/lit/ - Literature

No.

Yes.

no, also sage

Partially

This list was made by the Times in 2008. So it's post-war writers, but excluding the last 5 years.

Did Larkin only become hip when he was rehabilitated onto undergraduate lit courses in the late 90s?

He's ok but not *that* good. Certainly no Eliot or Ginsberg.

Also, list has no PK Dick, Houellebecq, Burrows, W Self, Vonnegut, D Adams...

>>3523495
>Ginsberg
>Douglas Adams


Get the fuck out of here, you fraud.

>>3523498
That list has J. K. Rowling and Philip Pullman. Adams is far better than both of them.

>no Cormac McCarthy
what a shit list

>>3523504
As is Terry Pratchett and Will Self.

These are all British writers, right?

No.

What.

At least specify "best writers since 1945 in the English language world" and make it that if you have absolutely no grasp of contemporary world literature.

>>3523498
trying too hard

>Do you agree with this?

No, this list is a joke (partly).

OP, you clearly don't read very much.

>>3523519
>OP, you clearly don't read very much.
It isn't my list. It's from The Times.

http://www.listal.com/list/times-50-greatest

>>3523529
>It isn't my list. It's from The Times.

That explains everything. Avoid all book lists from such magazines.

Anyone got that picture of a girl wearing a beret reading a book? The picture has a french feel to it and she was wearing orangey clothing (I think).

No Stoppard either? Playwrights must be allowed, as it is a catch-all "writers", and poets make up a fair portion of the list.

Looking at it, I think this has been cooked a little. Although I can believe Times readers would bluster about Rushdie, pretending to have read and enjoyed his torpid crap, I just do not believe Benjamin Zephaniah would receive enough votes to make the list, regardless of how good he is.

>>3523534
>Avoid all book lists from such magazines.
It isn't a magazine, it's a broadsheet newspaper - the one that invented the Times Roman typeface.

>>3523529
By fuck she is skinny

>>3523544
>the one that invented the Times Roman typeface.
Truly a Pandora's box of typefaces.

1. these are all english writers. postwar limeys are shit, we all know that
2. this list sucks anyway

"sage"

>No Cormac McCarthy

>>3523542
Hey, Rushdie is a good writer.

Also, Benjamin Zephaniah has been on the GCSE English curriculum for a while, so a lot of middle-class parents have been subjected to reading some kind of multicultural assignments from their mewling children.

>>3523544
>the one that invented the Times Roman typeface.
>that means it must be good.

>tfw no Pynchon

>>3523529
>It isn't my list. It's from The Times.
I had a suspicion. People in general read very little, and so such lists are born.

>>3523557
>>3523558
it's a list of british writers you dolts

>Moorcock only #50

Niggers be trippin'

>no Will Self
>no Ken Hollings
>no John Berger
>no BS Johnson
>no Zadie Smith
>Ballard not in top 5

Despicable

1 - J.R.R. Tolkien
2 - John Fowles
3 - Will Self
4 - Mervyn Peake
5 - George Orwell
6 - Kingsley Amis
7 - William Golding
8 - C.S. Lewis
9 - Anthony Burgess
10- Martin Amis

no

>>3523491
Which Times? It's got to be the Times of London. It's an obnoxiously Anglo-centered list.

Also,

>Ted Hughes #4
>no Plath
(actually, maybe that's the best example of how dunderheadedly British this list is)

>Ian Fleming not only on the list, but a few spaces ahead of Martin Amis
>Hell, Kingsley in the top 10 ahead of Martin
>John le Carre
>JK Rowling
>a few spaces better than Bruce Chatwin at #56
>Bruce Chatwin at #56

Who fucking wrote this shit?

>>3523977
I'm fairly certain, running over the list, that it must be specific to British authors - looking over it only briefly, but I don't notice a single non-Briths author. (which, for one thing, would eliminate Plath). And also there's a good chance that it has some element of popularity or 'belovedness' to it. Larkin at the top of is a bit of a laff, certainly.

>>3523506
Second.

Also Salman Rushdie should be higher.

>>3523977
>the Times of London
What the hell? No, it's just called The Times. It's not "of London". "Of the United Kingdom", maybe. You wouldn't refer to Obama as "the President of New York".

>>3523572
if its only a list of british authors the OP should have clarified. the subject line says "best writers since 1945"

>>3523989
Referring to it as the Times of London is a fairly common practice. Especially outside of the UK where there are many different papers called the Times and it is necessary to avoid confusion - for instance, it is usually referred to by that name in America to avoid confusion with the New York Times.

>>3524000
I know, and OP should have clarified, but I think it has to be exclusively British, doesn't it? I mean, come on, look at it.

