[Patrick Bateman]

Just reread Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail and was struck by how unbelievably interesting it made a rather dry topic, american primaries. Many
people put HST up there with the best, which got me to thinking, well who was better. We know Muhammad Ali was the best, we can all rank those below, but who ranks in your top five American writers (flag the rest of the world, non yankee writers are generally unknown so to confusing to include)

Here is my list

1: Hunter S Thompson
2: Norman Mailer
3: Joyce Carol Oates
4: F Scott Fitzgerald
5: Tom Wolfe

[Rhubarb]

Non-Yankee writers are unknown? Well done champ, you just blew off about 99% of the world's influential literature from the last ten centuries or so. Hunter S. Thompson, Ken Kesey, and Harper Lee are the only Yankee writers I can name off the top of my head, the latter two because I'm reading To Kill A Mockingbird and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest right now.

Oddly enough, I just checked and I'm actually reading some short stories by Joyce Carol Oates right now as well. I think they suck though so I'm not mentioning her. Hmm. Fitzgerald was The Great Gatsby, right? A vastly overrated book, to my mind.

So yeah, uh... Hunter S. Thompson, Ken Kesey, and Harper Lee. Thompson has social/political relevancy, but Kesey has a vastly superior style, and Lee manages to mix both social/political relevancy and style quite efficiently. Not to say that Kesey isn't socially relevant, but is less so than the other two.

Oh wait, Steinbeck. The Grapes of Wrath is awesome cool. Few novels can really make me that angry, let alone that angry over stuff that happened years and years ago.

Ummmm let's see if I can name one more to make the five. Lemme check my bookshelf.

L.M. Montgomery? Author of Anne of Green Gables? I think not. Was Canadian anyway, I think.

Fuck it, I'll go with Bill Watterson. Calvin and Hobbes have a lot more positive value these days than most crap I've read.

This post has been edited by Rhubarb: 26 June 2005 - 11:32 PM

[BobEPeru]

Put Vonnegut in there as well.
In fact I put him over Thompson, in my mind, easily.

[Patrick Bateman]

Fuck me, I majored in literature and I haven't heard of half these guys and lasses.
Still, I still stand by the fact that as the modern day Rome/Centre of the World, the US has to be the focal point of any cultural discussion.
That said Shakespeare wasn't half bad, or at least the group of guys using Shakespeare as their dupe.

Calvin and Hobbes is kick ass, but I'd have to go with Gary Trudeau over Watterson.

[Rhubarb]

You... haven't heard of them?

You majored in literature in the US and you''ve never heard of Steinbeck or Vonnegut or Harper Lee?

Are you sure you didn't just dream this major of yours? Are you sure it was a school you went to, and not just a homeless guy scribbling randomly on a pavement with some charcoal?

And the US as it stands is not the focal point of anything cultural. I actually laughed out aloud when you said that. The US only gained any real power in the last few decades since the end of WW2, and only had a white population for the last couple of centuries (and ironically they were responsible for wiping out the Native Americans, people who retained the most 'culture' to ever exist over there). Admittedly the word 'culture' covers a very broad spectrum and can be interpreted countless ways, but using the context given in your posts, the US as it exists today is not 'cultured'.

Ever heard of the Rennaisance? You probably wouldn't have because it mostly took place in other countries and was a long time ago and therefore is irrelevant, but it's believed to have been responsible for a lot of 'culture'. Off the top of my head, there have also been some people called T.H White and Italo Calvino and Gaston Leroux and Virginia Woolf and Charles Dickens and Dostoevsky and da Vinci and George Orwell and Mary Shelley and Lewis Carroll, oh yes, and Chaucer and Dante and Cassonova, all of whom wrote a lot of stuff that most people found rather influential, but again, they existed a long time ago in other countries.

That was just literature, by the way. I didn't even mention poets. Let's not even go into the subject of art and architecture, just to spare you.

Oh wait! I just thought of another American writer who's famous! Franz Kafka! Silly me.

Most of the world generally considers the US to be the most tacky, consumerist, shallow country in existance today. And that's not my opinion, this is the way most of the world sees you. I fully admit there have been quite a few wonderfully talented artists and writers to emerge there and influence the rest of the world with their work, but frankly, not all that many, relatively speaking. And the fact that you don't know jack about some of the more famous and wellknown literary greats in your own country (and I don't just mean the authors your class were given as study guides) should perhaps give you some indication that you're talking out of your arse.

