Universal systems: Differences and Weaknesses

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If you simply follow well known that will do it, and takes personal taste out of it. I love Mark Twain and Edgar Allen Poe but if you want to name drop, lets see just on school reading list favorites not from the south you have Hemmingway, Steinbeck, London, Vonnegut, Salinger, Asimov, Bradbury, Herbert, Chandler, Thoreau, Irving.

Many is not at issue, most is hard to support for any region.

See that's why something like this is subjective though.

I'd consider all of the writers you mention a step down from the ones I already mentioned in terms of aesthetic achievement. Some not even in the same neighbourhood. And I like and read all of them. Not saying they suck but compared to McCarthy and O'Connor? No contest to me.

And to add to the subjectivity several of those writers literary reputations have been (sometimes unfairly) on the slide for decades and are only considered 'major' writers within the US or their genre community.

So I was talking about the greatness of the literary tradition which is not just the 'best known.' Greatness is not so easily quantifiable.

There are more well known English novelists than Irish novelists but that doesn't make the English tradition greater, the opposite in fact.

To paraphrase Carlos Fuentes 'Every few years the Irish come along and give the novel a kick in the ass.'
 
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There are more well known English novelists than Irish novelists but that doesn't make the English tradition greater, the opposite in fact.

To paraphrase Carlos Fuentes 'Every few years the Irish come along and give the novel a kick in the ass.'
My personal opinion, although it's a common one, is that these well regarded novels are due to the mixing of Irish and English culture in Dublin combined with some European, mainly French, influence. Most of our top English language writers are either from Dublin or came to literary maturity in the Dublin academic atmosphere.

Flann O'Brien/Brian Ua Nualláin wrote a good deal about this in some of his essays. The novel is a foreign form to Irish (probably Cré na Cille is the only decent novel in the language) but the wordplay and energy of the short story is highly developed. He was of the opinion that in some cases Dublin writers had managed to successfully bring some of the traditional short story techniques to the modern novel. I'm not educated in literature so I don't know much beyond this vague level.

Brian himself is kind of an interesting guy as he reads completely differently in the two languages. Even to the point where he'll praise a novel or play in one language and mock it in the other. One thing I've found interesting is that English language biographies never mention the huge influence his uncle Gearóid (who was a fucking genius capable of reading every branch of Indo-European) had on him. Even his Wiki page doesn't mention it.
 
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My personal opinion, although it's a common one, is that this is due to the mixing of Irish and English culture in Dublin combined with some European, mainly French, influence. Most of our top English language writers are either from Dublin or came to literary maturity in the Dublin academic atmosphere.
Dublin was quite an interesting place when I went for a job interview once. We stayed a couple of days - and bought a Pog Mo Thon key ring.

What I found there was that the atmosphere felt a lot closer to New Zealand than it did to London. It felt a lot less alien than London did (and really still does to this day). There were obvious differences - for example there is much more ambient Catholic paraphernalia and imagery around (you see this in other heavily Catholic countries like Italy or Malta as well), but the vibe there was much closer to what I was familiar with than I had expected. It was a nice atmosphere - Dublin made it into my list of places I would like to live off the back of that trip.

I couldn't really say what Ireland outside Dublin is like, though - We were only there a few days I never went any further out of town than the IBM campus on the outskirts.
 
I couldn't really say what Ireland outside Dublin is like, though - We were only there a few days I never went any further out of town than the IBM campus on the outskirts.
The site in Leixlip, know it well. My undergrad college basically feeds the place.

Dublin versus the rest is very similar to Italy which you mentioned and also Spain and Portugal. The rural areas are more Catholic and traditional and less connected into global culture. This ties into my general impression that although people focus more on nationality the real cultural divisions in Western Europe are more along the Megapolis*/Urban/Rural lines than along national lines. When I lived in rural France, once I learned French, it felt very like home. However Paris felt very alien to me like London** did.

*I say Megapolis because I feel there's quite a difference between say Paris and London in feel compared to smaller places like Lisbon or Zaragoza.
**Did my Masters in London
 
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The site in Leixlip, know it well. My undergrad college basically feeds the place.

Dublin versus the rest is very similar to Italy which you mentioned and also Spain and Portugal. The rural areas are more Catholic and traditional and less connected into global culture. This ties into my general impression that although people focus more on nationality the real cultural divisions in Western Europe are more along the Megapolis*/Urban/Rural lines than along national lines. When I lived in rural France, once I learned French, it felt very like home. However Paris felt very alien to me like London** did.

*I say Megapolis because I feel there's quite a difference between say Paris and London in feel compared to smaller places like Lisbon or Zaragoza.
**Did my Masters in London
I do find Italy to be something of a microcosm. It has language and geographical barriers, so it's a bit isolated from the rest of Europe. To some extent I like that - it feels quite real in a lot of ways. Milano has a big city feel, although not as rat-racey as London, but around the lakes feels quite pleasant and laid back. The eastern side of Lake Como is much less touristy than the Como side; my ex used to play Bridge with a chap that lives around there and we would visit on a semi-regular basis for long weekends where she would get in an in-person game.
 
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