People may have complicated feelings about David Foster Wallace but I appreciate his writing most when he’s writing very vividly and specifically about a particular setting / phenomenon / person. Here’s an example from Consider the Lobster:
“Winter here is a pitiless bitch, but in the warm months Bloomington is a lot like a seaside community except here the ocean is corn, which grows steroidically and stretches to the earth’s curve in all directions. The town itself in summer is intensely green — streets bathed in tree-shade and homes’ explosive gardens and dozens of manicured parks and ballfields and golf courses you almost need eye protection to look at, and broad weedless fertilized lawns all made to line up exactly flush to the sidewalk with special edging tools.† To be honest, it’s all a little creepy, especially in high summer, when nobody’s out and all that green just sits in the heat and seethes.”
Some people may find that overwritten but I quite enjoy it. Can you recommend me some books / authors that seem to take the same kind of pleasure in writing and describing things? Thx
by GrimCandy
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Amor Towles.
Ian McEwan
Michael Chabon
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s sentences are *chef’s kiss*. They’re not overly verbose, but the structures are wonderfully varied, and his points clear.
The Invented Part by Fresán
A Heart So White by Marias
Thomas Pynchon