Although the US does share some aspects with Ancient Rome (I think Rome is probably still the Modern-Day Rome), I don't think its cultural contribution to the world is one of them (and the Romans nicked a lot of stuff from the Greeks incidentally, down to the gods they worshipped). I actually get the feeling you're taking the piss. No one could possibly type something like " the US has to be the focal point of any cultural discussion" and keep a straight face while they did it.

This post has been edited by Rhubarb: 27 June 2005 - 06:49 PM

[Patrick Bateman]

My my, where to start.

First up, I am a born and bred New Zealander, I have never so much as set foot
in the U.S.
Secondly, my degree was in 'literature' not in US Literature, although one of my professors was coincedentally a homeless man who did wonderful things with
charcoal
Thirdly, my point was "that as the modern day Rome/Centre of the World, the US has to be the focal point of any cultural discussion." I believe you misunderstood, I was making the point that as the centre of the 'modern' world any discussion of culture must include the states, and seeing as it is the one common denominator in almost all our lives that America dominates culturally - not perhaps quality but at the least representationally - it is only reasonable to concentrate on US writers.
I could for example extol the virtues of Clive James as a modern day Renaissance Man but what would be the point seeing as 99% of people out there would have no idea who I was talking about
As for those you gush about, Dickens was a hack, Cassanova and admitted rapist, Da Vinci the most overrated person in world history - followed closely by Madonna and Lady Di - and Lewis Carroll contributed little of quality save the inspiration for Lucy In The Sky lyrics.
How about Cervante's? How could you leave out the father of the novel?

I'm trying to guess your nationality, and given the attitude, the fever pitched vitriol and the arse with an r as opposed to the double s, I would have to lean toward British, or perhaps Canadian. Either way, I enjoyed the venom.
Keep it up lad and perhaps you shall find your way, as HST always said "Even a blind squirrel finds the odd acorn."

[Dark Comet]

He also said 'Don't take any guff from these fucking swine.' Best. Advice. EVER.

I number Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as one of the most influential pieces of work to come out of the Seventies. It's certainly one of the most enjoyable, funny and downright insane reads I've experienced. And I'm into Mervyn Peake, lemme tell ya.

Just finished his last major work, Kingdom of Fear. So true. So very true. 'Only a fool or a whore would call America anything else.'

[Patrick Bateman]

Who's Mervyn Peake? I'd be keen to know a little, a recommendation from an HST fan is always worthwhile

It's funny, but almost everyone I've read reckons Vegas is the best, I rate it fourth, after Campaign Trail, Shark Hunt and Lono. Still kick arse but not better than those others.
In fact, The Proud Highway and FandL in America I read more often, that's not to knock Vegas but I think he kicked on after that.

What about Bret Easton Ellis? Glamorama is unbelievable. I have no fucken idea what transpired but I loved every page ...

[Rhubarb]

Who is Mervyn Peake????? I KEEL YOU. Titus Groan is TEH BESTEST BOOK EVAR, and China Meiville is NOTHING LIKE HIM AT ALL WHATSOEVER fuck you reviewers with your swanky magazine jobs much hate. You do know who T.H. White was though, RIGHT?

I left out Cervante cos I've got no idea who he is. My literary knowledge is based on what books I've scrounged off people more boring than me over the years. Agree with you about Dickens, I made some bitchy thread around here somewhere. Agree about Cassonova, from what I've heard about him (haven't read him). About da Vinci you are TOTALLY UTTERLY WRONG because he was awesome even if he didn't think St. John was a woman and anyway Shakespeare is the most overrated person in world history. And Carroll influenced me a lot when I was a child and is probably responsible for my surreal-dreamworld-fairytale imagery obsession, so screw your "contributed little of quality".

I still maintain that most people outside America wouldn't know jack about American literature. I thought of a few other American authors, but I also remembered lots of other European ones, which by my special logic cancels them out. Like I said, America's only been around a short while, and Europe's been around like, forever. America might be the richest and the most powerful, but I think it's only a real artistic influence to people in America, because it's not very pretty and no one likes them much anyway. But I suppose one must expect such irrelevance from a Kiwi.

I LIKE CAPITALS

[Patrick Bateman]

You cheeky bitch.

Cervantes wrote Don Quixote, the first novel ever apparently. Da Vinci was a hack at best, a failed inventor, a golden ratio obsessive, a failed artist (the last supper was painted using a new paint that started to deteriote) almost immediately ...

America as far as I am aware has been around 1.5 billion years or so, culturally you cannot seriously argue that America's - modern - cultural influence is anything but widespread.

An ostrich get's by with it's head in the sand, a human does little more than stick it's bum in the air ...

