Who is America's foremost prose stylist?

Who is America's foremost prose stylist?

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poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/32568
nytimes.com/books/98/11/01/specials/gass-prizes.html)
harpers.org/archive/1984/02/and/
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probably gass. but honestly i don't know why we are so obsessed with prose style. i wouldn't put gass in the top 5 best american writers of prose fictions even though he's probably way ahead as a stylist

J K Rowling.

note: do not reply to this post with the terribly unfunny jest that you are "rowling" on the floor laughing at my response. (It is the truth).

>so obsessed with prose style
Why do people hang pretty pictures in their home, care about fung shei or ambiance, candle aroma, butter scotch candies and apple pie, cantaloupe for goodness sake, perfume, jelwery, the mineral baths, champagne, the carnival, the sirloin steak with vegetables corn, mashed potatoes, gravy bacon,

the medows, the fair maidens in field, white dress, thank goodness, and no flowers in her hair

the rivers golden sheen, a rootbeer float,
a beach party, arriving on the scene
catching waves, getting gnarly,
lovely dancing, touching things in the dark
sometimes poetry is hard

I think Pynchon is about equal with Gass, they're both up there with Joyce and Nabokov as far as prose goes imo

From Against the Day:
>Planted rows went turning past like giant spokes one by one as they ranged the roads. The skies were interrupted by dark gray storm clouds with a flow like molten stone, swept and liquid, and light that found its way through them was lost in the dark fields but gathered shining along the pale road, so that sometimes all you could see was the road, and the horizon it ran to. Sometimes she was overwhelmed by the green life passing in such high turbulence, too much to see, all clamoring to have its way. Leaves sawtooth, spade-shaped, long and thin, blunt-fingered, downy and veined, oiled and dusty with the day—flowers in bells and clusters, purple and white or yellow as butter, star-shaped ferns in the wet and dark places, millions of green veilings before the bridal secrets in the moss and under the deadfalls, went on by the wheels creaking and struck by rocks in the ruts, sparks visible only in what shadow it might pass over, a busy development of small trailside shapes tumbling in what had to be deliberately arranged precision, herbs the wildcrafters knew the names and market prices of and which the silent women up in the foothills, counterparts whom they most often never got even to meet, knew the magic uses for. They lived for different futures, but they were each other’s unrecognized halves, and what fascination between them did come to pass was lit up, beyond question, with grace.

Wow yea, thats quite some ride, of up and down inflections, rhythm, rhyme, content, flow, imagery, really interesting example. Has the ability to give multiple interesting feelings. So much texture in the words, when I finished that paragraph and after thinking and talking about it, and not entirely grasping everything I read but know it was some intriguing stuff, I now, though I knew right when I finished it, I wanted to read again.

I think its definitely Faulkner. There's something about it, that just clicks with me.

Can someone who has read William Gaddis tell, how he fares against the top tiers? What are his pros and cons?

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