B007RT1UH4 EBOK (104 page)

To Thomas Sawyer III

[
In April Sawyer wrote to Gaddis asking five questions for an essay he was writing on
J R
(eventually published as “
J R
: The Narrative of Entropy,”
International Fiction Review
10.2
[
Summer 1983
]
: 117–22): “1. Is the title
JR
intended to indicate that, in some ways,
JR
is the offspring of
The Recognitions
? 2. The narrative technique of extended conversations is used in sections of
The Recognitions
. Did any other work or author (maybe Ivy Compton Burnett’s
A Heritage and Its History
?) have any influence on the narrative technique used in
JR
? 3. Is the use of Wagner’s
Ring
as a foundation for
JR
to suggest (in addition to the effects of capitalism) an ironic contrast between the harmonies in Wagner’s operas and the dissonance of
JR
’s conversations? 4. Did Hawthorne’s
Marble Faun
or Melville’s
Confidence Man
have any influence on
The Recognitions
? 5. Can you indicate what about Graves’s
The White Goddess
impressed you the most in terms of a potential source of some of the images or motifs in
The Recognitions
?”
]

3 May 1982

Dear Tom Sawyer.

Sorry to be no help with your questions of 26 April, briefly: 1) read in what you like, I wouldn’t think of
J R
as offspring; 2), 4): I leave questions of influences &c to critics & reviewers, haven’t read I C Burnett, doubt the Hawthorne & never finished the Melville; similarly for Graves (5) read so long ago I can’t take time to go back picking through it. 3) you’re welcome again to read that ‘ironic contrast’ in, whether or not it was among my primary intentions.

You may be interested to know that Univ of Nebraska Press is scheduled to bring out this month a book titled
A Reader’s Guide to
The Recognitions
which may be some use to you (I haven’t seen it).

Yours,

W. Gaddis

I C Burnett: British author Ivy Compton Burnett (1884–1969) wrote seventeen novels—similar to each other but to no one else’s—consisting, like
J R
, primarily of dialogue.

To John and Pauline Napper

[
Handwritten around a photocopy of the
New York Times
’s announcement (14 July, A-16) that WG, among others, had been awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, the so-called genius award, amounting to $50,000 ($120K today) a year for the next five years. Frederick Karl told me he was the one who had nominated WG.
]

Wainscott, N.Y. 11975

14 July 1982

dear John & Pauline—Can you imagine this! The entire thing a stunning surprise to me & I am still trying to absorb it after those 40 years of mistrustful approaches to the world and fortune: 5 years of “security”! making a good number of 180° turns in my head and of course for the first time really some tangible reason simply to live for another 5 years—

We think of you often often though seem to make no steps or plans nearer to England but hope you are well and the work going on since what else finally is there?

love from Muriel & kids &

Willie

To David Markson

Wainscott, NY 11975

20 July 1982

Dear David,

Thanks for your generous note. How odd it is: running back to 1955 if I’d got the (equivalent) prize then I’d scarcely have been surprised; instead (surprise!), Granville Hicks. 25 sobering years later & it is The Surprise (& a sobering one at that): somewhere in the book Wyatt observes that the present is constantly reevaluating the past, —I was right all the time . . . or, —I was wrong all the time . . .

How about that.

Best regards,

Willie Gaddis

Granville Hicks: one of the original naysaying reviewers of
R.
the present is constantly reevalutating the past: see note to letter to Sheri Martinelli (Summer 1953?).

To Steven Moore

[
My
Reader’s Guide
appeared in June; I had written to ask if it would be possible to follow it with a manuscript study of
R
.
]

Wainscott NY 11975

23 July 1982

Dear Steven Moore.

I’d put off answering your letter waiting for a glimpse of the Nebraska Press book which (after another call there) has finally just arrived. And from just a glimpse it is prodigious, right down to the maddening task of assembling the Avon errata. At some point—should it prove useful to you—I will try to go through it & clear up some of your nicely handled speculations (as, for example, whether Graves pointed me to
The Golden Bough
: I had already devoured it entire, and then read his
White Goddess
in Madrid & hurried up to Deya to talk to Graves and ask for suggestions regarding what religion might a Protestant minister becoming unhinged turn to. He came up with something about Salem witchcraft (I later dug up the Mithras solution elsewhere) but was such a fine and generous man that we had numerous talks and, in fact, he was to become somewhat the physical model for Rev Gwyon).

Concerning your requests regarding my papers, I am right now in some sort of state of transition brought on in good part, obviously, by this stunning surprise of the MacArthur Fellowship Prize with its assurance of 5 entire years of security. I haven’t the papers here & am trying to work out plans for a house I have which is now rented & where most of my things are stored, so I will have to let you know how things sort out.

It would be a disservice to your work & ingenuity (to trace down absurd books like
Les Damnés de la Terre
!) to comment further, until I take the time to sit down to it right; for the moment simply, my aghast appreciation.

Otherwise, I haven’t seen the
Contemporary Review of Fiction
(if that’s the title), called Gotham Book people who said they’d send it & haven’t. But enough for one day!

with best regards

William Gaddis

Les Damnés de la Terre
: a 1935 novel by Henri Poulaille mentioned on p. 81 of
R.

Contemporary Review of Fiction
: when he did receive the issue of
RCF
, WG sent a postcard [postmarked 6 August] to John O’Brien saying simply, “Many thanks for sending the copy of the
Review
along to me. I always learn something new.”

Gotham: Gotham Book Mart, the prestigious literary book store on West 47th Street in New York City. A bookman there named Matthew Monahan (d. 1990), a neighbor of WG’s in the Hamptons, handled most of his requests.

To Steven Moore

[
I was writing an essay on the parallels between WG’s and Thomas Pynchon’s work—published as “‘Parallel, not Series’: Thomas Pynchon and William Gaddis,”
Pynchon Notes
11 (February 1983): 6–26, which ends with the text of the postcard below—and asked whether he believed, as some critics maintain, that
R
influenced Pynchon’s
V
. (1963). He and Pynchon shared the same agent, Candida Donadio, which may explain how WG “understood” that Pynchon felt he had not been under the influence. The postcard is undated and lacks a salutation.
]

[Wainscott, NY]

[postmarked 6 August 1982]

I haven’t read Pynchon enough to have an opinion either of his work or whether it might have been ‘influenced’ (perilous word) by mine, though I’ve understood he feels not & who’s to know if he’d ever read mine before
V
? Always a dangerous course,