I believe you are being confused by the difference between artistic merit and artistic influence ... once again my initial remark was in obvious reference to artisic [I] merit ...

Look forward to another rant on your behalf ... P.S As far as I am aware not one of my ancestors was a convict ... te he bloody he.

[Rhubarb]

Neither were mine, har fucking har (not that there's anything WRONG with that since you could be a convict in Victorian England from being charged with Being Poor and Loitering While Ugly), my ancestors were London cab drivers and Irish fishermen and apparently I'm two generations away from nobility or something if my grandmother is to be believed. So screw you, peasant, you lose.

I have actually read Don Quixote, or possibly an edited version since I didn't get frustrated with it and throw it at a wall, or maybe it was a comic book, I don't remember too well. I never heard about it being the first novel. I always assumed it was relatively recent, like late 1700s or something. Wikipedia says it was 1605 so woo. I read a book that's four centuries old and didn't even notice.

Da Vinci was totally cool. I don't like him cos he was some amazing omg supergenius, although I could probably dig up stuff to argue that he was, I like him because he was a rockin' artist who was just obsessively interested in everything. People would commission stuff from him and pay him and he'd get all enthused about the project, and then he'd Get Bored and ignore them for like three decades. He'd get these pet obsessions and just study them religiously and then toss them aside and get a new obsession. I do that same thing! It's not cos I have a short attention span, it's cos I'm awesome like da Vinci. I don't care about his writings, I just threw him in there because it was a random name in my head and I remembered once hearing that he wrote stuff or something.

America as far as I am aware has been around 1.5 billion years or so, culturally you cannot seriously argue that America's - modern - cultural influence is anything but widespread.

Either you're implementing some sort of intellectual literature-degree-holding reasoning that went way over my poor confused uneducated head, or you shoved that in for no reason other than to argue semantics and score a small victory on some weird petty standard. Either way I'm just going to ignore it. Also I forgot your original point, I think you must not have been very good at expressing it, and I can't be arsed reading your posts again.

Were the misplaced apostrophes in your ostrich quote intentional, by the way?

[Dark Comet]

Woo! A fellow lover of Gormenghast! *Happy DC*. Yes, I picked up the trilogy the other day, and I'm halfway through the first book. It's scary, I'm drawing a lot of similarities betwee the way I and Prunesqualler speak. Peake has a fantastic handling of the English language - some very vivid and detailed descriptions are to be found here, some of the most intricatly woven I've seen. It's a shame he died when he did, he planned another two books in the series, with Titus returning to Gormenghast.

It's also one of the best BBC dramatisations I've ever seen. John Rhys Myers as Steerpike, John Sessions as Prune, Stephen Fry as Bellgrove, Ian Richardson as Sepulcrave, Warren Mitchell as Barquentine... a very good cast. Faithful too.

I just dig HST's narrative style. He himself considered his finest work to be the 'wave' passage from Vegas, and I partly agree. It's moving stuff.

[Rhubarb]

The third and incomplete Gormenghast book is bullshit (unsurprising, the man was dying) and the BBC series had some lovely sets and casting but was largely gay. Prunesquallor is the best character by far, but I liken myself to Fuchsia more often, to my shame. Will elaborate on this further after a sleep. Night night.

[Dark Comet]

True, although it was mammoth task, condensing two epics into four 45 minute programmes. They should have gone the way of I Claudius (the ULTIMATE BBC dramatisation) and had 4 two hour programmes, retaining every scrap of complexity and story.

Now I'm progressing through Titus Groan, I can now see how they've taken liberties with some of the plot. The events surrounding Keda and her two lovers sticks out, as does the characterisation of Rottcodd and Sourdust. Although to be fair, the Hall of Bright Carvings is featured, and I don't see how anyone can fail to smile at Barquentine's rantings even with his extended role.

'DAMN GATHERING! This is what you get for unprecidented breakfasts!

Hrm. I get the feeling this topic has been hijacked. Tell ye what, I'll do a new topic. Post ya thoughts, I am interested.

This post has been edited by Dark Comet: 29 June 2005 - 11:10 AM

[Patrick Bateman]

I give up..

So in summation,

Australia kicks arse
Da Vinci was a man/god
America inherantly sucks
Reading a comic version of one of the greatest novels qualify's one to make comment
I am poor with regard to ap'ost'ro''ph'''e's'.

What I cannot allow however is the implication that to arrest ugly people for loitering is in any way unethical. Ugly people should speed past as quickly as possible ...

Fuck this, I change my mind ... HST rules!!!!