Which works have the best prose of all time?

I mean come on. We all know it's Lolita. But as a different answer I would say "The grapes of wrath" for such simple prose Steinbeck portrays such pain and human emotion.

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My diary desu

Moby Dick,
Lolita,
portrait

Personally like DFW's prose

This
>One man, one family driven from the land; this rusty car creaking along the highway to the west. I lost my land, a single tractor took my land. I am alone and I am bewildered. And in the night one family camps in a ditch and another family pulls in and the tents come out. The two men squat on their hams and the women and children listen. Here is the node, you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the anlage of the thing you fear. This is the zygote. For here "I lost my land" is changed; a cell is split and from its splitting grows the thing you hate—"We lost our land." The danger is here, for two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one. And from this first "we" there grows a still more dangerous thing: "I have a little food" plus "I have none." If from this problem the sum is "We have a little food," the thing is on its way, the movement has direction. Only a little multiplication now, and this land, this tractor are ours. The two men squatting in a ditch, the little fire, the side-meat stewing in a single pot, the silent, stone-eyed women; behind, the children listening with their souls to words their minds do not understand. The night draws down. The baby has a cold. Here, take this blanket. It's wool. It was my mother's blanket—take it for the baby. This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning—from "I" to "we."

this guy

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Anyone here read Nabokov in original Russian? Was the prose as impressive as it was in Lolita?

>such simple prose Steinbeck portrays such pain and human emotion.
based. complexity does not equal good prose.

Such as?

A Walking Aphrodisiac

Updike’s Rabbit Tetralogy is a great one which likely won’t get mentioned much in these threads.

as i lay dying

Lolita, Heart of Darkness, Moby Dick, A Farewell to Arms, Ulysses, In Search of Lost Time,

In my brief reading life so far these are the books I’ve read with the best prose (all in English or English translations).

One Hundred Years of Solitude
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
Dubliners
Winesburg, Ohio
A Farewell to Arms
Madame Bovary
The Aleph and Other Stories
The Lost Salt Gift Of Blood
A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man
Heart of Darkness
Moby-Dick
Ficciones

>The Death of Ivan Ilyich
>Madame Bovary
>The Aleph and Other Storues
>Ficciones
Which translations?

For Tolstoy I prefer Louise and Aylmer Maude
Borges has Norman di Giovanni who he worked closely with on the English translations of his work so it’s almost Borges translating himself
Madame Bovary I have read a couple translations, Lydia Davis, the first English translation by Eleanor Marx Aveling, and Steegmuller. So far I like Steegmuller best, but I’ve gotten the impression that there is less consensus on the best translator of Flaubert into English

Best prose? What does that even mean lmao. Prose is absolutely subjective. I mean what appeals to one person can appeal to another - you cannot rate prose objectively. It's like asking what's the most beautiful sentence. Doesn't really make sense, does it? Same with your post, moron. I bet you're chinese.

>Why would I bother giving my opinion? It's all subjective anyways. All I care about are cold hard facts.

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Not entirely. The use of carefully crafted metaphors, allusions, and just original language are close to objective measurements.

Crying of lot 49

Where can I get hold of Maude's Ivan Ilyich and di Giovanni's Borges?

I would say Hemingway.

Hemingways prose and style are simple and direct, the kind of writing that doesnt feed you with useless information. Less is more.

>a farewell to arms
>the old man and the sea

Here's a more interesting question: what's the best writing (prose or verse) you've ever read in a translated work?
Snow Country and David Luke's Faust come to mind

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Meant for

80s-90s era DeLillo obliterated anyone else out there.