridge, Nadine Gordimer, Carol Shields (yes she's dead, but only by a couple of years), Pat Barker, Kate Atkinson and Jane Smiley. It's a daunting collection.

There's a few impressive male writers: John Irving, Julian Barnes, Iain Banks. Ian McEwan is a fine example of what MWD calls "merely competent", though, and don't get me started on Martin Amis.


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## Shawn (Oct 30, 2007)

Buddy Glass said:


> But the last three are dead... hardly contemporaries.




In the world of literature, it seems like a century dictates contemporaries.


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## Buddy Glass (Oct 30, 2007)

quarterscot said:


> As usual, mostly blokes. They usually are in these sort of lists. Personally I think us men are lagging behind in contemporary literature. There isn't anyone who can touch Margaret Atwood. Then you've got Beryl Bainbridge, Nadine Gordimer, Carol Shields (yes she's dead, but only by a couple of years), Pat Barker, Kate Atkinson and Jane Smiley. It's a daunting collection.
> 
> There's a few impressive male writers: John Irving, Julian Barnes, Iain Banks. Ian McEwan is a fine example of what MWD calls "merely competent", though, and don't get me started on Martin Amis.


 
Ian McEwan is a remarkable writer. Consider his literary output since 1997: _Enduring Love, Amsterdam, Atonement, Saturday, On Chesil Beach_. All modern classics. He's devoted to his craft, one novel is always different from the other, his characters are unbelievably real... I don't know why people don't like him.

Martin Amis isn't as good. But _Money_ and _London Fields_ are brilliant. Yes, he's obnoxious and most of his more recent work is crap, but those two novels are unlike anything you'd ever come across. Had me laughing for months.


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## Buddy Glass (Oct 30, 2007)

Someone once said to me that all the best contemporary writers are film writers. I don't necessarily agree, but there are a few writers in the movie business I feel deserve to be mentioned.

Wes Anderson - i think he's the most innovative and original filmmaker in years. He's an _auteur, _a brilliant writer with a distinct but very enjoyable sense of humour. There's a sadness, a sense of the melancholy, about his films that I like.

Noah Baumbach - like Anderson, but less quirky. The script for his commercial breakthrough, _The Squid and the Whale_, was Oscar nominated ("Yes, it's very Kafkaesque", "You mean because it's written by Kafka?"), but I prefer one of his earlier works, _Kicking and Screaming_ (not be confused with the Will Ferrel movie) which is hilarious and intelligent. 

Susannie Bier and Anders Thomas Jensen - I'm Danish, so I watch a lot of Danish films. Susanne Bier's film _After the Wedding_ was also nominated for an Academy award, but Anders Thomas Jensen has made three very ironic and dark-humoured, grotesque, films: _Flickering Lights_, _The Green Butchers_, and _Adam's Apples_.

There are others: Sofia Coppola, the Cohen brothers, Charlie Kaufmann, but I could go on...


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## quarterscot (Oct 31, 2007)

The trouble with nominating screenwriters is that films are often a collaborative effort. Which is a nice way of saying: if anything goes wrong, they just throw the writer on the fire and get a new one. So you generally don't know who wrote what.

The only exceptions are if the writers are also the directors, so better placed to protect their scripts. I'd nominate the Coens too, together with Quentin Tarentino, Martin Scorsese, Kevin Smith, Mike Leigh and (early) Woody Allen. Don't know many Danish films but whoever wrote _Festen_, if it was a single person, must be something of a genius.


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## Buddy Glass (Nov 1, 2007)

quarterscot said:


> The trouble with nominating screenwriters is that films are often a collaborative effort. Which is a nice way of saying: if anything goes wrong, they just throw the writer on the fire and get a new one. So you generally don't know who wrote what.
> 
> The only exceptions are if the writers are also the directors, so better placed to protect their scripts. I'd nominate the Coens too, together with Quentin Tarentino, Martin Scorsese, Kevin Smith, Mike Leigh and (early) Woody Allen. Don't know many Danish films but whoever wrote _Festen_, if it was a single person, must be something of a genius.


 
Ugh, I can't stand Tarantino. Seems he can get away with anything because he's Tarantino.


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## Buddy Glass (Nov 1, 2007)

quarterscot said:


> The trouble with nominating screenwriters is that films are often a collaborative effort. Which is a nice way of saying: if anything goes wrong, they just throw the writer on the fire and get a new one. So you generally don't know who wrote what.
> 
> The only exceptions are if the writers are also the directors, so better placed to protect their scripts. I'd nominate the Coens too, together with Quentin Tarentino, Martin Scorsese, Kevin Smith, Mike Leigh and (early) Woody Allen. Don't know many Danish films but whoever wrote _Festen_, if it was a single person, must be something of a genius.


