When Author X was Compared to Author Y by Author Z

X is by any standards a better writer than Y. -Z

Fill in the unknowns.

The fact that what X is entertaining us about is reality and madness, time and death, sin and salvation -- this has escaped most critics. Nobody notices that we have our own homegrown Y. -Z

for example?

A,B,C, stand aside. D is now a better short story writer than you will ever be again during the rest of your lives. -E

the second one: X=Dick, Y= Borges, Z- Le Guin

Are we supposed to answer these, or list more?

Yes!

Either answer or list more. Please list more.

Thus, if you read X and Y you will be struck by the indecency of the one, and the obscurity of the other. - Z

that's gotta be Woolf on Joyce and Eliot, innit?

None other!

X is our Y - Z

(Sorry, can't find longer version of quote. Will give hints later)

that could be lots of things though! everyone's always saying that. and everyone is always "our" chekhov. alice munro is our chekhov - cynthia ozick how come nobody is ever our gogol? apparently chekhov was a dime a dozen.

I know I know. OK, two of them are sci-fi writers, one is male one is female. One has already been mentioned on this thread, one's name is pronounced same as somebody mentioned on thread.

And one is Great American Author.

Dick, Borges, LeGuin?

Oh wait, I see that one upthread already. Drat.

The last name is correct. I guess she has a tendency for this kind of thing. Second name is Great North American Author. Still cannot find longer version of the quote.

So it's Gene Wolfe is our... uh. Nabokov? Probably not. Gene Wolfe is our, hrm, can't be Melville or James, can it? Seems good names to go for if you wanna say something's major, though. Pynchon? Nah. But it's got to be someone who does unreliable narrators though, right? Hell, maybe the Wolfe is wrong too, but he seems the kinda guy someone would compare with a big name, AND his name's homophonous with Woolf. Oh well.

Yes. You got it. Wolfe, Melville, LeGuin.

i guess i should read some gene wolfe. i still need to read some jack vance though after reading that big article on how amazing jack vance is in the new york times. i'm still schooling myself when it comes to the sci-fi elders.

Øystein, kudos to you for persevering on this thankless task.

X is insanely plausible. He writes like the demented son of W or Y or maybe Z

too easily googleable but it looks like the book it refers to might be fun.

That last one is becoming harder to google. X=Thomas Berger, W=Lewis Carroll, Y=Edward Lear, Z=Nabokov. Think the author of the quote was Evan S. Connell.

Evan S. Connell, Jr.

Anyway

Cross A with W, stir in a good dose of Y, a pinch of Z, mix thoroughly, pour into a frosted glass, garnish with a peyote button, and you will more or less have X's B, a potation which otherwise defies description, categorization, or imitation. Only X would be crazy enough to mix one of these, and only X has the wit to make it go down smooth.

Jesus Christ Scott read some Vance!!! He is the fucking bomb.

And LeGuin never called him "Our Cervantes"

Answer:
Cross Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman with Aristophanes, stir in a good dose of Ron Goulart, a pinch of Vonnegut, mix thoroughly, pour into a frosted glass, garnish with a peyote button, and you will more or less have Robert Sheckley's Dramocles, a potation which otherwise defies description, categorization, or imitation. Only Sheckley would be crazy enough to mix one of these, and only Sheckley has the wit to make it go down smooth.

-NORMAN SPINRAD

Really this thread should have been called something like "Rescue yr favorite old school book-blurbs from oblivion by posting them here. Especially sci-fi but others welcome too."

OK, here's a non-sci-fi one.

I once confessed to Z that I was allergic both to X and to his poetry. "I don't know what all the fuss is about," Z said. "He's just an American Y."

I dunno, but it is funny.

A,B,C, stand aside. D is now a better short story writer than you will ever be again during the rest of your lives. -E

No I was off by one name. The original quote is "“Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Norman Mailer, stand aside. Harlan Ellison is now a better short story writer than you will ever be again during the rest of your lives.”

Because, as we all know, these first three were famous for their short stories. /him_with_his_foot_in_his_mouth

Also "than you will ever be again during the rest of your lives"- how can he know?

OK, here's a non-sci-fi one.

/I once confessed to Z that I was allergic both to X and to his poetry. "I don't know what all the fuss is about," Z said. "He's just an American Y."/

I once confessed to Philip Larkin that I was allergic both to Lowell and to his poetry. 'I don't know what all the fuss is about,' Philip said. 'He's just an American Heath-Stubbs.'

And this was written by- Kingsley Amis?

Letter from X to Y:

I was enraged to see they gave the £40 to Z; still now you and Rosamond can join in blaming her. Who is she? What is this book? And so you can't buy your carpet.

And this was written by- Kingsley Amis?

Charles Osborne of the British Arts Council.

A fine intellectual writer, X is here sharper and more substantial than Y. -Z

If the Y had been literary rather than thespic fantasists ... they would have been X." — Z

(Arrgh unpaired unneeded quotation mark)

Evan Connell comparison of Thomas Berger is from New York Magazine review of Neighbors: https://books.google.com/books?id=IOQCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&dq=%22INSANELY+PLAUSIBLE+HE+WRITES+LIKE+THE+DEMENTED+SON%22&source=bl&ots=uzUOcMtcyI&sig=vp9B0tOfjhDQFFwGYM8A0SDcGcM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwit2vyevpDUAhXCRCYKHd3bAAcQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=%22INSANELY%20PLAUSIBLE%20HE%20WRITES%20LIKE%20THE%20DEMENTED%20SON%22&f=false

X at his best is Y-and-soda. His fizzing nihilism expresses itself most pungently at short-story length. -Z

https://mobile.nytimes.com/1996/12/08/books/jacketeering.html

A fine intellectual writer, X is here sharper and more substantial than Y. -Z

lol never change Michael

RIP, Harlan Ellison

RIP™, surely

Lol, yes

She is X’s heir and Y’s sister.
-Z

This one is really obvious, but:

In his earliest time I thought he (X) perhaps contained the seeds of an English Y; but I have given that up in proportion as he has come down steadily from the simple in subject to the more simple–from the Anglo-Indians to the natives, from the natives to the Tommies, from the Tommies to the quadrupeds, from the quadrupeds to the fish, and from the fish to the engines and screws. - Z

X is Kipling? Z ... Wells?

Yes to Kipling, no to Wells.

The Kipling part was what I meant when I said this one was obvious, btw.

Y is Balzac, Z is Henry James

imo, Mr. James should have just re-read his Balzac instead of trying to spawn an English reproduction of him. heaven knows Balzac wrote enough to satisfy most people's thirst for Balzac-ness.

I believe the example in the OP also appeared in one of David Markson's books.

She is X’s heir and Y’s sister.
-Z

I am bad at these games but want to know what this one is. Anybody got any guesses before I just ask for it to be revealed?

Do you want hints? Initials?

How about saying who 'she' is?

Is there a genre you could point to, or is it in the vague purportedly genreless world of "literary fiction"?

Slipstream, according to Christopher Priest.

Aha, I was thinking sci-fi so not that far away. Are any of the authors involved Le Guin?

I did just have to check if Slipstream was what I thought it was and got a bit of a spoiler, seeing as the corresponding thread has been bumped here - is one of the authors the dude who wrote Dhalgren?

Ha, no.

Hmmmmm. I told you I was bad at this game ;_;

Balzac-ness

Balzacité

anna kavan! was it kafka's sister... something, something brian aldiss?

Oh yes indeed

Ah fuck, I like Anna Kavan too. I'm going to properly kick myself if that quote is featured in the blurbs of any of the ones of hers I've read.