Famous INTP novelists or fiction writers [Archive]

Jennywocky

27 Feb 2007, 02:44 PM

Isaac Asimov
Douglas Hofstadter
Robert Anson Heinlein

ASimov never came out like an INTP, he seemed to be more in the vein of CS Lewis in his writing style (just from the atheist/agnostic POV). He seemed to have a clear sense of what he was trying to get across and wielded the words to get there, rather than truly exploring issues.

If you read JRR Tolkien's personal letters and read his biographies, you'll see in manner and thinking style, he was very much INTP. (To be honest, it's why parts of his work can be philosophically fascinating, while other parts can be very dry and boring.) You see it especially when discussions between him and Lewis are highlighted -- since the differences stand out and you can contrast/compare him.

I know of only one ENTP writer of fiction, Lewis Carroll...

Really? I've always seen him classed as an NF of some sort.

Stephen King might be ENTP. Aside from the introversion necessary to make time to write, he's pretty gregarious in real life and seemed to act like an ENTP as a teenager, in terms of how active he was in pursuit of establishing connections to further his career and sell his stuff (before he even became "famous"). His writing style also fits the style of the other ENTP writers I know personally; they have an *amazing* ear for dialog, while still being able to touch upon deeper philosophical themes in their work and also take on "taboo" material from many points of view. (We won't even get into the obsession with useless trivia, that he constantly uses as material for his writing.)

composer

27 Feb 2007, 03:36 PM

Dante.

nomir_dva

27 Feb 2007, 04:26 PM

What about Kafka?

meanlittlechimp

27 Feb 2007, 10:47 PM

lbloom

27 Feb 2007, 10:53 PM

What about Kafka?

Likely.

Coetzee.

How about Joyce?

Jennywocky

27 Feb 2007, 10:54 PM

I'm no literary snob by any means. Yeah there has to be a decent amount of science fiction writers. Was hoping to find someone who wrote about the human condition. Not necessarily a literary giant like Dosteovski or Twain but someone in the realm of "literature". Maybe NTs are incapable of being the kind of writers that peer deep into the souls of others. Just a thought, I think I'm wrong here (there has to be a few exceptions). I think NTs can definitely do humor though.

Oh geez. yes. Satire is key for NTs -- they can see the patterns (illogical and otherwise) in people's behavior and rip it to shreds. NFs can do satire too, but their "personal" sense means they handle things a little differently.

Monty Python members are probably all NT types, or close to it.

BTW, now that we are onto humor, Stephen Wright is probably an INTP. Robin Williams is generally classed as ENTP. And so on.

And who says humor doesn't peer into the human condition? The best humor DOES. That's why it's funny.

meanlittlechimp

27 Feb 2007, 10:57 PM

Likely.

Coetzee.

How about Joyce?

I read Kafka a long long time ago. From what I recall he seemed NFish to me but I'm not sure. Haven't ready Joyce or Coetzee. I think I'll go pick up a book this weekend.

Prothero

27 Feb 2007, 11:22 PM

I know of only one ENTP writer of fiction, Lewis Carroll, and I thought it was overrated. All the fiction writers I've liked I'm pretty sure were NFs.

A Mathematician lacking social skills, who is shy and retiring, except around the young girls he later lost interest in as they reached puberty (Alice seems to be the exception, somewhat.) He had difficulty, and apparently disliked being around other adults, especially when it required conversational skills. I can't see him as an ENTP and most references I've found suggest INTP. I think he tends to be underrated these days as we sometimes forget his fictional works were meant for children.
Woody Allen, Garrison Keillor and possibly Terry Pratchett are likely candidates for INTP (Pratchett possibly ENTP(?))

One site adds George Bernard Shaw (probable) and Philip Roth (don't know much about him.)

outmywindow

27 Feb 2007, 11:43 PM

I'm thinking John Milton, though I suppose he could have been an ENTP. Very anti-authority (he helped out with the English Revolution but got disillusioned by the new leaders who came to power because of it), very much a man who saw the acquisition and use of knowledge as powerful and the key to human understanding. He wrote several pamphlets regarding free speech and the evils of censorship, and anyone who has read Paradise Lost should recognize and relate to the views of Lucifer, who, incidentally enough, was basically just Milton in a thin disguise anyway. His portrayal of God as an insecure irrational old man is rather a hoot as well... Very philosophical, very long winded and sometimes a bit dry (but worth it).

A famous Milton quote from Paradise Lost, said by Lucifer: "The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." Sounds like an INTP to me.

Erratic

28 Feb 2007, 12:50 AM

Coetzee.

Most likely. I read "Youth" for class last year, and when I told my teacher that I'd actually had identified with the main character quite a bit, she was quite surprised. Apparently, nobody else had :whistle:

meanlittlechimp

1 Mar 2007, 11:05 PM

A Mathematician lacking social skills, who is shy and retiring, except around the young girls he later lost interest in as they reached puberty (Alice seems to be the exception, somewhat.) He had difficulty, and apparently disliked being around other adults, especially when it required conversational skills. I can't see him as an ENTP and most references I've found suggest INTP. I think he tends to be underrated these days as we sometimes forget his fictional works were meant for children.
Woody Allen, Garrison Keillor and possibly Terry Pratchett are likely candidates for INTP (Pratchett possibly ENTP(?))

One site adds George Bernard Shaw (probable) and Philip Roth (don't know much about him.)

This is the reason I thought he was an ENTP.

"the young Dodgson was well-equipped as an engaging entertainer. He could sing tolerably well and was not afraid to do so in front of an audience. He was adept at mimicry and storytelling, and was reputedly quite good at charades.

Dodgson was also quite socially ambitious, anxious to make his mark on the world as a writer or an artist"

ENTPs seem more intersted in how theory can impact society rather the theory itself. He also seemed more rebellious than I feel most INTPs tend to be. Ultimately, we can't really know because the various biographical sources aren't very consistent. I think ENTPs are more likely to get into heavy drug use than INTPs.

My guess is Woody Allen is probably an ENTP as well. He seems too concerned on social interactions (as evident in th e themes of his films and books) and the external world in general. ENTPs spend more time thinking about human interaction than INTPs typically do. Even though he has profound interest in the meaning of life, god, philosophy etc, his approach just sounds more ENTP to me rather than a more orderly and well articulated treatment of those subjects.

As much as I love Woody Allen, I still don't think of him in the realm of literature. I think of him more in the realm of comedian, satirist and film maker. There are lots of NT film makers and comedians. The fact we have to even think this hard to think of great "writers" in a literary sense is interesting to me (even if we come up with a few). You think we wouldn't be completely dominated by the NFs here.

Lurker

1 Mar 2007, 11:48 PM

Likely.

Coetzee.

How about Joyce?

Joyce popped in my head, too.

Prothero

2 Mar 2007, 12:15 AM

This is the reason I thought he was an ENTP.

"the young Dodgson was well-equipped as an engaging entertainer. He could sing tolerably well and was not afraid to do so in front of an audience. He was adept at mimicry and storytelling, and was reputedly quite good at charades.

Dodgson was also quite socially ambitious, anxious to make his mark on the world as a writer or an artist"

Wikipedia may be correct. I don't know enough about Karoline Leach to know if she is a serious, accurate researcher or just another revisionist of history. Yet even in her own study of Dodgson I think she may have found the INTP key to the man. It seems many young INTPs fit the description (a time of learning about self and one's place in the world.)
I can also imagine an INTP interesting in writing or painting, also wanting to make a mark on the world with their works.

Two things make me question the ENTP. There seems to be little evidence, including in Leach's own work to prove he was socially ambitious. His success guaranteed his rise up the social ladder if it was what he really wanted, yet I've never found anything that proves he used his fame for that purpose. Even Leach seems to admit his last twenty years were spent in a lifestyle exactly like those before; a modest life I don't believe an famous ENTP would bother holding onto when the world is eager to share his company (could be wrong though.) Maybe he was a borderline E/I slipping more into the I later on in life.

I surrender on Woody Allen, even though I know INTPs can often obsess on anything that happens to interest them (it's like our trademark.) That his interest was relationships always seems more like an INTP trying to figure out how it works (for others) and why they make it seem so simple. I didn't know ENTPs were that awkward about it.
The reason I see him as an author is that I enjoyed his books more than his movies, although Love and Death is a favorite.
Yes, he could certainly be an ENTP.

meanlittlechimp

2 Mar 2007, 12:21 AM

Joyce popped in my head, too.

Uggh, I just started reading Finnegan's Wake today because I wanted to see what a NT literary writer would be like. Maybe, if I was Irish living in the turn of the centry I could appreciate it, but it's a painfully dull read for me. A friend told me Ulysses is better, maybe I'll give that a shot. Maybe it's just over my head.

Prothero

2 Mar 2007, 12:52 AM

Uggh, I just started reading Finnegan's Wake today because I wanted to see what a NT literary writer would be like. Maybe, if I was Irish living in the turn of the centry I could appreciate it, but it's a painfully dull read for me. A friend told me Ulysses is better, maybe I'll give that a shot. Maybe it's just over my head.

Total agreement here. Joyce might be over my head, but that is what they always say about boring writers. Even so, I forced myself to read all his works. Ulysses is better, but only in comparison to his other works. Against other writers, he should be thought of as a sleep aid. The one thing I enjoyed was The Dead and then only because the final two paragraphs gave the boredom meaning (one of the best endings in literature.)

Joyce makes the Russians seem downright jovial.

MacGuffin

2 Mar 2007, 01:00 AM

sorabji_66

2 Mar 2007, 01:20 AM

how about:

Thomas Mann
Hermann Hesse
Walker Percy
Alberto Manguel

meanlittlechimp

2 Mar 2007, 01:23 AM

hahaha! Ulysses isn't much easier.