 
Thomas Vinterberg for Dogme 95. _Festen_ is quite synonymous with the critical succes of Danish cinema in recent years.


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## WordWeaver (Nov 1, 2007)

Buddy Glass said:


> Ugh, I can't stand Tarantino. Seems he can get away with anything because he's Tarantino.


 
Not necessarily, I'm a huge Tarantino fan but I still think "Death Proof" should burn in the embers of hell.


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## ClancyBoy (Nov 1, 2007)

Buddy Glass said:


> Ugh, I can't stand Tarantino. Seems he can get away with anything because he's Tarantino.



How dare you!  Resurrecting low-budget movie styles form the 70's makes him a genius I tell you, genius!

That said, Reservoir Dogs was a great movie.


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## Linton Robinson (Nov 2, 2007)

William Gibson, George MacDonald Frazier,  Neal Barrett Jr,  Joe Keenan,  Christopher Moore, Ray Bradbury......


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## Linton Robinson (Nov 2, 2007)

What the HELL do people see in Salinger?   I just never got it and still don't,


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## Buddy Glass (Nov 2, 2007)

ClancyBoy said:


> How dare you! Resurrecting low-budget movie styles form the 70's makes him a genius I tell you, genius!
> 
> That said, Reservoir Dogs was a great movie.


 
By far his best. Everything else was disappointing, I thought.


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## Buddy Glass (Nov 2, 2007)

lin said:


> What the HELL do people see in Salinger? I just never got it and still don't,


 
A lot, actually. Have you read _Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters & Seymour: An Introduction, Nine Stories_ and _Franny and Zooey_? I hope you aren't judging Salinger based on your high school reading of _The Catcher in the Rye..._

There's a lot to be found in Salinger, I think. He is, of course, the most prominent voice of adolescent and post-adolescent anxiety and despair (evident in "Franny", "Teddy" and, of course, _Catcher_). But there's a maturity in his writing that he doesn't seem to get much credit for (Like the tragic depth of "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut" or the moving and very human account of love and a soldier's post-traumatic stress in "For Esmé - with Love and Squalor") and a devotion to his art that - to me, at least - seems extinct. He's the last great writer.

There's a wonderful moment in "For Esmé - with Love and Squalor" when the protagonist, a soldier in WW2, awaiting orders in a house that belonged to Nazis, picks up a book written by Goebbels with an inscription that reads: "Life is hell". The soldier - a thinly disguised Salinger - writes underneath, in trembling hand, "What is hell? I maintain it is the inability to love - Dostoevsky". 

I don't like that many young writers who debut with nihilistic coming-of-age novels are automatically compared to Salinger. Salinger's writing is compassionate toward human beings, not cynical and indifferent. His characters are complex, flawed and endlessly loveable.


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## quarterscot (Nov 4, 2007)

Buddy Glass said:


> By far his best. Everything else was disappointing, I thought.


 
Pulp Fiction, for god's sake. Have you people forgotten about Pulp Fiction?

Vincent: There's a philosophy that says when a man admits he's wrong, he's automatically forgiven his wrongdoing. Have you ever heard of that?

Jules: Get out of here with that shit. The man who said that didn't find himself picking up iddy-biddy pieces of brain on account of your dumb ass.

I could go on; and on and on. Admittedly, everything Tarantino's done since Jackie Brown has been pretty rubbish.


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## Buddy Glass (Nov 4, 2007)

quarterscot said:


> Pulp Fiction, for god's sake. Have you people forgotten about Pulp Fiction?
> 
> Vincent: There's a philosophy that says when a man admits he's wrong, he's automatically forgiven his wrongdoing. Have you ever heard of that?
> 
> ...


 
Pulp Fiction is grossly overrated.


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## Linton Robinson (Nov 4, 2007)

Well, that settles that, huh?



> He is, of course, the most prominent voice of adolescent and post-adolescent anxiety and despair



And of course, that hilariously myopic statement sets that question to rest.


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## Buddy Glass (Nov 4, 2007)

lin said:


> Well, that settles that, huh?


 
Much like your brilliant response to the Proust thread did.


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## Linton Robinson (Nov 6, 2007)

Hey, no charge.   I don't understand why you pose so vociferously as some super-read superior intellect, but never demonstrate anything more than snarfing at the posts of other, cheap put-downs, and repititions of commonly accepted evaluations of writers everybody reads in school.


