Friedrich Nietzsche - On the Genealogy of Morality
Did you ever wonder what are the roots of all those rules of morality that dominate our society ?
Very good read, makes you think a lot!

"Friedrich Nietzsche". I am almost certain that this is not a anagram of "Pretentious nob". But it should be.

Probably. I was going to put him instead. And just because A influenced B doesn't mean B isn't more influential.

Rembrandt and Michelangelo were influenced by other painters, as was Picasso. Yet Picasso would be near the top if not the #1 most influential painter of the century.
Oh yeah? Well I slept with your wife! SO THERE!

And I think your assertion is similarly ludicrous. Carver has influenced many more authors - not novelists - than Hemingway.

Frost is another good suggestion.

1) The Wasp Factory is his best work.

2) Many, if not most of the Culture novels are way better. Player of Games, Use of Weapons, et al.

3 is clearly the best one, much better than 2, I agree. I think 2 isn't as good as 1 or 3.

But aDwD - esp the first half - is fairly tedious, slow, boring, doubleplusungood. I can't think of a single, solitary thing I liked about it [other than fave characters returning in general]

It picked up after about 450 pages, thankfully.

Obviously it's impossible ever to quantify influence. That said, I'd strongly argue that you are wrong. There were many more imitators and epigones of Hemingway in the 40 years following The Sun Also Rises and the early stories than Carver has ever had--but many of these (even ones such as Irwin Shaw who were successful in their day) have long been forgotten.

But then is "influence" defined by the number of imitators? Or should we measure it instead by a writer's having had a large and lasting effect on the way later writers are writing?

Hemingway would have to be my choice over Carver for this, as well.

Russell,

I see what you mean, but if we don't stop at the central figure the writer looks to, why would you stop at Hemingway?

That's fine - we can all have our opinions - but if you don't think most of today's writers weren't only influenced by Carver, but have also imitated his style at some point in their post-CW workshops and earlier stories, you're wrong. [I don't mean as an assignment or thought exercise, obvs] Not sure why one would bring up Shaw instead of Richard Ford or Ann Beattie if you want to name-drop.

You do realize there are way, way more published story writers than novelists I assume. Like thousands and thousands of percent more. So even if EH was 'more' influential on his flock, that flock is 5% the size of the other writing flock [excluding poets in this discussion] so Carver is easily more influential ainec. People here are hung up on famous novelists for the most part.

Of course Hemingway was very influential. So was Faulkner, Pound, Frost, Roth, Amis, and I don't even know if we've mentioned Wodehouse yet [maybe one person did]. Guy wrote songs with Cole Porter and Jerome Kern, to his famous Jeeves and other hilarious work which was tremendously influential of basically every humorist/parodist since.

Probably the premier humorist of the Century [and I'm not a Hail Brittania kinda guy].

I would accept Faulkner instead of Carver since he was one of his [and of course many others] literary influences.

Faulkner, Pynchon, Eliot, Nabokov, Joyce is an equally good or better list.

yeah i'd say pynchon is most influential

just finished The Informers. I don't know why I like BEE stuff as much as I do. There's really no reason I can think of

Najdorf,

I agree with your reasoning and conclusion. You said you wouldn't got there, but your point is even more conclusive if we include the many creative writing students.

It seemed to me Russell was arguing a different point, though, instead saying Carver may have been their directly recognized influence, but because Carver owed his debt of influence to Hemingway, Hemingway has influenced more writers than Carver.

I'd put Hemingway on this list before Faulkner.

As I mentioned previously I was reading Spook Country by Gibson. Absolutely horrible. It was bad writing, bad story, and didn't really have an ending to speak of.

Just started Time Machine by Wells. So far it's terrific. I have a compilation that includes the Time Machine, Island of Dr. Moreau and War of the Worlds and plan to read them all. I was simply blown away by Well's description of Time as the 4th dimension considering this was written in 1895. I guess that is 8 years after the Michelson Morley experiment but 10 years preceding Einstein's Special Relativity paper which actually concluded that time was the 4th dimension. I am impressed that 100+ year old science fiction reads as if it could have been written yesterday (so far).

exactly

jeremy clarksons' driven to distraction

Whoops, that was probably me, sorry.

What can I say, I loved it? You are right though, it is probably his least linear Culture novel. It does all come together, but I can't promise you it will be worth it for you.

I found the book out and out funny. So maybe what you are seeing as campy was part of the charm for me. I think I've read all of the Culture novels except for Consider Phlebas and enjoyed them all. But since Excession was my first read it holds a special place for me.

On an unrelated matter, I just finished The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen based on recommendations ITT.

It was both funny and poignant. Well written for sure. I did find the prose got in the way for me a little bit sometimes though. Almost like the author was trying to show off what a good writer he is. Only a minor knock, I can easily pick up another book of his and look forward to reading it.

You are certain to enjoy Freedom then.

Thanks for the info guys. When I see the culture books at the store they do look like something I'd be interested in but maybe Excession just wasnt for me. I'll try the Wasp Factory since its his first book.

yeah freedom is probably the best novel i've read in the last five years.

Franzen itt!

Except Carver's main influence was Faulkner, and it was his editor Lish, after that maybe Cheever. Faulkner also won the Nobel years before Ernest did, probably around 5-6 years iirc.

Lish was the one who pared down Carver's style/prose [over-much at many points] for his magazines. Carver wasn't imitating Hemingway, sorry.

The fact that you want to continue to argue over my opinion, while getting many of the facts wrong at the same time is lol.

I see the fact that Carver has > 20x more imitators than Hemingway goes unremarked though.

Najdorf,

Have you read Carver's unedited manuscripts?

A quick reference to Carver's essays shows he was most influenced by, at least as far as he chose to be specific, Chekhov, followed by John Gardner.

Najdorf, what are you referencing when you say Carver's main influences were Faulkner and Cheever?

Carver's main influence was Faulkner? Over Hemingway? We may be thinking of different Carvers, Najdorf.

About me "continuing to argue with you", other people have disagreed with you about this more than I have. Before this post, I had disagreed with you once. Then I agreed with John Cole once.

I used "ludicrous" when I disagreed with you that one time, and maybe that was too strong. But the argumentative line against me isn't valid.

I think we know where we are.

I will reiterate my point that it's impossible to quantify the number of imitators of any one writer.

I would also suggest that the question of who is doing the imitating is significant. Najdorf is certainly right to suggest that a huge number of apprenticeship writers enrolled in undergraduate classes (and postgrad classes, for that matter) produce imitation Carver. Hemingway's influence was felt on apprenticeship writers long before the era of creative writing instruction, so his imitators may indeed have been fewer in this sense -- or remained invisible.

But I will continue to argue that Hemingway was more transformative -- both in terms of his impact on writers and readers and on culture at large -- than Carver. Or Faulkner. This is not an argument about which of the three is the greatest artist. (I'd probably vote for Faulkner if I had to choose -- but I don't much like "beauty contests" for great writers.)

By the way, are today's creative writing students still looking to Carver? Surely they've moved on. To ... ?

They're still looking to Carver.