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Originally Posted by Ugly Bastard
Uhh... hyperbole much?
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First of all, my apologies for temporarily high jacking the thread - it wasn't my intention.
I hyperbole sometimes, but not in this case, no. Care to unleash some of that endless literary knowledge of yours, UB, and inform me who you think is a better living writer than McCarthy? Obviously it's subjective, but not completely. I ask that you supply ample evidence to support your claim. And in the spirit of fairness, I will do the same.
1. McCarthy has won the Pulitzer Prize (an American award regarded as the highest national honor in print journalism, literary achievements, and musical composition).
2. Harold Bloom (an American professor and prominent literary and cultural critic) has named him as one of the four major American novelists of his time.
3. Was awarded the Faulkner prize for a first novel.
4. Was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for creative writing.
5. Was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.
6. Was awarded the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
7. McCarthy was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction.
Books like "The Road", "Blood Meridian", "All the pretty horses", and "No country for old men" are considered masterpieces by the majority of literary critics. His books have, and continue to be made into movies. He is highly respected among his peers. He's often compared to Faulkner.
More important than all of the above though is just to read him. Read his books. The man is simply incredible. It doesn't take a literary theorist to recognize that McCarthy's writing is brilliant. He has a vocabulary of biblical proportions, and is a true words smith.
The case can be made for a couple of other writers, like Coetzee and Roth, and among those three it may be a matter of preference, but it's indisputable that McCarthy is top 5. That's why I said he's "probably" the greatest living writer.
He is not amused.