/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.12465160]

What are some novels that mostly consist of extremely beautiful prose? I want delicious, rosy, baroque words to feast my soul on. An endless stream of them.

I like McCarthy when he talks about land, and Pynchon when he's trying to be pretty. Dubliners has some lovely bits.

What else?

[Anonymous No.12465169]

Carlyle, French Rev
Gibbon, Decline

[Anonymous No.12465178]

>>12465160
Kaufmann translations of Nietzsche have this feeling (I wish I knew German). I'm partial to the excessive English bush beating found in Tristram Shandy.

But, if you liked Dubliners, you should probably read Ulysses immediately.

[Anonymous No.12465190]

>>12465160

>reading for prose

Jokes aside OP, Bleak House by Charles Dickens has some of the language's best prose. Nabokov's obvious. Don't start with Lolita though, start with either Pnin or Speak, Memory. Moby-Dick, Nostromo, parts of O Pioneers and Death Comes For The Archbishop. Thoreau's Walden, and then Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Urn-Burial is an absolute must, and you're missing out if you don't read Maupassant's short stories. (Go for the Penguin selected edition.) Literally anything by William Gass -- start with either On Being Blue or Omensetter's Luck. Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon / Beloved. Whitman's Specimen Days.

That oughta get u started OP, happy reading

But reading for prose is dumb

[Anonymous No.12465192]

>>12465160
Oops I meant Portrait of the Artist not Dubliners.

>>12465169
Hee hee

>>12465178
????

[Anonymous No.12465204]

>>12465178

>read Ulysses immediately

Don't listen to this psued. Read Joyce chronologically. Dubliners, Portrait, then reread Dubliners, then reread Portrait, then reread Dubliners, then Ulysses, then reread Ulysses, then Finnegans Wake. Then go back to Ulysses.

[Anonymous No.12465207]

>>12465190
Can you please, if you don't mind, post a passage by Gass? I've write something on here by him, a meta-commentary of art wherein he was "celebrating the sentence", and it was one of the most shallow, indulgent pieces of writing I have ever read. Yet, people here praise him highly, so could you perhaps show me something of value by him that can help me gauge whether or not to read him?

[Anonymous No.12465215]

>>12465190
I like Nabakovs prose A LOT. Thoreau was a wonderful man and I feel like he is a close friend of mine but his writing infuriates almost as often as it delights. Dickens was a master of clauses and English sentences, but is more of a rhetorician than a poet. I like him a lot though.

Thanks for the other recs. I might check out Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Is it very long?

And a friend of mine said Toni Morrison writes beautifully too so Ill have to check her out.

[Anonymous No.12465263]

>>12465207
Yeah, sure. Here's the first part to On Being Blue.

>Blue pencils, blue noses, blue movies, laws, blue legs and stockings, the language of birds, bees and flowers as sung by longshoremen, that lead-like look the skin has when affected by cold, contusion, sickness, fear; the rotten rum or gin they call blue ruin and the blue devils of its delirium; Russian cats and oysters, a withheld or imprisoned breath, the blue they say that diamonds have, deep holes in the ocean and the blazers which English athletes earn that gentlemen may wear; afflictions of the spirit--dumps, mopes, Mondays--all that's dismal--low-down gloomy music, Nova Scotians, cyanosis, hair rinse, bluing, bleach; the rare blue dahlia like the blue moon shrewd things happen only once in, or the call for trumps in whist (but who remembers whist or what the death of unplayed games is like?), and correspondingly the flag, Blue Peter, which is our signal for getting under way; a swift pitch, Confederate money, the shaded slopes of clouds and mountains, and so the constantly increasing absentness of Heaven (ins Blaue hinein, the Germans say), consequently the color of everything that's empty: blue bottles, bank accounts, and compliments, for instance.

Most writers write for the eye. Gass writes for the ear. Read him aloud to get the full effect, he's one of contemporary lit's best stylists. A lot of his prose is self-indulgent, true, but that's kind of his shtick -- ignoring that stories/essays/novels are composed of language, and instead pretending that they somehow "appear" through "transparent prose" does a disservice to the mouth, tongue, lips, ears, the body itself, which wants to EMBODY language -- quite literally -- and not just intellectually "understand" it.