Try The Dubliners. I love that one, much easier than those two.

Maybe I'll just stick to NF writers. Ayn Rand, Carrol and now Joyce. If that's NT writing, no thanks. Although I did like Kafka (if he was an NT), I also liked Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged (when I read it in high school), until I read her poltical philosphy nonsense.

Even though I enjoyed those books, I always thought there was something strange about them and I just realized why!! Every single main character is an NT and there was no such thing as character development. No wonder I found the romantic relationship in those books so icky and unnatural. I don't think there has ever been another book where EVERY character is an NT. Specifically every character was an INTJ, ENTP or INTP. They didn't even have the ENTJ type in there. Weird, very weird.

meanlittlechimp

2 Mar 2007, 01:25 AM

how about:

Thomas Mann
Hermann Hesse
Walker Percy

I'll have to find out more about them. I love Herman Hesse, but for some reason I saw him as an INFJ (Siddharta is very INFJ to me). Never read Mann or Percy.

MacGuffin

2 Mar 2007, 01:27 AM

Maybe I'll just stick to NF writers. Ayn Rand, Carrol and now Joyce. If that's NT writing, no thanks. Although I did like Kafka (if he was an NT), I also liked Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged (when I read it in high school), until I read her poltical philosphy nonsense.

Even though I enjoyed those books, I always thought there was something strange about them and I just realized why!! Every single main character is an NT and there was no such thing as character development. No wonder I found the romantic relationship in those books so icky and unnatural. I don't think there has ever been another book where EVERY character is an NT. Specifically every character was an INTJ, ENTP or INTP. They didn't even have the ENTJ type in there. Weird, very weird.
Really, Dubliners is great. Nowhere near as stiff as Rand. It's a bunch of short stories.

Choss

2 Mar 2007, 02:28 AM

John Milton?

Lurker

2 Mar 2007, 02:31 AM

how about:

Thomas Mann
Hermann Hesse
Walker Percy

I believe Thomas Mann might have been an ENTP. He's one of my favorite authors, by the way.

Lurker

2 Mar 2007, 02:33 AM

Really, Dubliners is great. Nowhere near as stiff as Rand. It's a bunch of short stories.

I second this. Dubliners is a fantastic read; it's not stiff or intimidating at all.

cafe

2 Mar 2007, 02:52 AM

He's not particularly classic or anything, but I think of Rex Stout as an NT. Nero Wolfe is, IMO, an INTJ.

The classic lit I like is not NT, but what types are Tom Clancy, Stephen Hunter, and Nelson DeMille? (These Don and I have both read and enjoyed, at least until DeMille went through his rape obsession.)

Has anyone besides me read anything by Steve Martini, Robert Tanenbaum, or Lisa Scottoline? (I read these. Don's read a little Tanenbaum, but that's about it.)

How about Allen Dury, Stephen Coonts, Michael Crichton, and Harold Coyle? (I've read a few of these, but they are more Don's thing.)

I'm not very good at typing, but I thought I'd throw some names in the ring.

sorabji_66

2 Mar 2007, 03:03 AM

thanks for the quick responses.

they may not be INTP, but i'll grant honorary status on the writers who gave me the quasi-paradise of Castalia (Hesse) and the person of Hans Castorp (T. Mann).

outmywindow

2 Mar 2007, 04:27 AM

lbloom

2 Mar 2007, 04:40 AM

Don't sweat it. Finnegan's Wake is known as 'The Unreadable Novel' in literary circles, even by Joyce scholars.

Hustler's attempted it.

I liked Portrait of the Artist quite a bit.

MacGuffin

2 Mar 2007, 12:54 PM

Hustler's attempted it.
Many have tried.

I'm just gonna get it on audio CD, zone out through most of it, then claim I read it.

Ivy

2 Mar 2007, 02:39 PM

Many have tried.

"Many will enter, few will win"?

I'm just gonna get it on audio CD, zone out through most of it, then claim I read it.

That sounds like the way to go. Do you know that I have never done a book-on-tape? (Edit: with the exception of Click Clack Moo, Cows That Type and Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus.) It feels a little bit like cheating to me, but since I'm really not reading much these days, it would be better than that.

Oculus Sinister

2 Mar 2007, 02:42 PM

Perhaps Jorge Luis Borges.

Jack London?

JL was an alleged ENTJ

MacGuffin

2 Mar 2007, 03:05 PM

That sounds like the way to go. Do you know that I have never done a book-on-tape? (Edit: with the exception of Click Clack Moo, Cows That Type and Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus.) It feels a little bit like cheating to me, but since I'm really not reading much these days, it would be better than that.
It's different at first. You do have to pay some attention to what is being said, rather than just having it on in the background. Eventually you get used to it.

Jennywocky

2 Mar 2007, 03:24 PM

How about Allen Dury, Stephen Coonts, Michael Crichton, and Harold Coyle?

I think Crichton is an xNTJ, but not sure beyond that. Heard of Coonts, but haven't read any of his stuff.

Lurker

2 Mar 2007, 06:23 PM

Many have tried.

I'm just gonna get it on audio CD, zone out through most of it, then claim I read it.

I haven't read Finnegan's Wake, but I read Ulysses!

*collects gold stars*

PenguinHunter

2 Mar 2007, 08:39 PM

One site adds George Bernard Shaw (probable)

I doubt Shaw was an INTP. He was way too concerned with interpreting his own work and chasing down people to make sure they understood every single detail precisely. I think he was probably borderline obsessive compulsive about his work and certainly very sure of his ideas and perceptions of the world.

Joyce

For similar reasons as Shaw, I don't see Joyce as in INTP. His character Stephen Dedalus most likely is, but he only serves as Joyce's voice (sort of) not so much his personality. There are elements, but again I think Joyce was too sure of himself and enjoyed the attention he got far too much to be an INTP.

Milton

Seems more like an INFJ to me. Can you really see an INTP writing Paradise Lost? Or even further afield Samson Agonistes, Comus or Lycidas? Pastoral elegies and moral "plays" don't really seem like INTP territory to me.

I'd tend to agree with the Coetzee guess though.

Possibly William Blake, although INFP is still probably more likely.

Prothero

2 Mar 2007, 09:14 PM

I doubt Shaw was an INTP. He was way too concerned with interpreting his own work and chasing down people to make sure they understood every single detail precisely. I think he was probably borderline obsessive compulsive about his work and certainly very sure of his ideas and perceptions of the world.

I agree with your point, yet it is exactly what I would expect from an INTP writer whose work is about to be presented to the public, especially when the venue is changing from the written word on paper to the spoken one on stage. A painter knows what the world will see, a composer, what it will hear. A writer can only share such certainty while the words remain on paper. Today it is Hollywood that can ruin almost anyone's fiction, so I would expect the INTP to worry obsessively (until it's completed) and be the one to put integrity of the translation above fame and fortune.

PenguinHunter

2 Mar 2007, 09:21 PM

I agree with your point, yet it is exactly what I would expect from an INTP writer whose work is about to be presented to the public, especially when the venue is changing from the written word on paper to the spoken one on stage. A painter knows what the world will see, a composer, what it will hear. A writer can only share such certainty while the words remain on paper. Today it is Hollywood that can ruin almost anyone's fiction, so I would expect the INTP to worry obsessively (until it's completed) and be the one to put integrity of the translation above fame and fortune.

Hmm, interesting. I can't identify with that at all. I just posted in a different thread yesterday about writing generally and I said that one of the reasons I like drama so much is that dynamic quality where you only have to deal with the essence of the product but the finishing touches (that can be so annoying) are left to others to grapple with as they see fit - everything being open to interpretation. If a play I'd written was being produced I'd happily give the director free reign to see where the piece went.

EDIT: There's a difference between Hollywood re-writing and a director's vision. I would be annoyed if a Hollywood director re-wrote my ending or something but I don't think that was what made Shaw anxious. He was concerned about way smaller things. Spelling contractions without an apostrophe (in publications) for example. Would you write essays about your own work?

Jennywocky

2 Mar 2007, 09:24 PM

I agree with your point, yet it is exactly what I would expect from an INTP writer whose work is about to be presented to the public, especially when the venue is changing from the written word on paper to the spoken one on stage. A painter knows what the world will see, a composer, what it will hear. A writer can only share such certainty while the words remain on paper. Today it is Hollywood that can ruin almost anyone's fiction, so I would expect the INTP to worry obsessively (until it's completed) and be the one to put integrity of the translation above fame and fortune.

I've experienced that often in the past.

It's basically the Ti nature being expressed in a work of value to the writer. If someone mucks with it, the balance gets thrown off and it's no longer representative of the original vision.

And I get really BENT when people do translations and lose the essence of the work... whether it's mine or not. (I've seen some good translations that change details but keep the essence of the work, and I can be very happy with that.)

Prothero

2 Mar 2007, 09:31 PM

If a play I'd written was being produced I'd happily give the director free reign to see where the piece went.

That's what I thought going into that situation, yet once the rehearsals began I found myself becoming concerned about the director's vision taking it too far off course. We had many discussions and just as many compromises. As much as I enjoyed watching the characters come to life, it was unsettling enough to make me give up the idea of being a playwright.

Mr.Miagi

7 Mar 2007, 09:42 PM

James Joyce is the first one that I can think of. He was a solitary person no doubt, but when in good company he was witty and agreeable company. He's certainly still readable, although I tend to skip passages where he starts to ramble on and on about his religious reservations. Portrait of an Artist for instance. I love the way he thinks though.

J.D. Salinger is a definite INTP candidate too.

meanlittlechimp

7 Mar 2007, 10:23 PM

.

J.D. Salinger is a definite INTP candidate too.

