Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Anachronistic Literary Comparisons

Last week a friend made the claim that Stephen King will be remembered as the 20th century's Charles Dickens.  The trivial comparison, of course, would have been to say the 20th century's Poe, but when you think of commercial success and output as well as the ability to locate the deeply entrenched, but easily overlooked concerns of the times, the Dickens comparison is extremely apt.

It started me thinking about what other such comparisons could be made.  Philip Roth as the 20th century H.L. Mencken?  Norman Mailer as the 20th century Proust?  Truman Capote as the 20th century Goethe?  What apt anachronistic comparisons can you think of?