There's a great quote from a talk he did with John Gardner.
>Gardner: The difference between you and me is that my airplane flies and yours is too jewel-encrusted to get off the ground.
>Gass: But I want everyone to look at my plane and think it's flying.

Most, if not all, of his work deals with the relationship between language and reality, and the extent to which language itself shapes reality itself and not just how we perceive it. (Gass was formally trained as a philosopher and taught philosophy of language for most of his career.) His novel (?) Willie Master's Lonesome Wife -- and to a lesser extent, Omensetter's Luck -- both explore how language alters the physical world.

This might make no sense.

>bottom line; read "On Being Blue" and "Willie Master's Lonesome Wife," they're like less than 100 pgs each

[Anonymous No.12465284]

>>12465160
Torture Garden by Mirbeau, you just have to be able to stomach the "Torture" part, but the "Garden" part is pretty beautiful and florid

[Anonymous No.12465287]

>>12465215
I feel you on the Thoreau front. Walden didn't click for me until I revisited it a few times. Curiously enough, the best way into Thoreau is through his journals. NYRB put out a selected edition a few years back. It's worth picking through.

>Dickens is more of a rhetorician than a poet
...maybe? I mean, I see why you say that, but I have to disagree. Passages in David Copperfield rival Nabokov in sheer delight/construction, especially the little montages where Dickens ages David by five or six years in as many pages. Nobody reads his essays anymore. Real shame. "The Uncommercial Traveller" is fantastic. If you're still not convinced to sink some time into Dickens, just read his essay about walking around London. If you read that and don't want to read more that's fine. But Bleak House is a masterpiece of English prose.

I have Pilgrim on my desk right now! It's not long, about 300 or less pages. Think of it as a spiritual successor to Walden. It helps to read them back to back. (Annie Dillard did her thesis on spirituality in Walden.)

Also! Virginia Woolf! Of course the novels -- Mrs Dalloway and To The Lighthouse and Three Guineas -- but she really shines in her essays. Check out her "Common Readers" and the collection "The Death of the Moth."

Please do read Morrison!

[Anonymous No.12465289]

>>12465263
Woah why is Gass with Ginsberg?

[Anonymous No.12465300]

>>12465289
No fucking clue my guy. No fucking clue. Ginsberg pretty much knew everyone though, so it doesn't surprise me.

[Anonymous No.12465340]

>>12465160
If you’re not particular on novels, look into the essay writers of the 17th-19th century. Francis Bacon, Thomas Browne, De Quincey, Carlyle, all very good. I especially like Bacon.

[Anonymous No.12465354]

>>12465340
High IQ recs. Bacon and Browne are the shit. I'll add William Hazlitt. Read his essay "On Boxing" first.

[Anonymous No.12465464]

>>12465287
Thanks man, quality posts all around. I like what Ive read of Dickens (tale of two cities and oliver twist) and mean to revisit him later. In the meanwhile Im sticking my finger in all the pies. Maybe not the best way to read but its what I feel driven to do.

I would imagine Dickens is a masterful essayist.

[Anonymous No.12465541]

>>12465190
>Don't start with Lolita though, start with either Pnin or Speak, Memory
Not him, why?

[Anonymous No.12465589]

>>12465464
No prob and thanks! Just tryna shitpost and be helpful at the same time. Don't feel bad about reading promiscuously. There's no better way to find out what rings your cherries.

>>12465541
Nabokov's style is drop-dead gorgeous, of course, but you have to learn to *pay attention* to him and not just sit there slackjawed by the pyrotechnics. Both Pnin and Speak, Memory keep the references/sly tricks to a minimum while preserving the best of Nabokov's prose. They're also less of a headache honestly. Starting Nabokov with Lolita is a bit like starting Eliot with The Waste Land or Joyce with Ulysses. You need to get used to him first.

altho speak memory is literally bergsonian philosophy in a memoir but you didn't hear that from me

[Anonymous No.12465590]

For what it's worth, I have sought out fine prose stylists for well over a decade. I am very superficial in that respect. Having read many of the "great English prose stylists," I will recommend to you my favorites (and roughly in order).