>>3524002
Just call it the British Times then. I'll admit you're more likely to be right because I don't know about the subject but I think that's a stupid nomenclature.

>>3524011
Call me controversial, but why not call the New York Times the New York Times, and The Times the Times.

>>3524011
Your way is more correct, probably, but I'm just saying, it's pretty common to see it that way and it shouldn't surprise you.

>>3524017
It is also not unusual to refer to the New York Times simply as "the Times" in common conversation, ideally only in situations where it is clear from context that it is the New York Times, but we live in an imperfect world and sometimes it's best for clarity to distinguish the British paper from the others.

>>3524002
If the New York Times published this list there would be an outcry.

>>3523481
I don't see Regis Jauffret, but I see LeCarré. I think they should swap. Also, where the fuck is Boris Vian or Editchka Limonov ?! Your list has tropism for english literature, but you miss some good things in russian or french literature.

>>3523481
>10) Angela Carter
Really?

>No Heaney

>No Alan Moore
>No Christopher Moore
>No Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
>No Toni Morrison

>>3523977
John Le Carre is great.

lrn2genre fiction

The list does need Graham Greene, tho

No Flannery O'Connor?

Decent list but O'Connor would be top 20 for wise blood alone.
Larkin is great, but his public persona is prolly cherished more than his actual poems.
Faith healing is up there with the best of browning and Eliot, but I think he is top of the list because he is like a national treasure for middle englanders.
I don't know, I always got the impression there is a bit of a false sense of nostalgia around Larkin.

>>3524124
I can't imagine anybody would question the literary value of le Carre if they had actually read any of his books, though.

>>3523977
>(actually, maybe that's the best example of how dunderheadedly British this list is)
um actually that's one of the few correct things the list did

no Garth brooks?

>>3524482

>Tolkien at 6

>>3523481
I'm actually ok with this list.

>>3523481
What book is that?

There was plenty on this list I disagreed with, but Martin Amis appearing on it was the moment where I finally NOPEd out.

>>3524757
What's wrong with Martin Amis? Have you read London Fields? His prose style is perfect. Better than his dad's

>>3523977
>>Ted Hughes #4
>>no Plath

I like Hughes stuff a lot more than Plath as well. A bold choice.

>>3524072
Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber is great stuff. Under-appreciated.

>missing Stephen King
his material may not appeal to you
but the quality of his writing(not the subject matter), is outstanding

>>3524752

Definitely a collection of H.P. Lovecraft stories. Can't remember which one though. Sorry bud.

>>3524752
HP Lovecraft

>>3524805

>>3524763

His prose style is the best thing about him, although it's just a shadow of a shade of a pale imitation of Nabokov's. It is indeed better than his dad's, but that's not saying so very much. Amis senior was a fairly drole guy, but no great prose stylist.

As for what's wrong with him... his smug arrogance and affectation, his endlessly tiresome sense of humour, his narrative pacing, his seemingly depthless love for bathos and pointless vulgarity/unpleasantness and his total failure to tackle a single serious theme or have a single original thought across his whole career.

>>3524798

"Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre"

>implying you wouldn't worship her feet

>>3524806
(also, Obituary - Cause of Death)

>>3524805
>Demolition Hammer
>>3524806
>Obituary

>>3524763
I agree, his latter day sins may be pretty bad but Money (A Suicide Note), London Fields and Time's Arrow are all brilliant books. He's pretty much my favourite active author. But Lionel Asbo was fucking awful.

i demand Gabriel Garcia Marquez

>>3524796
>missing Stephen King
On a list without a single America author, Stephen King is the one you think of?

>>3524869
So who do you think of first?

Lists like these are crude, but I'll join in. Yukio Mishima is definitely in the global top ten.
I've only read Perfume, and a few years ago at that, but I suspect Patrick Sueskind has a place, too. Maybe not among the traditional giants of literature, namely those who grapple with vast social issues.
Samuel Beckett...? Hmm.

>>3524870

Not that guy, but Raymond Carver comes to mind.

>not realising its a list of the 50 Greatest British Writers, not a general list

Just because OP didn't specify its British, doesn't make it not.

>>3524881
but we realized

except the slower ones

>>3524881
This.

A glance at the list should tell you it's just British authors.

>>3524889
Its funny how the elitist shithole which is /lit/ can have such awful reading comprehension.

>>3524791
>Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber is great stuff. Under-appreciated.
I really couldn't stand it. It all seems so artificial and constructed, like she's carefully set up everything to be ~meaningful~ rather than just telling a story and making it meaningful sort of organically, if that makes any sense at all.

Also I really can't stand her prose.

I don't even know half of those authors.

>6) J.R.R. Tolkien
You guys can't grow up

>>3523506
He is right, Cormac McCarthy is the only post WWII author that matters.