B007RT1UH4 EBOK (110 page)

To Berte Hirschfield

[
The wife of Alan Hirschfield, an executive in the communications and entertainment industries. “The book” was
J R
, in which Jack Gibbs drunkenly explains a divorce board game on the pages indicated. A. Robert Towbin was a neighbor in East Hampton.
]

Wainscott, New York 11975

5 July 1983

Dear Ms. Hirschfield.

Here is ‘the book’ &, for openers, the game SPLIT imperfectly presented by an enthusiastic drinker on pages 410–12. I have elsewhere a number of further notes and thoughts on it which I would dig out if it provokes interest.

Very pleasant meeting you at Bob Towbin’s, as things generally are at the Towbin’s.

Yours,

William Gaddis

To William V. Alexander

[
Arkansas attorney (1934– ) and Democratic member of the House of Representatives (1969–93). WG copied Senators Moynihan, D’Amato, and Representative Carney on this letter.
]

Wainscott, NY 11975

23 July 1983

Dear Mr Alexander.

As one far removed from your constituency may I take this liberty to express appreciation for your succinct common sense analysis of the threats posed by current Administration policy in Central America, as it appeared in the
NY Times
of 21 July headed Schizoid Latin Policy.

Each day’s headlines provoke even further despair among those of us who had believed that McKinley era politics were well behind us and that, as you conclude, ‘tact and decency’ rather than a flood of weaponry are our only means of being true to ourselves ‘while protecting our security and fighting Communism the American way.’

In the prevailing fraud of ‘bipartisanship’ so reminiscent of President Johnson’s ‘consensus’—everyone buckling under to him—it is indeed heartening to have a clear voice like yours in the US Congress, among pygmies fearful for their political careers should it all turn out badly, of being accused of ‘losing Salvador’ by obeying international law and our own guiding principles; and while we in New York State are most fortunate in having Senator Moynihan’s voice raised against another blind Administration absurdity in the M-X adventure, it is a fine fine irony in the wisdom of these Founding Fathers you remind us of that I am obliged to write a Representative from Arkansas as a member of his real constituency in this crucial matter, and to express gratitude to those Arkansans who brought you to Congress.

Yours sincerely,

William Gaddis

McKinley era politics: those under twenty-fifth President William McKinley (1897–1901), which led to the Spanish-American War, the occupation of Cuba, and the annexation of Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii, and the Philippines.

M-X: the MX Nuclear Missile Program.

To Tomasz Mirkowicz

Wainscott NY 11975

16 August 1983

Dear Tomasz Mirkowicz.

Thanks for your long letter with its good news of a Polish publication, and your taking on the intimidating task of the translation. I did have a letter from the publisher stating the terms which I endorsed and returned (adding, as you suggested, the names of my son and daughter as eligible to draw on any funds when they appear).

To your queries: I have no preference regarding the book’s jacket; black/ red/white is I think the strongest combination of colours (Heil Hitler!), otherwise just sobre and simple as the artist decrees.

Regarding the translation itself I should, of course, want to leave it as entirely in your hands as possible. The Moore book should certainly prove a great help. Here is a further suggestion: there was as you may be aware a French publication by Gallimard in a very careful translation by (I believe) Jean Lambert about 10 years ago. Thus if you can get hold of that, and you or a colleague reads French, comparing the French equivalent of a passage to your interpretation in Polish might prove useful. (There was also an Italian 2 vol. edition (Mondadori) but I am a good deal less certain just how dependable that translation is.) The title in French was
Les Reconnaissances
.

The idea of notes does sound like a useful one. I would agree with your preference, simply at the end of the book following page and line number rather than cluttering up the text. I would think the manner of marking dialogue should be that most familiar to the Polish reader. I am always glad to hear of any errors or incongruities for the possibility of another edition of the book here.

As for other references, we will probably run into difficulties if we try to pursue them in correspondence, largely since it is so long since I wrote the book that many or most of them are not clear in my memory. For instance, the Byzantine eye? a round window sounds reasonable but I don’t recall. All I recall of the Frauenkirche is, if I recall right, it has 2 spires nearer domes & suggestive of ample woman’s breasts, the rest escapes me. Rides in the cistern has no more significance than as something tourists do, or did. And so, for all that, as well as the mistress bargained for in youth, I think the safest course is simply a literal translation throughout or we shall drive each other mad. (The ‘envirement’ is simply a reflection of illiteracy, just as at some point much later mention of filet de mignon.) Heaven knows what is meant by the ‘Poland has no seaports’: I think you must just take your chances!

best regards and good luck with it,

William Gaddis

Byzantine eye [...] bargained for in youth: details from chap. 2 of
R.

‘Poland has no seaports’: Wyatt mentions that in Calderón’s play
La Vida es sueño
(1635) the protagonist falls off a balcony “into the sea, though there’s trouble there because Poland has no seaports” (
R
876).

To Steven Moore

[
Regarding what WG called the imminent “MLA spree.”
]

Wainscott, NY 11975

[undated; ca. 1 December 1983]

Dear Steven Moore.

Thanks for your note. Dinner then on 29 December about 7:30 at 235 East 73rd street penthouse A. Of course come earlier yourself which we can arrange by phone, the number there is 988 1360. And if feasible please do ask Chandler if he can come for dinner, I haven’t seen him in some years & would like to.

Given the ‘season’ I’m not certain when we’ll drive in, possibly not till that morning. The phone here is (516) 537 0743.

I’ll get a note off to John Kuehl & reach Fred Carl, you arrange with Miriam Fuchs* (also anyone anyone wants to bring along), we’ll probably just send out for lavish Chinese.

Nothing right now for publication, elegant reviews or elsewhere,

Gaddis

* also Steven Weisenburger? is he in it?

Chandler: Chandler Brossard; see 19 March 1983. As a result of that earlier letter, I had written to Brossard and developed an interest in his work. I had told Gaddis I was meeting him during this same trip to New York.

elegant reviews: I was in the PhD program at the University of Denver at the time, and had asked WG (at the instigation of editor Eric Gould) if he wanted to contribute to the
Denver Quarterl
y, which I described as an “elegant” journal.

Weisenburger: he did not attend the MLA that year. As I recall, those of us who attended Gaddis’s party (his sixty-first birthday, as it turned out) included Walter and Cecile Abish, Brossard and his wife Maria Ewing Huffman, Jay Fellows, Miriam Fuchs, Frederick Karl and his wife, and Mike Gladstone. Muriel Murphy was our hostess, and WG’s son Matthew arrived toward the end. Illness prevented John Kuehl from attending.