First tier:
John Henry Newman
Edmund Burke
Annie Dillard
Updike (yes, I place him this highly)
Nabokov
Waugh

Others:
Gibbon
Conrad
Virginia Wolf
Chesterton
V.S. Naipaul
Henry James

Inconsistent, but still above average stylists:
Wilde
Fitzgerald
Bertrand Russell

Overrated, but often cited as "great" stylists:
Chabon
Dickens
Toni Morrison
Thoreau

[Anonymous No.12465610]

Ah yes, the prose. The prooooooose. the PROOOOOOOSE. There's a reason why the pseuds on this website are always so willing to talk about "the prose" of a book when discussing its merits or flaws. Why attempt to analyze the merits and effects of the literary devices used to add to the development of characters, why attempt to understand the interplay of the perspectives of different characters and the emphasis this places on different themes, the spectrum of ironies used throughout the novel, the historical significance of the novel and the influence it has spawned in literary tradition or the influences seen throughout the work, the specific structure and literary underpinnings of the novel and the way it influences the tone, the author's relationship to the characters and the theme, the presentation of the novel itself to the audience and thus the relationship between reader and text --- why do any of this, when you could talk about "the prose?" You know that you have such a deep understanding of the book, don't you, when you talk about "the prose," the "musicality of it," the "sparseness." What a great artistic touch you have, don't you! Such a highly refined poetic sense! And you feel like such a true reader of literature when you are able to compare these styles: "I am partial to the lyricism of Joyce's prose, as well as the clean and scientific prose of Borges," you might say. What a deep understanding you show! Because the "prose" of a work is such an accessible topic, something that is felt immediately in the body and senses, a nice little sensation and flutter of the heart. Art obviously has nothing else to it, nothing other than the little sensations that I experience, because why should i attempt to understand it on a deeper level than this, when I have such a "refined" sense of the "prose?" Why even attempt to analyze the prose and the poetic and rhythmical underpinnings of it, when I could use a pretty little metaphor for it? It matters little that virtually every reader of literature has access to the music of the words and so my understanding is not quite so advanced as I would think, that form is something that goes hand in hand with theme, that I missed all the deep relationships between characters and between text and reader that existed in the work and that comprise a large part of the literary merit of the text, for my understanding of "the prose" shows such a mastery of language, a fine-tuned sense of the magical flow of the words! Having understood this work, I may as well move onto the next, the next bundle of pretty sensations to experience, the next bagful of fun linguistic treats!

[Anonymous No.12465640]

>>12465610
A quote from C.S. Lewis about the "unliterary," those who may read but are not true lovers of literature:


They have no ears. They read exclusively by eye. The most horrible cacophonies and the most perfect specimens of rhythm and vocalic melody are to them exactly equal. It is by this that we discover some highly educated people to be unliterary. They will write ‘the relation between mechanization and nationalisation’ without turning a hair.

[Anonymous No.12465646]

>>12465160
Nabokov, most of the time.

[Anonymous No.12465651]

The Flight to Lucifer

[Anonymous No.12465669]

>>12465610

literature is made of language, not what the language gestures towards. words -- words, words, words -- separate literature from music, from visual arts, from theatre and dance. good writers and good readers ought to care about finely balanced sentences. they literally make up the art form. dunking on people for caring about prose is a bit like dunking on a musician for caring about technique, or like dunking on a ballet dancer for caring about grace/fluidity.

[Anonymous No.12465683]

>>12465640

Damn, Lewis was a master. I could spend every evening for the rest of my life cuddled up with some Lewis work. He always has all the answers, and he says them so well you swear you'd thought of them yourself -- even when he's totally wrong. Like, Christianity's a total scam, but CS Lewis can make me believe as long as I hold his books, you know?

