NP:Greatest Dead Novelist

[Charles Albert]

That man was such a xit.....

I would probably cast my vote for Nabokov....with Conrad in the vicinity....


love,
cfa


On 9/14/06, kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> The great thing about BK (Brothers Karamazov, not Burger King!) is that
> Dostoevsky set out to write a definitive Christian novel, but somewhere
> along the way, he was hijacked by his own doubts; thus Ivan's eclipsing of
> Alyosha.  It becomes a novel about the unrequited longing for true faith of
> a man (Dostoevsky/Ivan) who's unable to abandon his own rationalism.    And
> it's wrapped up in a novel with an interesting plot and fascinating
> characters.
>
> Laura
>
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: jd <wescac at gmail.com>
> >Sent: Sep 14, 2006 4:13 PM
> >To: Dave Monroe <monropolitan at yahoo.com>
> >Cc: kelber at mindspring.com, pynchon-l at waste.org
> >Subject: Re: NP:Greatest Dead Novelist
> >
> >I would say Dostoevsky would certainly make the list.  Anna "greatest
> >book ever written" (as some people say, I've not read it) Karenina
> >would probably cause Tolstoy to be on it as well.  I'd say Gaddis,
> >too.  It's so much harder to quantify the dead, if only because
> >there's so many more of them and as soon as you say Dostoevsky then
> >there's people quoting Homer (if you could count him a "writer") and
> >Aristotle and any number of others.  Hell, the greatest dead writer's
> >work probably hasn't survived to this era.  But I'm a pessimist.
> >
> >One thing I will say about Dostoevsky that would be an argument
> >against him (even though I like him quite a bit) is - well, Brothers
> >Karamazov.  He wanted Alyosha to be the hero of the book and yet for
> >me he's a shadow to Ivan.  Dostoevsky so skillfully skewered religion
> >through Ivan, intentionally, intending to use Alyosha to rise above
> >that argument, but even he himself felt (if I remember correctly) that
> >he failed, hence the unfinished (unstarted?) sequel-that-never-was
> >(died before he had a chance to finish / start it, I would imagine
> >"start" to be more accurate as I'd guess that an unfininshed
> >manuscript would still be circulating these days had it existed).  I
> >love Brothers Karamazov, but not necessarily for the reason he
> >intendend people to love it.  Was there any tangible argument that
> >overcame Ivan's, other than his deus-ex-machina-esque descent to
> >madness?
> >
> >On 9/14/06, Dave Monroe <monropolitan at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> Not sure that I either do, can, or am qualified to,
> >> but who are the other contenders?  Let me know ...
> >>
> >> --- kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
> >>
> >> > There's a fair amount of agreement on this list that
> >> > Pynchon is the greatest living novelist.  But how
> >> > about the greatest non-living novelist?  I vote
> >> > vociferously for Dostoevsky.  Anyone disagree?
> >>
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