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## Buddy Glass (Nov 6, 2007)

lin said:


> Hey, no charge. I don't understand why you pose so vociferously as some super-read superior intellect, but never demonstrate anything more than snarfing at the posts of other, cheap put-downs, and repititions of commonly accepted evaluations of writers everybody reads in school.


 
Hmmm. Well, not being from the US or the UK - how the hell would I know what they read in school? And why should I care? Does that in any way subtract from the value of the given writer? Not in my books. Besides, if Pynchon and Joyce and Proust are writers "everyobdy reads in school", then why is it no one has anything to say about any of them? Has no one on this forum gone to school?


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## Linton Robinson (Nov 7, 2007)

You seemed to have it all figured out when you made the jape about high school reading a few posts back, didn't you?  

Nobody has much to say about them in your threads, because it's pointless to discuss things with an ignoramus.  All you do is stomp around and act superior.  Why bother to get into it with you when you are both unlettered and unpleasant?


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## Buddy Glass (Nov 7, 2007)

lin said:


> You seemed to have it all figured out when you made the jape about high school reading a few posts back, didn't you?
> 
> Nobody has much to say about them in your threads, because it's pointless to discuss things with an ignoramus. All you do is stomp around and act superior. Why bother to get into it with you when you are both unlettered and unpleasant?


 
Excuses, excuses, excuses. You know, I don't think you've ever said anything even remotely knowledgable about anything. Maybe you should go chit-chat in the JK Rowling thread, where you can feel more at home.


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## Linton Robinson (Nov 7, 2007)

Excuses for WHAT?

What are your knowlegable contributions here?   Other than just you-too gradeschool japery and gutter language.

I see nothing here to justify your self held conviction that you are some literatus and highbrow.  

Quite the fucking contrary.


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## Barraque (Nov 8, 2007)

holy god, buddy glass is an idiot


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## ClancyBoy (Nov 9, 2007)

quarterscot said:


> Pulp Fiction, for god's sake. Have you people forgotten about Pulp Fiction?
> 
> Vincent: There's a philosophy that says when a man admits he's wrong, he's automatically forgiven his wrongdoing. Have you ever heard of that?
> 
> ...



I realized as soon as I hit "post" I had forgotten Pulp Fiction.  Seriously, I defy anyone to think of a movie with better drawn characters.  I doubt even Charles Dickens could do as well.  
Yeah, I said it.  You're on notice Mr. Dickens!

From Dusk 'Till Dawn, Foxy Brown and Kill Bill are kinda crap though.  Grindhouse I can take or leave; without the awesome awesome promos at the very beginning it would go on the crap pile.  Too much focus on the aesthetics and not enough on the story and characters.


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## ClancyBoy (Nov 9, 2007)

Buddy Glass said:


> Hmmm. Well, not being from the US or the UK - how the hell would I know what they read in school? And why should I care? Does that in any way subtract from the value of the given writer? Not in my books. Besides, if Pynchon and Joyce and Proust are writers "everyobdy reads in school", then why is it no one has anything to say about any of them? Has no one on this forum gone to school?



Uh dude, when you posted your Dostoevsky thread where you complained no one else read Dostoevsky, there was another Dostoevsky thread right at the top of the page.

And I have read Joyce.  I said I thought the Circe episode was fantastic, but the rest of it was pointless masturbation.  I guess you're not counting my posts and the posts of others toward your total of zero because we disagreed with your assertion that Joyce was the greatest.

We had a three-page Joyce thread just over a month ago.  Is that not recent enough?


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## raymondstary (Nov 12, 2007)

Buddy Glass said:


> Hmmm. Well, not being from the US or the UK - how the hell would I know what they read in school? And why should I care? Does that in any way subtract from the value of the given writer? Not in my books. Besides, if Pynchon and Joyce and Proust are writers "everyobdy reads in school", then why is it no one has anything to say about any of them? Has no one on this forum gone to school?


Everyone doesn't. I didn't. I knew of Joyce. I read a couple of his shorts, found one of them creepy, but I didn't really enjoy them that much. If I read Proust, it didn't make an impression. Perhaps this is why no one has anything to say about them. Perhaps they were bland.


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## rocky (Dec 8, 2007)

Salman Rushdie
VS Naipaul

Two definite masters of contemporary english literature. Both have won the Booker Prize, and Naipaul, as we know, attained the Nobel Prize in 2001.

Ian McEwan as stated is also very Outstanding.


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