I’d be curious to know from Gregg what Elmore Leonard thinks of “The Great Gatsby,” which I finished reading tonight. I heard yet another author place it in his five best books of all time and have seen one critic call it a perfect book and the best piece of American literature of the 20th century. So I finally read it. Fitzgerald certainly uses a lot of adjectives, which Elmore advises against.  But I suspect Elmore may think something like he was a groundbreaker and others have pushed the envelope further but still needed to stand on Fitzgerald’s broad shoulders. It is about American values and aspirations, and about characater and people’s interiors, rather than just a story about this happened then that happened, much like Elmore’s work is primarily character and dialog driven rather than just story driven. Filthy rich Gatsby was unable to hang onto the one thing that meant the most to him even though he had her, Daisy, in his grasp for a while a second time. And the defeat of the obvious: If Americans’ ideal is to get rich, and one actually achieves it, it makes him happy (or does it?). The idle or somewhat idle rich don’t have it as good as the poor might think. Is there some rosebud out there that will inevitably elude the rich? Some of the passages are simply brilliant and the phrasing ingenious and captivating still now. The man has a way with not only words but also ideas, ideals and is unafraid to take chances, and let it all hang out. Narrator Nick Carraway is a storyteller within a novel who becomes our guy, a sympathetic figure, too.

I’d be curious to know from Gregg what Elmore Leonard thinks of “The Great Gatsby,”

Elmore:

“Never read it.  Never cared for Fitzgerald’s voice.”

Spoken like a true Hemingway man!

Thanks for the rapid reply from the horse’s mouth, Gregg. Happy holidays to both of you.

I suppose that is not too surprising since Fitzgerald gets a little “look, Ma, no hands"y from time to time, and there is that adjective problem. But he seemed a guy who tried to make every graf, every sentence, every word count, and was renowned for his rewriting ad nauseam. When he drank himself to death at 44, not too many people liked Gatsby and it hadn’t sold very well, just in the low thousands; only two decades later did people start to take real notice, and its sales went bananas.
I got Tonto woman and the short stories, which I’m reading now. I had read Tonto, but the short stories I hadn’t. The one with saint in its title (it’s at home now) was great (deputy watching over condemned man), and packed a great Elmore Leonard punch at the end. (“That’s one YOU can chalk up to experience”).

Thanks for the rapid reply from the horse’s mouth, Gregg. Happy holidays to both of you.

Gregg Sutter—schizophrenic?

OK call me crazy but the stories of the Newfoundland Coast
Michael Crummey’s River Thieves, The Wreckage share
brutal honesty in the face of the most dainty of societies.

Steinbeck
Hemingway
Chandler
Hamnett
Joseph Heller
Jim Thompson
James Lee Burke
Robert Crais
Tom Wolfe
Ed McBain
PK Dick
Vonnegut
Michael Connolly

to name the ones off the top of my head!

I have too many fav authors in several of the genres i read alot of.  I cant narrow it down to a random top ten or top 5.

In ranking order :

Crime/Noir:

Richard Stark/Donald Westlake
Ross Macdonald
Elmore Leonard
Raymond Chandler
Jim Thompson
John D.Macdonald
Michaal Connelly
Dennis Lehane

Science Fiction :

Philip K Dick/Robert Heinlein - i cant seperate the two as the best SF author.
Jack Vance
Isaac Asimov
HG Wells
Richard Morgan
CJ Cherrey
Alfred Bester
Roger Zelazny

Fantasy :

David Gemmell
Robert E Howard
Tim Powers
Lian Hearn
Michael Moorcock

The rest :  other genres,lit fiction etc

Alexander Dumas
Conn Iggulden
Jonas Hassan Khemeri
Stehpen King
Clive Barker
Simon Scarrow

Nick Tosches
Hunter Thompson
Phillip Roth
Bukowski
Louise Erdrich
Bob Dylan (I only half kid—Chronicles iVol. 1 is a fantastic book)

Nobody here reads Kem Nunn?
California roots showing again.

Parker mentions sci fi authors with no mention of Douglas Adams.  Anyone heard of Stanislaw Lem?
I never got into Stephen King or Clive Barker, but owned a few.  The Waste Lands and Cabal come to mind.  Couldn’t breach the first 50 pages or so of Christine, though I have to admit I’ve enjoyed many Dean Koontz tales and a Sidney Sheldon or two back in the day.  High school molds your tastes, don’t it? 
Senior year we read The Magus by John Fowles.  Great British author I thought.  Long and wordy stuff (except maybe The Colletor) but all of ‘em page turners. Google says he’s a year younger than Mr. Leonard.  Good times.

Joe the Engineer
Chuck Wachtel

Elmore and I are fond of this book.

From Library Journal

Poet Wachtel turned to fiction with this fanfare-for-the-common-man first novel (LJ 1/15/83), which won the Pen/Hemingway Citation. The plot follows the dreary existence of protagonist Joe, a 27-year-old Vietnam vet, who, despite his nickname of the title, reads water meters in Brooklyn and Queens. As his marriage dissolves, Joe fears he is just another nameless nobody in a world of nameless nobodys; just another Joe among countless others.

Scrum - 22 November 2008 03:27 AM

Nobody here reads Kem Nunn?
California roots showing again.

Parker mentions sci fi authors with no mention of Douglas Adams.  Anyone heard of Stanislaw Lem?
I never got into Stephen King or Clive Barker, but owned a few.  The Waste Lands and Cabal come to mind.  Couldn’t breach the first 50 pages or so of Christine, though I have to admit I’ve enjoyed many Dean Koontz tales and a Sidney Sheldon or two back in the day.  High school molds your tastes, don’t it? 
Senior year we read The Magus by John Fowles.  Great British author I thought.  Long and wordy stuff (except maybe The Colletor) but all of ‘em page turners. Google says he’s a year younger than Mr. Leonard.  Good times.

Actually Douglas Adams classic series was my first sf.  I read it on the train trip to school years and laughed my ass off.

I dont know how i forget to add him.  He is special to me.

Thomas Harris
Paulo Coelho
Ray Bradbury
Murakami Haruki
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Carl Hiaasen
John McFetridge
Elmore Leonard
Soseki Natsume

A diverse bunch.

I discovered Kurt Vonnegut last month. Read Slaughterhouse 5, it is fantastic. Then I read Breakfast of Champions the next week and it was also great.

Road Dawg - 21 November 2008 02:41 PM

Bob Dylan (I only half kid—Chronicles iVol. 1 is a fantastic book)

It’s lyrical and witty. I love it.

JohnKoliba - 04 January 2009 08:53 AM

I discovered Kurt Vonnegut last month. Read Slaughterhouse 5, it is fantastic. Then I read Breakfast of Champions the next week and it was also great.

BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS is a classic—my favorite of his.