I would say INFP.

Salinger had been a follower of Zen Buddhism, and had met the scholar D. T. Suzuki. Then he became a life-long student of Advaita Vedanta Hinduism. This has been described at length by Som P. Ranchan in his book, An Adventure in Vedanta: J. D. Salinger's the Glass Family (1990). Sri Ramakrishna and his student Vivekananda were important contemporary figures he studied. In this tradition, celibacy and detachment from human responsibilities such as family are emphasized for those seeking enlightenment. Margaret Salinger says that she might have never been born if her father had not read Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda who brought the possibility of enlightenment to those following the path of the "householder" (i.e., married person with children). J. D. and Claire were initiated into this path of Kriya yoga in a small store-front Hindu temple in a lower-middle class neighborhood of Washington, DC. They received a mantra and breathing exercises that they were to practice for ten minutes twice a day. Salinger had sudden jumps of enthusiasm for different belief-systems that he then insisted Claire also follow. Salinger tried Dianetics (later called Scientology), even meeting L. Ron Hubbard himself, according to Claire.[19] [1] This was followed by a number of spiritual/medical/nutritional belief systems including Christian Science, teachings of Edgar Cayce, homeopathy, acupuncture, macrobiotics, fasting, megadoses of Vitamin C, vomiting to remove impurities, solar reflectors for tanning, drinking one's own urine (this is part of the folk-medicine of several cultures around the world; see urine therapy), "speaking in tongues" (glossolalia) which he learned at a Charismatic church, and sitting in a Reichian "orgone box" to accumulate "orgone energy."

sosaiddave

8 Mar 2007, 02:50 PM

I think Pynchon is an INTP.

Melody

8 Mar 2007, 09:23 PM

sorabji_66

9 Mar 2007, 02:15 PM

man im glad i dont waste my time reading. those confusing books ya'll talking about sound like my intentionally fucked up webcomic, which i intentionally make confusing just to fuck w/ people. the author is prolly rolling in his grave laughing at all ya'll

sounds like you read Crichton, Coontz and Harry Potter.

and didn't realize Joyce was toying with you before you finished 1/100th of his "literary work."

Melody

9 Mar 2007, 04:12 PM

what u talking about O.o

Ferrus

9 Mar 2007, 05:21 PM

Perhaps Jorge Luis Borges.

Jack London?
Hah, you really have a screwed view of what an INTP is.

Mr.Miagi

13 Mar 2007, 08:12 AM

Yes, Jack London doesn't fit the INTP criteria at all. He's quite the opposite in fact.

commander blop

13 Mar 2007, 09:22 AM

I think Crichton is an xNTJ, but not sure beyond that.

My guess is ESTP but it's hard to type someone based only on their literary work.

As an INTP writer I guess I can contribute here. I write screenplays and poetry. I think a lot about the things that all of you probably think about. I am inclined to believe that INTP's are more interested in writing nonfiction unless they can somehow dress it up. That might be why it's easier to find an INTP in the realm of screenwriting, humor, or far out childrens literature. Also, I think Woody Allen is an I.

One thing I am really attuned to as a writer is segues, or transitions from one plot point to another. I tend to either under play them drastically and be very subtle, or overtly mock the structure I am implimenting. Stella (Michael Showalter, Michael Ian Black, and David Wain) is an example of the latter.

commander blop

13 Mar 2007, 09:28 AM

That's what I thought going into that situation, yet once the rehearsals began I found myself becoming concerned about the director's vision taking it too far off course. We had many discussions and just as many compromises. As much as I enjoyed watching the characters come to life, it was unsettling enough to make me give up the idea of being a playwright.

The beauty of plays is that their performances don't have such a tendancy to become solidified in history as film does. It's the written work that lives on and is duplicated. Several different directors can impliment varying interpretations of the work. I'd think this would be rewarding to a playwright. You can see many numerous interpretations and insights into what you've written.

cariad

14 Mar 2007, 03:29 PM

E.L. Doctorow? Definitely an INT, probably a P judging from the way he writes - says he starts writing without much idea of where the book's going to go. He also talks about writers needing to have a kind of openness to experience, which suggests P to me. Also perhaps Bill Bryson? He's got that nerd look. And Terry Pratchett, as someone else mentioned.

And a bit OT, but I reckon Peter Weir, director of The Truman Show, is an INTP. That is *such* an INTP film, perfectly logical and without any simplistic answers.

Jennywocky

14 Mar 2007, 03:54 PM

And a bit OT, but I reckon Peter Weir, director of The Truman Show, is an INTP. That is *such* an INTP film, perfectly logical and without any simplistic answers.

Haven't researched Weir a great deal, but based on the few clips I've seen, it's possible. He has the right manner about him.

Then again, someone might watch "Dead Poet's Society" and immediately label him an NF type.

Tayshaun

14 Apr 2007, 05:09 PM

It is very likely that we will think certain novelists or fiction writers are INTP when they are better described by INFP.

indie

14 Apr 2007, 08:12 PM

Sinclair Lewis. Ray Bradbury (maybe a bit INFP). I agree w/the sentiment that Crichton seems XNTJ. Kierkegaard may be INTP, maybe. Hmm.

Reflection

3 May 2007, 10:35 AM

Cormac McCarthy- INTX

Autumn

3 May 2007, 11:18 AM

I pretty much think that Lem (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Lem) was an INTP.
Ray Bradbury on the other hand is F IMO.

HilbertSpace

3 May 2007, 07:10 PM

I pretty much think that Lem (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Lem) was an INTP.

I would very much buy that one.

I flipped through the thread, and I don't believe anyone mentioned Neal Stephenson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Stephenson). He's very much a favorite of mine, and his ability to capture the INTP character plays no small part in that. I suspect he's one of us, partly because of his insights into the character, and partly because of what he chooses to write about. Unlike most genre writers, I enjoy his work for his use of language as well as the compelling ideas and storylines.

Hermione

3 May 2007, 10:47 PM

Prothero

3 May 2007, 10:55 PM

Kurt Vonnegut or no?

ENTP seems more likely, except that I've never found any meaningful information from the bios about him. That might suggest INTP.

At least I think ENTPs like to make sure the public knows about who they are, taking any interview they can to explain themselves.

SolitaryWalker

5 May 2007, 07:39 AM

Was reading another thread on poetry here and it just occurred to me I couldn't think of any INTP writers of fiction.

I know of only one ENTP writer of fiction, Lewis Carroll, and I thought it was overrated. All the fiction writers I've liked I'm pretty sure were NFs.

Can anyone come up with any INTP writers?

INTPs tend not to be good writers of fiction. Generally all Ts tend not to be,even if they are Ns.

INTJs, of all NTs tend to be the best novelists.

Nietzsche Sartre... Rand to name a few...

ENTPs had some good writers too... like Voltaire and Machiavelli for instance.

Primary iNtuition is a big advantage when it comes to fiction writing..

MacGuffin

5 May 2007, 07:41 AM

INTJs, of all NTs tend to be the best novelists.

Nietzsche Sartre... Rand to name a few...

:sick: You can't be serious.

SolitaryWalker

5 May 2007, 07:50 AM

:sick: You can't be serious.

That Ni-Fi is a good combination.. a very good.

Te somewhat gets in the way though. This is why INFJs have a one-up on them. The Fe actually boosts them instead of slowing down as the Te does with INTJs.

Ivy

5 May 2007, 08:32 AM

If I am not mistaken, I think it was your characterization of Rand as a "good novelist" that had him lurching, as it does me.

Samurai Drifter

5 May 2007, 08:49 AM

I doubt that the post had anything to do with his personal judgement. Ayn Rand is famous and critically praised, which is what I think he was referring to.

SolitaryWalker

5 May 2007, 08:50 AM

If I am not mistaken, I think it was your characterization of Rand as a "good novelist" that had him lurching, as it does me.

I have not seen very many quality arguments against the way she writes. Indeed one can put forth a detailed refutation of her Ethical Egoism. But once more, most of the critics do not do this. They commit the ad hominem fallacy. Supposedly, the insinuate, since as an individual she is not admirable, therefore her work is unacceptable.

No good you could be a fiend and a competent writer at the same time, as we well understand that they are not mutually exclusive.

Ivy

5 May 2007, 08:54 AM

Just because her ethical framework offends your sensibilities it does not follow that her work is of poor quality.

No, you're right, it doesn't. But that's not why I dislike Rand's novels, at least not entirely. I think they are badly written.

SolitaryWalker

5 May 2007, 09:00 AM

No, you're right, it doesn't. But that's not why I dislike Rand's novels, at least not entirely. I think they are badly written.

You can have poor presentation skills yet still deserve to be thought of as a good novelist overall.

For example Dostoevsky, many would argue is not a great story-teller, yet should be thought of as a good writer because his novels oftenly have great insight into human nature and the human condition.

Same could be said for philosophers like Kant and Aristotle who had great ideas that were poorly presented.

Indeed an entity in philosophy or literature can be a bad piece of writing yet again still be meritorious for its ideas.

In fact the books that one can easily argue carried the greatest contributions to philosophy were poorly written. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is the case in point.

SolitaryWalker

5 May 2007, 09:27 AM

No, you're right, it doesn't. But that's not why I dislike Rand's novels, at least not entirely. I think they are badly written.

Damn... I should of erased that earlier...

fripping

5 May 2007, 09:28 AM

Kurt Vonnegut or no?
i hope so, purely out of ego. entp definitely not. if he's not intp then the only other reasonable choice is infp.

Hermione

5 May 2007, 09:13 PM

Anne Tyler-- anything by her is apt to be 'laugh out loud absurd' and worthwhile. 'Accidental Tourist' Morgan's Passing, Tin Can Tree, Saint Maybe, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant some of her good reads. Read about six of hers in all; even bought a few.