[Anonymous No.12465702]

>>12465590
Huh. Interesting list. I'm assuming you've left out the obvious answers -- nabokov, shakespeare, joyce, etc.

You place Newman that far above Dickens and Thoreau? I don't know about that. Woolf outstrips Chesterton. I agree with the Updike thing, which surprises me. Naipaul and James? You've got to be kidding me. I agree with Wilde, Fitzgerald, and Russell. Chabon's overrated but Morrison isn't.

Interesting list anon

[Anonymous No.12465715]

>>12465215
Seconded for Nabokov. While Lolita certainly has less-content than people uphold of it, the prose is simply spectacular. Like music, really. It simply flows, every word contributing to a melody-sentence, highly rich in texture. Nabokov truly met his aim of achieving a state of "aesthetic bliss", or whatever it was he said he pursued.

[Anonymous No.12465717]

>>12465702
Weird to think that picture is 10+ years old and that bitch is pushing 40 now

Blink your eyes and a woman goes from Princess of the Universe to random old hag

[Anonymous No.12465725]

>>12465651
top kek

also anyone have nudes of pic related? got a thing for lefty women

[Anonymous No.12465746]

>>12465702

Yea, I left out Shakespeare, but I included Nabokov in the top list, actually. If I included Joyce, I would have to include him in the overrated tier, honestly. I do not consider anything I've read by him to be fine English prose, at least in the traditional sense. He seems to be purposefully awkward and to purposefully avoid writing with the rhythms and the cadences of traditional English prose. Maybe I'm too old-fashioned for Joyce.

[Anonymous No.12465761]

>>12465725
hair's too short but i'd bang

[Anonymous No.12465801]

>>12465717

...holy shit. I first saw that picture when I was like 11 or 12. I'm fucking twenty now. That woman's fucking... in her late thirties, early 40s. She looks at least 27 there.

Holy hell. Time is the universal solvent.

[Anonymous No.12465809]

>>12465717
>>12465801
>tfw any woman reading this post right now will suffer the same fate

Goodbye, roasties!

[Anonymous No.12465810]

>>12465746

>purposefully avoid writing with the rhythms and the cadences of traditional english prose

...my guy, have you READ Dubliners? OR Portrait? I can understand not liking Joyce because he's awkward in most of Ulysses, but remember, two of his favorite writers were Newman and Flaubert.

[Anonymous No.12465812]

>>12465263
Thanks so much, anon. You've given me tons to draw from. Personally, from what I read here, and what you yourself agreed of him as, and the interview quote said of him as well, he doesn't seem like the writer for me. I just don't care for the statement he seems to embody, again, the indulgence and such. But thanks for showing me all of this, and who knows, maybe in future I'll check him out. But not until I've read others first, like Nabokov andJoyce and so on.

[Anonymous No.12465813]

>>12465287
Virginia Woolf is unbelievable. Something about her sentence structure is so precise.

[Anonymous No.12465818]

>>12465809

>tfw we will suffer the same fate

Oh, if we had world enough and time...

[Anonymous No.12465830]

>>12465160
classics:
proust, maupassant, whitman, rilke, turgenev, faulkner, henry james

cool kid list:

schulz, hrabal, lispector, rulfo, malaparte

[Anonymous No.12465842]

>>12465812
No prob. It's alright if you don't like him. There's a wide wide world of lit out there and there's no point wasting time on books that bore you.

Check him out after a few years. He grows on you. At least, he did me. The more I read the more I appreciate his criticism.

>>12465813
Virginia Woolf is fucking stunning. Her writing is alchemical, fluid, graceful, pliant, and bright all at the same time. I reread Woolf's Common Readers when I grow jaded.

[Anonymous No.12465852]

>>12465830
Faulkner and James? Bold choices anon.

What about pic related?
William T. Vollmann

[Anonymous No.12465876]

Is this a nice prose style?