Roald Dahl-- as a teacher I thank him for saving my life and my sanity... when all else fails... read aloud to the little bastards.
Matilda, Witches, the BFG, are about my favorites, but he wrote a zillion.

Hermione

5 May 2007, 09:14 PM

all time favorite though: Agatha Christie read all of them, yes, all of them.

ObtainGnosis

6 May 2007, 08:15 AM

Hermann Hesse
...he underwent psychoanalysis by Jung himself and was conscious of type-theory in his books.

ObtainGnosis

6 May 2007, 08:19 AM

and...My Gawd! was Nietzsche an INTP!

SolitaryWalker

6 May 2007, 11:12 AM

and...My Gawd! was Nietzsche an INTP!

Oh no no...

Nietzsche was a clear-cut Ni...

He lived in a land where noone has ever been before.. so said one of his friends at a time... Nietzsche's inner world wasnt that of a calm problem solver but that of a passionate visionary.

He didnt have much of a problem crossing logic either...

elke

6 May 2007, 10:52 PM

yeah totally joyce i bet

Ferrus

11 May 2007, 05:52 AM

all time favorite though: Agatha Christie read all of them, yes, all of them.
Even the one banned in 83 countries?! :joft:

Hermione

11 May 2007, 06:12 AM

Even the one banned in 83 countries?! :joft:

Oh , stop it. I was referring to the fact that it sounds such a boring thing to do, but found myself repeatedly looking for more of these mysteries. I think it's the way she structures her work that I find most appealing and her sense of the absurd, I like; it is very subtle yet present throughout her body of work. Oh, her plots are killer, too.

Ferrus

11 May 2007, 06:14 AM

Oh, her plots are killer, too.
Do you regard the plots of the Harry Potter series as 'killer' too?

Hermione

11 May 2007, 06:25 AM

Do you regard the plots of the Harry Potter series as 'killer' too?

No, pure escapism/fantasy/ and wizardry. I like the themes she uses and the system she has built them around of her own making. Rarely does murder have anything to do with it... more the life/death struggle between good and evil. I would probably say Christy more reductive, Rowling expansive, but what do I know about it? I like to read.

What do you read besides tawdry muggle posts? I bet its fascinating whatever it is.

Ferrus

11 May 2007, 06:28 AM

What do you read besides tawdry muggle posts? I bet its fascinating whatever it is.
You think existential literature and early modern history is fascinating? How odd.

Hermione

11 May 2007, 06:34 AM

Yes. Could you be more specific?

Ferrus

11 May 2007, 06:38 AM

Yes. Could you be more specific?
Read Nausea?

Hermione

11 May 2007, 06:44 AM

No, but thank you. I bet I'll like it. Is it a little like the Invisible Man (Wells) theme? and um, thanks again.

Ferrus

11 May 2007, 06:48 AM

Er... have you read Virginia Woolf? Bit like that but less menstrual.

SolitaryWalker

11 May 2007, 08:04 AM

Read Nausea?

I've read Sartre's Nausea... the only Nausea I know of... why was Agatha's work banned in 83 countries..? 83... thats quite a bit considering all the open societies that we have in the world now.. surprised that so many democracies could enforce such rigid censorship..

Ferrus

11 May 2007, 08:07 AM

I've read Sartre's Nausea... the only Nausea I know of... why was Agatha's work banned in 83 countries..? 83... thats quite a bit considering all the open societies that we have in the world now.. surprised that so many democracies could enforce such rigid censorship..
Yeah, it was a joke. Is your N antenna faulty today?

Ymir

11 May 2007, 12:34 PM

Michael Crichton must be intp.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv9OSxTy1aU

Hermione

11 May 2007, 03:54 PM

Yeah, it was a joke. Is your N antenna faulty today?

Wasn't he just kidding, too? Your mom's faulty.

Michael Crichton maybe. I only read Terminal Man and it was what seems like a century ago. He is very hot though, so yeah, maybe. Very practical / analytical intelligent hot. yeah, probably.

Ymir

11 May 2007, 04:23 PM

He is very hot though, so yeah, maybe.
I'm not sure I follow your logic, but I like the way you think.

Ferrus

12 May 2007, 12:07 AM

Wasn't he just kidding, too?
Yeah but so was I. *Mind-fuck*

Hermione

12 May 2007, 02:27 AM

Yeah but so was I. *Mind-fuck*

I'm so glad you guys have found another hobby. :cheers:

SolitaryWalker

12 May 2007, 09:57 PM

Yeah, it was a joke. Is your N antenna faulty today?

Yeah happens a lot... when your Ti eclipses the Ne... sends you into an absent-minded streak..otherwise your Ne would be excellent at picking off things like that...There is no function that picks up better on what is not said than the Ne...

Ferrus

16 May 2007, 01:14 PM

Perhaps you should have a pet INFP.

meanlittlechimp

15 Jun 2007, 09:17 PM

Cactus Ed

15 Jun 2007, 11:53 PM

Edward Abbey. IN?P

Mr Pink

26 Jun 2007, 10:19 AM

Neil Gaiman is an INTP, no?

outmywindow

26 Jun 2007, 11:45 PM

William Gibson? ...Or could he possibly be an ISTP since his visual descriptions are so vivid?

ChekhovTheAnton

14 Jul 2007, 10:25 PM

I think Hemingway was ST, but I'm not too familiar with him overall.

I'm quite sure that Chekhov was an INT. Many of his short stories seem like Joyce's Dubliners, only set in Russia (even though Joyce wasn't published until after Chekhov's death). I personally enjoy Chekhov's stories more (but look who's talking).

Some of the descriptions in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man fit me exactly, so I'm not surprised that Joyce would be typed as an INTP.

I'm fairly confident that T.S. Eliot was an INT as well.

nagrom

14 Jul 2007, 11:27 PM

William Gibson? ...Or could he possibly be an ISTP since his visual descriptions are so vivid?

Gibson describes things in the same way that I see them.
Totally an Si, not an Se thing.

He distills the essence or aesthetic character of a setting, rather than describing it literally.

djm

24 Jul 2007, 06:10 PM

Read Nausea?

Great book that. My favourite Satre novel though is 'Iron in the Soul', although if forced to pick I prefer Camus.

I would guess that Knut Hamsun would have been INTP, fine writer.

Solzhenitsyn perhaps? Imre Kertesz?

Somerset Maugham must be a contender as well, Of Human Bondage has INTP written all over it.

djm

30 Jul 2007, 10:43 AM

Oh and Kafka of course. Did not finish any of his novels, did not want them published, just explored ideas for the sake of themselves.

The Castle, The Trial, America - all very INTP.

Blaise

17 Aug 2008, 02:39 AM

Well, I selected a few Names I remembered.

1) James Joyce had more of a shizoid personality disorder

2) Kafka had a generalized anxious personality

The attic

17 Aug 2008, 04:31 AM

J K Rowling

stopharian

17 Aug 2008, 04:35 AM

J K Rowling

HELL NO!!!

I havent the first Idea about her personally, but The pile of refuse which she has left behind to judge her by suggests to me personally that I should turn in my INTP card if it turns out that she is a member.

syzygy

17 Aug 2008, 04:46 AM

J K Rowling

Please tell me you're kidding.

I am / used to be a big Harry Potter fan, but the books are full of sensors and feelers and the moral of the story is that if you can LOVE, you're better than everyone else. Does that sound INTP to you?

zero

17 Aug 2008, 04:50 AM

HELL NO!!!

I havent the first Idea about her personally, but The pile of refuse which she has left behind to judge her by suggests to me personally that I should turn in my INTP card if it turns out that she is a member.

damn..is it that serious?

stopharian

17 Aug 2008, 04:50 AM

Please tell me you're kidding.

I am / used to be a big Harry Potter fan, but the books are full of sensors and feelers and the moral of the story is that if you can LOVE, you're better than everyone else. Does that sound INTP to you?

I actually believe in that message, but I hate harry potter...:sadbanana:

syzygy

17 Aug 2008, 04:54 AM

I actually believe in that message, but I hate harry potter...:sadbanana:

not how she depicts it in the books. the first five books were all right, then she started getting all preachy and instead of making the books come to a logical conclusion she started getting really preachy and used her values to provide the tools to save the world instead of logic.

NkedMRat

17 Aug 2008, 05:23 AM

Stephen King, James Rollins, John Ringo, David Gemmel

The attic

17 Aug 2008, 05:23 AM

HELL NO!!!
.

Well I'd figure her to be either an INTP or an INFP.

But I read an article about her that made me think NT.

I'll see if I can find it.

syzygy

17 Aug 2008, 05:39 AM

Well I'd figure her to be either an INTP or an INFP.

Why? She strikes me as an S.

Laura-Laurent

17 Aug 2008, 06:25 AM

Nabokov (my favorite), im guessing INTx. Has the randomness of a P at times, but follows things through like a J.

outmywindow

17 Aug 2008, 06:51 AM

Anonymous

17 Aug 2008, 07:04 AM

outmywindow

17 Aug 2008, 07:13 AM

Orson Scott Card definitely strikes me as an INTP. NTP because of his holistic writing and focus on accuracy and plot details rather than trying to simply make a pretty atmosphere. Introvert because he really has a calm writing style, which doesn't strike me as ENTP, and is often focusing on the internal struggles of the characters. From his writing, he strikes me as someone who's very familiar with introspection and existential angst.
Mmm, if he's an INTP he's a sorely confused homophobic evangelical Mormon one...

I present to you his super long op-ed against gay marriage (http://mormontimes.com/ME_blogs.php?id=1586), printed in The Mormon Times on July 24th of this year.

A choice quote: "Already in several states, there are textbooks for children in the earliest grades that show "gay marriages" as normal. How long do you think it will be before such textbooks become mandatory?..." Oh noes! Not evolution of thought! Sounds like he's hoping for some kind of Scopes Trial for homosexuality.

Also, in a majestic use of hyperbole Card claims that if we allow gays to marry, out of fairness we should let the blind drive.

Anonymous

17 Aug 2008, 07:41 AM

Mmm, if he's an INTP he's a sorely confused homophobic evangelical Mormon one...

I present to you his super long op-ed against gay marriage (http://mormontimes.com/ME_blogs.php?id=1586), printed in The Mormon Times on July 24th of this year.

A choice quote: "Already in several states, there are textbooks for children in the earliest grades that show "gay marriages" as normal. How long do you think it will be before such textbooks become mandatory?..." Oh noes! Not evolution of thought! Sounds like he's hoping for some kind of Scopes Trial for homosexuality.

Also, in a majestic use of hyperbole Card claims that if we allow gays to marry, out of fairness we should let the blind drive.

Aw, shit. I'm not reading that article, as I'm certain that it'll make me hate him and thus not be able to enjoy his books, but I didn't know that about him. Well, religious fanaticism certainly isn't closed off to INTPs, though I do agree that it definitely makes a case against him being one. Out of curiosity, what would you say he is?

outmywindow

17 Aug 2008, 07:57 AM

Out of curiosity, what would you say he is?
No clue. I really don't know enough about him, having only read one of his books and that grossly subjective article he wrote.

Anonymous

17 Aug 2008, 08:23 AM

Ah well. I'd at least say that Frank Herbert was an INTP, though I'm probably wrong on that as well. I'd say NT for him at least, though.

syzygy

17 Aug 2008, 08:41 AM

I'm sure this has been mentioned, but I'm pretty darn sure Douglas Adams was an INTP.

Guitarded

17 Aug 2008, 04:01 PM

Ah well. I'd at least say that Frank Herbert was an INTP, though I'm probably wrong on that as well. I'd say NT for him at least, though.

INTP writers IMHO:

Frank Herbert
Alastair Reynolds
Iain M. Banks
Robert Heinlein
Stephen Hawking (non fiction, duh)

INTP directors:

Tim Burton (totally completely a genius BTW.)
One of the Wachowski Brothers (whoever wrote the first Matrix, that person did not write 2 and 3, they are not even anywhere near as huge in scope as the Matrix 1.)
The guy who made "Kiwi!" the animated short on youtube.

Kirai

17 Aug 2008, 04:13 PM

Laura-Laurent

17 Aug 2008, 04:22 PM

Kirai

17 Aug 2008, 04:29 PM

Seemed like an INFJ to me. I've only read Werther though.

I've read Werther, Faust, Iphigenie and some poems. I'm mostly leaning on Faust for this conclusion, though.

weebolj

17 Aug 2008, 05:00 PM

What type do you guys think Haruki Murakami represents?

EDIT:

Zombies killed +1 :ph34r:

Nunki

23 Aug 2008, 05:41 PM

Ah well. I'd at least say that Frank Herbert was an INTP, though I'm probably wrong on that as well. I'd say NT for him at least, though. His son describes him as a social butterfly who dominated every conversation he was involved with. That sounds more like an ENT?.

Sarcastikus

23 Aug 2008, 06:14 PM

From what I've read of him HP Lovecraft seems like he was an INTP.

Llewellyn

27 Aug 2008, 04:54 PM

Uggh, I just started reading Finnegan's Wake today because I wanted to see what a NT literary writer would be like. Maybe, if I was Irish living in the turn of the centry I could appreciate it, but it's a painfully dull read for me. A friend told me Ulysses is better, maybe I'll give that a shot. Maybe it's just over my head.

I started it months ago and carried on for a few nights a few pages a night. Said to myself I didn't have to like it. Somehow the mystery to go read it appealed to me. I also entered it in my own scheme of waking up. I also told myself I didn't have to understand it literally, probably and hopefully it isn't meant like that. I saw some phrases that made me continue to read those few nights.

Now I keep it for my 'sixties', but I'm not very hopeful.

Llewellyn

11 Sep 2008, 11:23 AM

Oh no no...

Nietzsche was a clear-cut Ni...

He lived in a land where noone has ever been before.. so said one of his friends at a time... Nietzsche's inner world wasnt that of a calm problem solver but that of a passionate visionary.

He didnt have much of a problem crossing logic either...

I don't think an INTP is necessarily a calm problem solver. The Ti might look calm...

So, I was thinking about what type Nietzsche had. And was so smart (and calm ;) ) to do a search first, and came to this thread. Look how Nietzschean I write ;)

So, he was not calm, that appears to be clear. He was extremely introverted it is said. Therefore I had the short association of INTP (Because someone here said it was a very introverted type, although I can see MBTI-wise that doesn't make sense).

INTJ does sound plausible. But what about INFJ, since he said himself that having an open mind chained the heart. So what if he went highly into his Ni while neglecting although still administering his F?

Llewellyn

11 Sep 2008, 01:56 PM

Nunki

11 Sep 2008, 09:03 PM

judges

6 Jan 2009, 02:55 AM

Rowling is a classic NF. I have no idea why she's often labeled an INTP. For one thing, an INTP would never meticulously plot seven novels years and years in advance of writing them.

Other authors I've seen labeled as INTP (some may already have been discussed): Roald Dahl, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Franz Kafka, J. R. R. Tolkien, Ray Bradbury (an NF, surely), Ursula K. Le Guin, and Agatha Christie.

One I think could argue rowling is an S. All her novels deal with black and white problems (life and death, good and evil) and she rarely relates anything to a bigger picture. Her protagnists all believe in good for the sake of good, this seems incredibley S-ish to me.

Shoot!

6 Jan 2009, 03:57 AM

How about William S. Burroughs? He seems quite NT.

Oso Mocoso

6 Jan 2009, 04:26 AM

How about William S. Burroughs? He seems quite NT.

Burroughs and Philip K. Dick were my two favorite writers when I was a teenager. I liked reading Burrough's essays more than his fiction, just all around he was a very interesting man. I loved reading his description of what it was like taking yage. I've had a couple opportunities to try it, but I've always been a little too intimidated because I've seen what other people look like when they're high on it and it is terribly unpleasant to behold.

Rhu

6 Jan 2009, 04:59 AM

Garrison Keillor ... likely candidate for INTP.
I'm not sure how I missed this, but:

Garrison Keillor?

Garrison Keillor isn't even human. Garrison Keillor is a simpering bag of pretentious garbage whose humor revolves around atrocious puns and occasional mentions of poop. Garrison Keillor is a soulless shitface who moans sweet nothings while preserving the horrors of the vilest pit of American tradition in slowly swaying perpetual culturefuck.

Garrison Keillor's wistful sighs in celebration of the continuation of minds being ground smooth by willful ignorance doesn't make me think, 'Gee, that guy thinks and acts a lot like me!' On the contrary, every time Prairie Home Companion or The Writer's Almanac comes on the radio, I tend to shout, "Fuck you, Garrison Keillor!" The only other thing that comes on NPR that I howl in rage at is Aaron Copland.

In closing, I'll recite an excerpt from a terrible poem I just wrote:

Garrison Keillor, if my words were few.
I'd like to say that I truly love you.
But that would involve surgery on my brain.

I think, however, that we can agree,
There's something wrong with lobotomy,
So get your larynx removed and spare me the pain.

Be well, do good work: shut Garrison Keillor the fuck up.

Mtsui

22 Jan 2009, 06:23 AM

"If you read JRR Tolkien's personal letters and read his biographies, you'll see in manner and thinking style, he was very much INTP."

I think he's INFP

Is Keats an INTP or INFP?

stopharian

22 Jan 2009, 07:41 AM

Neil Stephenson?

Promethean

22 Jan 2009, 11:20 AM

All possible, none definite.

Ayn Rand

Frank Herbert

Leo Tolstoy (Anna Karenina seems INTPish in some ways although War and Peace sure doesn't.)

Victor Hugo

John Steinbeck

Fyodor Dostoyevski

Umberto Eco

Hermen Hesse

George Owell

Robert Heinlein

Charlotte Bronte

Many of these probably weren't INTP, but I like them all for INTP reasons.

Isagel

5 Feb 2009, 05:30 PM

Charlotte Bronte

I definetly vote for Charlotte.

Faust06

10 Feb 2009, 07:21 PM

I think Pynchon is an INTP.

I don't know.. he rambles alot.

Chuck Klosterman is ENTP, but only wrote one novel which was released recently.

I think Ayn Rand was INTP, given the way she wrote and her obsession.

Nietszche may have been, possibly leaning on F and J but still mostly INTP given his style and deep thought.

Victor Hugo is a capital F.

Neil Stephenson.. I'm not sure yet. IxTP

Hunter S. Thompson - ENTp

George Orwell was probably INTP or close.

Dostoyevski.. don't think so, he was SFp or something.

Woody Allen - ENtP (I like his writings)

Nunki

10 Feb 2009, 07:32 PM

I think Ayn Rand was INTP, given the way she wrote and her obsession.

Nietszche may have been, possibly leaning on F and J but still mostly INTP given his style and deep thought. Rand was too rigid and self-confident to be a Perceiver. Her morality also strikes me as very Fi (focused on the self), which is supposed to be an INTP's weakest function.