It was just drizzling still, not enough to soak me through immediately as I reached for the house key that was always hidden under the eaves by the door, and locked up. The sloshing of my new waterproof boots was unnerving. I missed the normal crunch of gravel as I walked. I couldn’t pause and admire my truck again as I wanted; I was in a hurry to get out of the misty wet that swirled around my head and clung to my hair under my hood.

Inside the truck, it was nice and dry. Either Billy or Charlie had obviously cleaned it up, but the tan upholstered seats still smelled faintly of tobacco, gasoline, and peppermint. The engine started quickly, to my relief, but loudly, roaring to life and then idling at top volume. Well, a truck this old was bound to have a flaw. The antique radio worked, a plus that I hadn’t expected.

[Anonymous No.12465892]

>>12465876

...it's... pretty bad, anon. lots of gerunds. lots of cliches. no ear for rhythm. fucking semicolons. awkward sentence construction.

this sounds familiar but I can't place it

[Anonymous No.12465896]

>>12465852
Vollmann's a hack. Some of the worst prose I have ever read. Literally had his wallet stolen by a prostitute and thought some candy wrapper she left in the room meant she loved him.

>>12465830
Proust is good, faulkner's alright, henry james blows

[Anonymous No.12465924]

>>12465160

[Anonymous No.12465955]

>>12465924

Oooh.
oooooooh.
Interesting choice. I just finished this a few weeks ago. Eliot's brilliant but this book bored the fuck out of me. It wasn't the plot -- that kept me going -- but the victorian prose, you know? Dickens tried to stretch beyond his era's confines and Eliot was content to play around with what she was handed down prose-wise. Did you get that feeling or am I a crayon eater

>>12465896
Agreed on Vollmann, to a point. Hack's a stretch. Overrated probably suits him better. I've read a bit of his Seven Dreams chronology. It's interesting, but way overhyped. He also doesn't really think women are real people, so I'm not sure he can convincingly write an entire continent.

Like, there's this one interview that went like this:
>Interviewer: How do you respond to accusations of misogyny?
>Vollmann: I love women. I think all women are special and erotic.

...like holy fucking shit, how are you that smart and that unaware of yourself

[Anonymous No.12465977]

>>12465589
Alright, thanks

[Anonymous No.12466003]

>>12465610
I couldn't get past proose, it rhymes with goose.

[Anonymous No.12466040]

>>12465813
I believe she writes out her thoughts as they occur. It's the clarity which always gets me, sometimes it's as if viewing the scene from inside her mind in 3D. She's really very good.

[Anonymous No.12466067]

>>12465190
>reading for prose is dumb
t. coping untalented writer

[Anonymous No.12466384]

>>12465955
Vollmann isn't smart... es&d

[Anonymous No.12466417]

>>12465160
>I like McCarthy when he talks about land

>An X does Y like an A doing B
>Geology Glossary

There, I unlocked his secret.

[Anonymous No.12466423]

>>12465683
Even though I don't think Christianity is a total scam, I agree with your assessment of Lewis. Probably one of the comfiest writers of all time.

[Anonymous No.12466516]

>>12466417
Idiot. Prose depends more on the lexical choices and the flow of sounds between them, not the syntactical structure of the sentence.

[Anonymous No.12466602]

>>12465160

Carlyle -- The French Revolution
Gass -- The Tunnel
Newman -- Apologia Pro Vita Sua
Nabokov -- The Gift
Ruskin -- The Stones of Venice
Pater -- The Renaissance, Marius the Epicurean

[Anonymous No.12467146]

Any other authors that mimic Shakespearean dialect like Melville does? That always make for good prose.

[Anonymous No.12467151]

>>12465160
Have fun

[Anonymous No.12467460]

To the Nabakov anons - how are his short stories? I never see them discussed and have seen a collection of 60 or so floating around. Worth it?

[Anonymous No.12467467]

>>12467460

Nabokov*, even

[Anonymous No.12467518]

>>12465263
>ignoring that stories/essays/novels are composed of language, and instead pretending that they somehow "appear" through "transparent prose" does a disservice to the mouth, tongue, lips, ears, the body itself, which wants to EMBODY language -- quite literally -- and not just intellectually "understand" it.
good post
I hadn't ever heard about this Gass dude, gonna follow your suggestions

[Anonymous No.12467737]

>>12467146
How is he Shakespearean, desu? Can someone post an example passage, to help me see it?