Nietzsche seems like an INTJ. Eternal recurrence, focus on the story and principles of history, a fascination with chaos, predictions about what is yet to come: these all scream Ni. His near-obsession with aesthetics and the energy behind his prose suggests Se. And his intense, inner convictions strike me as Fi.

iksikaksi

10 Feb 2009, 07:33 PM

Douglas Adams must have been an INTP. With his imagination, randomness, logic and quirky humour. He was a Jack of all trades in all fields science and technology but ended up writing the best books ever!

iksikaksi

10 Feb 2009, 07:34 PM

I think Ayn Rand was INTP, given the way she wrote and her obsession.

)

Ayn Rand must have been an INTJ. Due to her dryness.

Nunki

10 Feb 2009, 07:38 PM

Douglas Adams must have been an INTP. With his imagination, randomness, logic and quirky humour. He was a Jack of all trades in all fields science and technologically related but ended up writing the best books ever!The last three letters are definitely right. I'm not sure whether he was an introvert, though. From what I know of him, he was pretty active in the public sphere.

iksikaksi

10 Feb 2009, 07:52 PM

The last three letters are definitely right. I'm not sure whether he was an introvert, though. From what I know of him, he was pretty active in the public sphere.

Perhaps you are right... but if you read his biographical book, " The Salmon of Doubt" you will find out that he was a social reject as a kid. Later on as hisfame blossomed along with his books he became active in the public sphere of other nerds and geeks.

Ratatosk

10 Feb 2009, 08:15 PM

What type do you guys think Haruki Murakami represents?I'd say something between an INFP and an INTP. Probably more of an INFP, as he seems to be more interested in people than abstract ideas. Norwegian Wood is a very INFP book so far, Hard-Boiled Wonderland had some INTP elements.

PenguinHunter

10 Feb 2009, 08:32 PM

I'm thinking John Milton was a definite NT, maybe even an introvert.

Between Areopagitica (his treatise against censorship) and "Paradise Lost" (especially if you read Satan as Milton himself), the man really paints himself a Rational.

A quote from Areopagitica: "He who destroys a good book, kills reason itself."

I still say INFJ for the same reasons I wrote earlier. I haven't read Areopagitica but the quote you gave could easily come from many personality types, especially NFs. I still say that there is absolutely no way Samson Agonistes, Comus and Lycidas were written by an INTP. Pastoral elegies and moral plays man. . . way un-INTP. He was definitely introverted and intuitive but I can't see the Rational in his fictional work. It's very NF. Just because he was against censorship doesn't make him an INTP and just because he can lay out an argument it doesn't mean he was a Rational.

EDIT: Sometimes I wonder about Alexander Pope but he seems to have a bit to much energy and delight with putting down the hacks. But sometimes I think of Rhu like that too. . . huh. . .

Llewellyn

27 Feb 2009, 09:29 PM

I'm not sure if it was mention, but I think Goethe was an INTP. He did write some works that fall into the SFP 'Sturm und Drang', but most of what he has is Classic. Big themes of his are humans being bound by society and trying to escape, or humans trying, through rational thinking and eternal pursuit, achieve divinity.

I remember Jung talking about him in Types, but I can't recall what he said.

He talks about the marked difference between the (INTP?) Schiller and Goethe, the latter having a broad and big world of ideas, the former wanting to continue bringing out his small area of ideas he had. So ENFJ for Goethe maybe (as is listed somewhere). Although there is a big enough difference between INTP and INFJ!

Many of these probably weren't INTP, but I like them all for INTP reasons.

That's a good point. We all see the INTPness in them.

Nietszche may have been, possibly leaning on F and J but still mostly INTP given his style and deep thought.

Deep thought... It can also be deep Ni described by words (which will be thoughts).

dynamiteninja

21 Mar 2009, 08:08 AM

INTPs, all:

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Edgar Allen Poe
Henry David Thoreau
Franz Kafka
Joseph Heller
Philip K Dick
Martin Amis
Thomas Pynchon
Kingsley Amis
William Gaddis
Evelyn Waugh

Ptah

21 Mar 2009, 08:13 AM

Ayn Rand must have been an INTJ. Due to her dryness.

Rand was an INTJ. So is Peikoff, and so are most of the thralls at the Rand institute, etc. Objectivism needs a good INTP vanguard if you ask me.

syzygy

21 Mar 2009, 08:28 AM

Objectivism needs a good INTP vanguard if you ask me.

Do you know how I realised Objectivism wasn't for me? When I realised that people in Rand's books actually DID things, and I was a hypocrite because I hated following through on things.

dynamiteninja

21 Mar 2009, 06:46 PM

INTPs, all:

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Edgar Allen Poe
Henry David Thoreau
Franz Kafka
Joseph Heller
Philip K Dick
Martin Amis
Thomas Pynchon
Kingsley Amis
William Gaddis
Evelyn Waugh

INTPs aren't the most obvious type to write novels, unless you're talking about sci-fi of course! Like many NTs, they seem particularly strong in the field of satire.

Ferrus

21 Mar 2009, 08:23 PM

Erasmus? More a philosopher... still, In Praise of Folly has an INTP waspishness about it. Maybe he was more an INTJ.

Roger Mexico

21 Mar 2009, 11:24 PM

I don't know.. [Pynchon] rambles alot.

INTP's don't ramble? Are you serious? Or is that a criticism? (If the latter, maybe you'd enjoy a nice Dan Brown novel. :p )

All but one of the novels I've actually finished in the last three years or so have been written by Thomas Pynchon. If there's such a thing as an archetypically INTP novelist, Pynchon is a very good candidate.

First off, as a purely subjective reflection, no other author I've ever read has observed the world in a way that so closely matches the way that I observe it. His prose can be frustratingly dense, but I find that it resonates with how my brain tries to constantly incorporate every little bit of data, along with everything else I already know that is even tangentially related to each of those pieces of data, whenever I try to understand anything. The result in my own case is frequently something far short of elegant coherence, and I find that Pynchon does a beautiful job of dramatizing the roller coaster of epiphanic elation followed by confused frustration that often characterizes my own thought process.

Pynchon's public demeanor, what little there is of it, just screams INTP if you ask me: the famous media-averse reclusiveness, (the reason he appears on 'The Simpsons' with a bag over his head) combined with the disdain for the opinions of the literary establishment, (he sent a comedian (http://www.irwincorey.org/routines.html) to accept his 1974 National Book Award) suggests a guy who just thinks about stuff a lot and considers his ideas to be valuable for their own sake.

He was studying engineering and physics before he joined the military, then subsequently decided to be a writer instead. Based on his writing, I'd say this decision likely stemmed in part from a sort of crisis of conscience over the ways in which the true purpose of science is perverted when governments, among other institutions, co-opt the pursuit of scientific knowledge to serve their own desire for power. He clearly has an intimate familiarity with the nature of scientific thought, as evidenced by frequent digressions into ruminating on the metaphysical implications of various mathematical operations.

Pynchon describes human beings from a detached, analytical perspective, and has clearly come to the conclusion that a lot of what we do is silly and absurd, and it isn't the reassuringly harmless absurdity of, say, humanity in a Tom Robbins book. A lot of people that don't like his writing complain about this "flat," unsympathetic approach to characterization, which is a matter of taste, but I think it reflects an emphasis on exploring what humanity is rather than who each character is.

Then you've got his plots: almost always there's at least one central character who's entire mission is to unravel some obscure and hopelessly complex question in the hopes that doing so will bring clarity to their own existence. (Tyrone Slothrop in Gravity's Rainbow, Prairie Wheeler in Vineland) This seems like a classically NP kind of preoccupation--contrast it with, say, the novels of Ayn Rand, where if synopses and reviews are accurate, most of the drama revolves around the characters' struggles to give creative form to their rational understanding,(I'm thinking mainly of [I]The Fountainhead) which sounds like how an INTJ would describe the more significant struggles in their own life.

I like Kurt Vonnegut a lot, but I sincerely doubt he is (was, I guess) an INTP. He's all about using irony to expose hypocrisy, and although he tries to hide behind a veneer of cynicism, he has a highly developed sense of moral outrage. I'd say INFJ off the top of my head.

dynamiteninja

6 Apr 2009, 03:27 PM

Updated list:

INTP
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Henry David Thoreau
Joseph Heller
Isaac Asimov
Martin Amis
Carl Sagan
Thomas Pynchon
Kingsley Amis
William Gaddis
Evelyn Waugh

Salman Rushdie: some sort of NT
Umberto Eco: INTx
Philip Roth: INTx
Frederick Douglass: INTx
Margaret Atwood: INTx
Ian McEwan: INxx
Philip Larkin: INxx
William Golding: INxx
H G Wells: INxx
William Makepeace Thackeray: INxx
Philip K Dick: maybe INTP, although had a lot of psychological problems which makes him hard to type

Scarecrow

6 Apr 2009, 07:02 PM

Not sure if Kafka was an INTP, what with all these neuroses and the schizoid dreams. Some of his short stories read like the log of a victimized INFJ on an accidental LSD trip.

Nunki

6 Apr 2009, 07:06 PM

-Edgar Allen Poe strikes me as an INFJ, and I can't see him as an INTP. He was focused on beauty and emotion, rather than things of an intellectual nature. He also seemed awfully sure of himself to be a Perceiver, as you can see if you read his manifesto on poetry.

-Kafka's writing always gives me a surreal, dreamlike feeling that I associate with Ni, but maybe that's just me.

Rhu

6 Apr 2009, 08:31 PM

-blah blah blah... I can't see him as an INTP. He was focused on beauty and emotion, rather than things of an intellectual nature.
Exploration of things like beauty and emotion can be an intellectual pursuit, for instance when developing frameworks, models, and archetypes.

Nunki

6 Apr 2009, 09:27 PM

Exploration of things like beauty and emotion can be an intellectual pursuit, for instance when developing frameworks, models, and archetypes."Intellectual" wasn't the best word. When I used it, I had Thinking in mind, which tries to detach itself from beauty and emotion in order to analyze them "objectively." While this leads to a greater understanding of feelings and the aesthetic, it also reduces their prominence, with detachment becoming the nexus around which they revolve.

Rhu

6 Apr 2009, 10:04 PM

We're talking about a self conscious mind, one that edited and reordered its own perceptions, one that would then purposefully push itself into other perspectives.

You can't look at something like that and expect rigid definitions of cognitive functions, working in isolation and expect them to superscribe some behavior set. When you start doing that, you can easily justify saying that the person you're examining fails to meet the criteria for any given type.

Nunki

6 Apr 2009, 10:27 PM

I don't particularly disagree with any of that, but I still feel Poe was an INFJ. I've read all of his published stories, except the long "Pim" one, and that's the type that fits for me. I could dig up some of the reasons for that, but it would be tedious. For the most part, I just wanted to give my sense of Poe's type without any rigorous justification.

dynamiteninja

6 Apr 2009, 10:30 PM

dynamiteninja

9 Apr 2009, 04:25 PM

Update:

INTP
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Henry David Thoreau
Joseph Heller
Philip K Dick
Isaac Asimov
Martin Amis
Carl Sagan
Thomas Pynchon
Kingsley Amis
William Gaddis
Evelyn Waugh
Lemony Snicket
Will Self
Edgar Allen Poe
Donald Barthelme
Robert A Heinlein
H P Lovecraft
J M Coetzee

Possibly:
Umberto Eco: INTp
Philip Roth: INTx
Frederick Douglass: INTx
Margaret Atwood: INTx
Ian McEwan: INxx
Philip Larkin: INxx
William Golding: INxx
H G Wells: INxp
William Makepeace Thackeray: INxx
Alexander Dumas: INfp
J R R Tolkien: INxP
Ted Hughes: INTj
Arthur C Clarke: xNTx
Frank Herbert: xNTx

mortabunt

20 Jul 2009, 06:46 PM

Frank Herbert seems INTP, or at least a lot of the main characters were.

Nunki

20 Jul 2009, 07:10 PM

Frank Herbert seems INTP.Watch this video. He comes off as rather ENTJ, don't you think?

Frank Herbert Interview

mortabunt

20 Jul 2009, 07:51 PM

I think Hemingway and Norman Mailer might have been non NFs. I think they might have both been ESTPs. Mailer is a toss-up for me between ESTP/ENTP.

Their writing (and the way they lived their lives) oozes T-ness.

They're S's. Kiersey described hemmingway as an artisan, and they just didn't add enough depth to their books to be NT's. Their writing was pretty blunt.

meanlittlechimp

18 Aug 2009, 02:58 AM

I think Bukowski was an INTP or ENTP.

fripping

18 Aug 2009, 03:24 AM

I think Bukowski was an INTP or ENTP.

no way, man. hard-knock infp covering his vulnerabilities. look at all that poetry. an ntp might be able to squeeze out a few, but volumes and volumes? not seeing it unless it's morbid stuff like poe, which bukowski didn't do.

last_caress

18 Aug 2009, 03:30 AM

robert anton wilson (could be entp)
haruki murakami? (at least a lot of his protagonists strike me that way, as well as his writing style in general)

Ghost-Girl

18 Aug 2009, 03:40 AM

no way, man. hard-knock infp covering his vulnerabilities. look at all that poetry. an ntp might be able to squeeze out a few, but volumes and volumes? not seeing it unless it's morbid stuff like poe, which bukowski didn't do.

...You're reasoning is that he couldn't be NT because he wrote lots of poetry? I doubt prolificacy is an indicator of any type.

fripping

18 Aug 2009, 03:43 AM

...You're reasoning is that he couldn't be NT because he wrote lots of poetry? I doubt prolificacy is an indicator of any type.

not just any kind of profligacy. profligacy of poetry. now that i go back to it some of it is kind of morbid, actually. . . but not reveling in the morbidity. check it out.

death wants more death, and its webs are full:
I remember my father's garage, how child-like
I would brush the corpses of flies
from the windows they thought were escape-
their sticky, ugly, vibrant bodies
shouting like dumb crazy dogs against the glass
only to spin and flit
in that second larger than hell or heaven
onto the edge of the ledge,
and then the spider from his dank hole
nervous and exposed
the puff of body swelling
hanging there
not really quite knowing,
and then knowing-
something sending it down its string,
the wet web,
toward the weak shield of buzzing,
the pulsing;
a last desperate moving hair-leg
there against the glass
there alive in the sun,
spun in white;
and almost like love:
the closing over,
the first hushed spider-sucking:
filling its sack
upon this thing that lived;
crouching there upon its back
drawing its certain blood
as the world goes by outside
and my temples scream
and I hurl the broom against them:
the spider dull with spider-anger
still thinking of its prey
and waving an amazed broken leg;
the fly very still,
a dirty speck stranded to straw;
I shake the killer loose
and he walks lame and peeved
towards some dark corner
but I intercept his dawdling
his crawling like some broken hero,
and the straws smash his legs
now waving
above his head
and looking
looking for the enemy
and somewhat valiant,
dying without apparent pain
simply crawling backward
piece by piece
leaving nothing there
until at last the red gut sack
splashes
its secrets,
and I run child-like
with God's anger a step behind,
back to simple sunlight,
wondering
as the world goes by
with curled smile
if anyone else
saw or sensed my crime

sound xntp to you? first the spider is a dumb brute, then once he is hurt he becomes a valiant underdog.

Ghost-Girl

18 Aug 2009, 03:55 AM

go take a random sample, read five of his poems. then imagine an ntp actively choosing to write like that for the rest of his life.
I've read a lot of his work- It's possible that he's NT or NF. I was just pointing out that prolific writers can be NT.

fripping

18 Aug 2009, 04:02 AM

I've read a lot of his work- It's possible that he's NT or NF. I was just pointing out that prolific writers can be NT.

it depends on what they prolificate. i was writing in the assumption that the reader knew bukowski's style of poetry, and to write that kind of stuff, prolifically, is sign of an NF.

i almost said no NT would write that much poetry, then remembered poe. so besides that exception, i don't think ntps really do the whole reams and reams of poetry thing. satire, science fiction, that kind of thing, yes they can be incredibly prolific.

Technical

18 Aug 2009, 04:05 AM

The only poet I'll read is Poe, and I'll fight anyone says he's not INTP.

nullPointerException

18 Aug 2009, 06:51 AM

How about Sartre?

Edit: oh novels, my bad

Ill eagle

18 Aug 2009, 06:55 AM

Orson Scott Card- I get the "Neille-Degrasse-Tysonian"- INXJ vibe from him- Dominant T, Developed F. (dude from Nova) Not INTP.

Charles Bukowski- I agree that he was a "hard-knock" INFP, just how Dostoyevsky was a "hard-knock" INFJ. Not INTP

James Rollins -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Rollins
"Amazonia is INTP. (good book)

stuck

18 Aug 2009, 07:54 AM

Jorge Luis Borges
Julio Cortazar

HoneyCyclical

18 Aug 2009, 08:44 AM

no way, man. hard-knock infp covering his vulnerabilities. look at all that poetry. an ntp might be able to squeeze out a few, but volumes and volumes? not seeing it unless it's morbid stuff like poe, which bukowski didn't do.

Yep, Bukowski: INFP.

How about Voltaire? INTP or INTJ?

autobombo

18 Aug 2009, 08:57 AM

phillip pullman?

Ill eagle

18 Aug 2009, 09:18 AM

i:

How about Voltaire? INTP or INTJ?

"he studied latin and greek literature, and drama", "was expected to go to law school, but chose writing","Involved in and wrote about politics" "Brilliant and Sarcastic wit" "Philosophical poems" "Satirist"
(just skimmed Candide)
You decide!
My guess would be INTJ.

Perseus

18 Aug 2009, 03:06 PM

John Mortimer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mortimer)

This is the only clear cut one I know. PNTI,

Terry Southern, Aldous Huxley, may come close.

J R Tolkein must be surely and Terry Pratchett.

Perseus

18 Aug 2009, 03:09 PM

Kurt Vonnegut or no?

Possibly a lapsed INTP. Regress to ISFP. In a genuine INTP, "Truth Conquers All".

HoneyCyclical

18 Aug 2009, 03:27 PM

Fingers

18 Aug 2009, 04:35 PM

Voltaire an introvert... no way, ENTP more like it

autobombo

18 Aug 2009, 08:39 PM

HEY GUYS I THINK PHILLIP PULLMAN AND CHUCK PALAHNIUCK ARE INTPS

stuck

18 Aug 2009, 08:42 PM

Voltaire an introvert... no way, ENTP more like it

this

Perseus

20 Aug 2009, 06:47 AM

Terry Pratchett? Surely you're not implying pratchett is an INTP?

eh eh. F.

"It is just possible that once you have got past all the gods that we have created with big beards and many human traits, just beyond all that, on the other side of physics, there just may be the ordered structure from which everything flows" and "I don’t actually believe in anyone who could have put that in my head".

Perhaps an INFP afterall?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett

PS: I find his creations quite good, but his style impossible to read.

Anybody know a literary agent for readable Terry Pratchett style books, although my writing is getting increasingly obscure nowadays? Click on my blog in my signature if in doubt.

HoneyCyclical

20 Aug 2009, 07:13 AM

PS: I find his creations quite good, but his style impossible to read.

Try Good Omens. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Omens) Quick, fun and easy read and the style is altered with Neil Gaiman's collaboration.

Oh nooo. I followed your link and read that Pratchett's been diagnosed with a very rare form of early-onset Alzheimer's disease. That's awful.