[Anonymous No.12467784]

>>12465169
This, i fucking love carlyles french revolution so much

>The shepherd of the people has been carried home from Little Trianon, heavy of heart, and been put to bed in his own Chateau of Versailles: the flock knows it, and heeds it not. At most, in the immeasurable tide of French Speech (which ceases not day after day, and only ebbs towards the short hours of night), may this of the royal sickness emerge from time to time as an article of news. Bets are doubtless depending; nay, some people 'express themselves loudly in the streets.' But for the rest, on green field and steepled city, the May sun shines out, the May evening fades; and men ply their useful or useless business as if no Louis lay in danger.

>Prayers? From a France smitten (by black-art) with plague after plague, and lying now in shame and pain, with a Harlot's foot on its neck, what prayer can come? Those lank scarecrows, that prowl hunger-stricken through all highways and byways of French Existence, will they pray? The dull millions that, in the workshop or furrowfield, grind fore-done at the wheel of Labour, like haltered gin-horses, if blind so much the quieter?

>For ours is a most fictile world; and man is the most fingent plastic of creatures. A world not fixable; not fathomable! An unfathomable Somewhat, which is Not we; which we can work with, and live amidst,—and model, miraculously in our miraculous Being, and name World.—But if the very Rocks and Rivers (as Metaphysic teaches) are, in strict language, made by those outward Senses of ours, how much more, by the Inward Sense, are all Phenomena of the spiritual kind: Dignities, Authorities, Holies, Unholies! Which inward sense, moreover is not permanent like the outward ones, but forever growing and changing. Does not the Black African take of Sticks and Old Clothes (say, exported Monmouth-Street cast-clothes) what will suffice, and of these, cunningly combining them, fabricate for himself an Eidolon (Idol, or Thing Seen), and name it Mumbo-Jumbo; which he can thenceforth pray to, with upturned awestruck eye, not without hope? The white European mocks; but ought rather to consider; and see whether he, at home, could not do the like a little more wisely.

>Alas, much more lies sick than poor Louis: not the French King only, but the French Kingship; this too, after long rough tear and wear, is breaking down. The world is all so changed; so much that seemed vigorous has sunk decrepit, so much that was not is beginning to be!—Borne over the Atlantic, to the closing ear of Louis, King by the Grace of God, what sounds are these; muffled ominous, new in our centuries? Boston Harbour is black with unexpected Tea: behold a Pennsylvanian Congress gather; and ere long, on Bunker Hill, DEMOCRACY announcing, in rifle-volleys death-winged, under her Star Banner, to the tune of Yankee-doodle-doo, that she is born, and, whirlwind-like, will envelope the whole world!

And it just goes on and on with god tier prose

[Anonymous No.12467822]

Look into Thomas Wolfe (not Tom Wolfe). You can start here:
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/White/anthology/wolfe.html

Harold Bloom disliked him, saying he was an author for adolescents, "the JD Salinger for the 1930s," but start reading that story and go from there. His novels are great extensive versions of this.

[Anonymous No.12467835]

Wonderful prose is of course a great thing, but do you have any examples of books that strike a nice balance between good prose and a compelling plot?

[Anonymous No.12467842]

>>12467835
Lolita and Carlyles revolution

[Anonymous No.12467858]

>>12465340
>Thomas Browne
this

[Anonymous No.12469554]

bump for a based thread

[Anonymous No.12469598]

>>12465160
Pic related is perfection (get this translation if you can't read French)

[Anonymous No.12469656]

>>12467784
Book two is even better imo

[Anonymous No.12469951]

>>12465589
>Starting Nabokov with Lolita is a bit like starting Eliot with The Waste Land or Joyce with Ulysses.
lel I did all three of those. When you're young you want to jump in the deep end before you can swim

[Anonymous No.12470996]

>>12465160
Saul Bellow

[Anonymous No.12471013]

>>12469951
Disagree, its more like starting with TBK and Pale Dire/Ada

[Anonymous No.12471335]

>>12467737
just read Moby Dick, it's the closest to what a novel written by Shakespeare would be like. The dialogues are specially Shakespearean and I think some of them are even blank verse written, or rather arranged, in prose form.

[Anonymous No.12471363]

>>12467737
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moby-Dick#Assimilation_of_Shakespeare

[Anonymous No.12471413]

>>12465160
Suttree by Cormac McCarthy is one of the most beautiful books I've ever read based solely on the quality of the prose

[Anonymous No.12471459]

Anything by H.L. Mencken. He's an excellent prose stylist. I dislike his politics (he was a sort of reactionary social Darwinist), and his views on religion are juvenile, but he's a pleasure to read.

[Anonymous No.12472280]

>>12467151
It may be hope or dread, but I have a feeling that this book is about to have a day in the sun outside of the kinds of people that already own nyrb publications.

[Anti-/lit/ !N4bnZoKwfU No.12472327]

Im OP btw kek

I love Harold Bloom so much.

[Anonymous No.12472355]

>>12465263
>Gardner: The difference between you and me is that my airplane flies and yours is too jewel-encrusted to get off the ground.
>Gass: But I want everyone to look at my plane and think it's flying.

cringe

[Anonymous No.12472523]

>>12465610
how funny then that you should put such a clear effort into prose here, and how droll that you should forget the advice of the Bard with regard to wit

[Anonymous No.12472934]

>>12469598
This is perfect for your needs, op.
>>12465830
I second the "cool kids" list of this post, minus Malaparte which I haven't read.
>>12465160
Lawrence Durell never gets mentioned on /lit/, but he too fits your demands.

[Anonymous No.12472943]

The Picture of Dorian Gray is very nice.

[Anonymous No.12473003]

Hume is an underrated prose stylist.

[Anonymous No.12473138]

>>12465160
Moby Dick
Ulysses
In Search of Lost Time
I hear Borges' prose in Spanish is god-tier but I only know English
Divine Comedy (Mandelbaum translation)
All of Shakespeare

[Anonymous No.12473168]

>>12465160

Ulysses and Finnegans Wake are top prose.

Also check out Nabokov, Melville and Faulkner, they are my personal favorit prose stylists.

[Anonymous No.12474160]

>>12465160
Try Vance's Dying Earth. Or Manalive by GKC.

[Anonymous No.12474167]

>>12465263
Perhaps I'm a brainlet, but I really couldn't even comprehend this Gass passage at all. Also I don't see much virtue in his writing, personally.

[Anonymous No.12474181]

>>12465160
Unironically Rand when she talks about cities.

[Anonymous No.12475469]

>>12473138
>Shakespeare
>prose

[Anonymous No.12475503]

faulker

>When Jewel can almost touch him, the horse stands on his hind legs and slashes down at Jewel. Then Jewel is enclosed by a glittering maze of hooves as by an illusion of wings; among them, beneath the up-reared chest, he moves with the flashing limberness of a snake. For an instant before the jerk comes onto his arms he sees his whole body earth-free, horizontal, whipping snake-umber, until he finds the horse's nostrils and touches earth again. Then they are rigid, motionless, terrific, the horse back-thrust on stiffened, quivering legs, with lowered head; Jewel with dug heels, shutting off the horse's wind with one hand, with the other patting the horse's neck in short strokes myriad and caressing, cursing the horse with obscene ferocity.

>They stand in rigid terrific hiatus, the horse trembling and groaning. Then Jewel is on the horse's back. He flows upward in a stooping swirl like the lash of a whip, his body in midair shaped to the horse. For another moment the horse stands spraddled, with lowered head, before it bursts into motion. They descend the hill in a series of spine-jolting jumps, Jewel high, leech-like on the withers, to the fence where the horse bunches to a scuttering halt again.