Flegenheimer

25 Aug 2009, 10:44 PM

Yevgeny Zamyatin?
Andrei Platonov?

Curtis24

26 Aug 2009, 08:29 AM

Andrei Platonov seems INTP. He worked as a manual laborer for much of his early life, and studied(by his own choice) electrical engineering as a young man. Later in life he and worked as an engineer on major land reclamation projects. To me this indicates T - INTPs, if they work hard to develop their S, can come across as ISTPs.

He also wrote about pretty much anything and everything that interested him, which seems P.

Robb

28 Aug 2009, 03:10 AM

Just found out that Douglas Adams wrote a couple of episodes of Doctor Who, and was the script editor for the show in the seventeenth season (the Tom Baker years...) and apparently the original draft of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Was intended to be a Doctor Who movie entitled Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen.

INTP for sure IMO.

Pooja

29 Aug 2009, 05:58 AM

Oh geez. yes. Satire is key for NTs -- they can see the patterns (illogical and otherwise) in people's behavior and rip it to shreds. NFs can do satire too, but their "personal" sense means they handle things a little differently.

Monty Python members are probably all NT types, or close to it.

BTW, now that we are onto humor, Stephen Wright is probably an INTP. Robin Williams is generally classed as ENTP. And so on.

And who says humor doesn't peer into the human condition? The best humor DOES. That's why it's funny.

my first thought turned to satire as well. I think Jonathon Swift (Gulliver's Travels, and that short story about eating poor people's babies) fits the bill.

dynamiteninja

7 Sep 2009, 05:16 PM

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Henry David Thoreau
Joseph Heller
Philip K Dick
Isaac Asimov
Martin Amis
Thomas Pynchon
Kingsley Amis
William Gaddis
Evelyn Waugh
Lemony Snicket
Will Self
Edgar Allen Poe
Robert A Heinlein
H P Lovecraft
J M Coetzee
Umberto Eco
Neal Stephenson
Margaret Atwood
J R R Tolkien
Franz Kafka
Robert Walser
Knut Hamsun

Maybe:
Thomas Love Peacock
Robert Musil
Joyce Carol Oates
Vladimir Nabokov

Fingers

7 Sep 2009, 07:08 PM

LongSilence

7 Sep 2009, 07:29 PM

my first thought turned to satire as well. I think Jonathon Swift (Gulliver's Travels, and that short story about eating poor people's babies) fits the bill.

That reminds me- at school I wrote a parody / homage of 'A Modest Proposal' called 'A Vain Proposal' that featured a guileless official decrying the pernicious effect of reading on the moral fabric of children. He went about honestly proposing the elimination of libraries and disposal of all writings deemed unsavoury to the wellbeing of young impressionable minds.

I love Swift and Pope. Reading and rereading their works are like joyously watching a very self-aware ballet dancer doing the Dance of the Seven Veils, all the while a bit confused by that bulge there seems to down there.

Technical

7 Sep 2009, 07:33 PM

dynamiteninja

9 Sep 2009, 01:36 PM

dyna's pretty good, Fingers. Not like me good, but pretty good. And really, given the intuitive nature of this process, time spent trying to "rationalize" choices is time away from getting better at the craft, and producing results.

Cheers, Tech (I think ¬_¬). But I do agree with your point. However my typings are the result of a team effort on the part of the good people at Typologycentral and I just wondered what the people over at this forum thought of them.

PS No, I can't be bothered to repeat the reasonings here. Sorry!

Fingers

9 Sep 2009, 01:46 PM

Cheers, Tech (I think ¬_¬). But I do agree with your point. However my typings are the result of a team effort on the part of the good people at Typologycentral and I just wondered what the people over at this forum thought of them.

PS No, I can't be bothered to repeat the reasonings here. Sorry!

Ever heard of copy and paste?

dynamiteninja

9 Sep 2009, 10:17 PM

Ever heard of copy and paste?

I can't be bothered when they're spread out over 10s and 10s of pages on different threads. Not just INTP ones either, but all MBTI types. If anyone wants to help out by adding any more author suggestions (any type) I'd be very grateful... :)

T-Square

24 Oct 2009, 05:08 PM

I always thought Franz Kafka was an obvious INTP. His obvious mental problems complicate that, though.

What do you think Orhan Pamuk qualifies as?

systembust

24 Oct 2009, 05:25 PM

I have seen Kafka typed INTP. There is a small but seemingly accurate list on this link, along with some other famous INTPs (dunno if it's been posted):

http://www.typelab.ru/en/celebr/tp-cel.html

abathur

24 Oct 2009, 08:20 PM

This comment's a bit late to the show but I didn't notice it articulated so I'll throw this out there:

There can be a large gulf between your natural artistic tendencies and the style of writing you ultimately settle into. To claim, for example, that a writer is clearly an S type because their work is pervaded by rich sensory description, is to ignore the potential that you're dealing with an N type who has come to realize the value of rich sensory description to his/her purposes (be they rhetorical, entertainment, tone, etc.)

I personally tend towards writing with very little rich, concrete description, and frequent engagement with the abstract. I feel this is very INTP of me. As I write and get feedback, though, I become more accustomed to the concept that this manner of writing is very disconcerting to a large number of people. It's still probably obvious that my fiction is INTPish, but I'm also not getting published.

It excited me somewhat to see this thread and all of the literary digging-in it contains, but I felt the need to dispel the notion that you can count on writing to be a relatively straightforward expression of inner personality under any circumstances in which the author tried to write for an audience. This is the case with artists in many realms. While it's probably a safe assumption that the tendencies of their fields attract certain personality types, there are almost inevitably other personality types involved in gaming this system of expectations.

d100la

27 Nov 2009, 12:00 AM

When stumbling upon this thread first names that popped into my head:
Neal Stephenson
Ayn Rand
Franz Kafka
Goethe
Peter F.Hamilton (he is sci-fi)
Issac Asimov
Tim Willocks (The Religion was an interesting read, but after further analyzation definately not)
Leo Tolstoy?
obviously Dostoyevsky
Lermontov (for sure imo)

Oso Mocoso

27 Nov 2009, 12:37 AM

Lermontov (for sure imo)

Excellent Lermontov reference!

dynamiteninja

23 Dec 2009, 01:15 PM

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Henry David Thoreau
Joseph Heller
Philip K Dick
Isaac Asimov
Martin Amis
Thomas Pynchon
Kingsley Amis
William Gaddis
Evelyn Waugh
Lemony Snicket
Will Self
Edgar Allen Poe
Robert A Heinlein
H P Lovecraft
J M Coetzee
Umberto Eco
Neal Stephenson
Margaret Atwood
Franz Kafka
Robert Walser
Knut Hamsun
William Makepeace Thackeray
H G Wells
Thomas De Quincey
Robert Musil

Maybe:
Arthur C Clarke: xNTx
William Golding: INTx
Patrick Süskind: INxP
Thomas Love Peacock
Joyce Carol Oates: INxP
Amos Oz: INxP
Dorothy Parker: IxxP

herbpixie

31 Dec 2009, 04:57 PM

Mark Z. Danielewski. Possibly Vonnegut, although he may have been an ENTP.

Wolfpine

7 Jan 2010, 03:11 PM

'twas mentioned earlier, but also definitely Douglas Hofstadter, if you consider him a fiction writer only for the (awesome) Happiton short story.

And yeah, Thoreau for sure. While Transcendentalism feels more like it should be an NF movement, I feel like I can relate to many of the ideas and imagine the ability, as held by Thoreau, to expand upon those ideas from an INTP standpoint.

What about Mary Stewart? Her Merlin character is definitely INTP or something close, and her writing style reminds me in some ways of my own.

Ferrus

13 Feb 2010, 07:50 PM

God. Wrote some pretty decent fiction. A lot of you, of course, will rave about the Bible and the Koran, and although they are masterpieces of comic absurdity, the Avesta is always the book closest to my heart, despite being one of the more obscure works in the opus.

Pooja

13 Feb 2010, 10:30 PM

I just read an article about Sarah Gruen, who wrote "Water for Elephants" (great book!), and there was a detail in there that made me think that she had to be an INTP. She made her husband lock her in a walk-in closet with only a typewriter and water in order for her to finish Water for Elephants. That sounds like an INTP thing to do.

RedDeath9

26 Feb 2010, 06:10 AM

Methinks that Orson Scott Card and R. Scott Bakker are INTPs.

tree tree

10 Sep 2010, 01:17 AM

stuck mentioned:
julio cortazar...
in the context of his novel 62: A Model Kit he seems very INTP ee to me

Cortazar could also be an FP who see's himself as an TP

but I would at least go so far as to say that Cortazar creates the most effective way of showing / expressing intuitive thought that I have ever seen. Nothing has ever caught me and said: this is how you experience life so much as 62: a model kit.
Even though i still thought the characters were acting stupidly.

I guess I was wondering if any body else kinda suspected Cortazar might be an intp?

kali

10 Sep 2010, 06:43 PM

badcurtainfromhell

3 Oct 2010, 04:28 PM

Why is Melville always typed as an INFP? He doesn't seem that F-ish to me (He worked on whalers). On the other hand "he became a controversial figure for his vehement opposition to the activities of Christian missionaries seeking to convert the native population" may be his F shining through. The essayistic parts of Moby Dick are clearly T (he describes the hell out of everything with sneering comments comments (in the last chapter I've read he sometimes seems to mock certain types of whales).
There's "Bartleby" too. This book has (in my humble opinion) T written all over it. It's just too grotesque and satirical. It's not about the characters, but about the ideas they represent; the book primarily analyzes the Wall Street and a possible revolution against it. Besides, I wonder how one would type Bartleby.
I can't decide, hence I type Melville as INfP or INtP.