B007RT1UH4 EBOK (114 page)

[
Handwritten in red ink on the first page of the revised
CG
proofs.
]

New York, NY

14 March 1985

Dear Sarah———here
finally
are the page proofs & good God, I look at it & think
10 years
? for
this
? Anyhow what a vast relief to have it out of my hands if not my life. I say I hope you “like” it but it’s not really a book to “like”—(a British publisher has just turned it down saying it’s “
too painful
”) I hope not for you & MttG; especially because I’m sure some literary “biographer” will one day—with the
genius
talent they’ve got for misinterpretation, getting it wrong (which is very much what the book’s about as you’ll see)—write that the brother & sister, Liz & Billy, are “obviously” drawn on you & Matthew. Absurd of course, but even more to the point was when I realized, & only quite recently! that this troubled younger brother, his beautiful & doomed sister, and her husband the man trying desperately to win a place in the world, are recreations of the 3 main characters in my aborted Civil War play—
Once at Antietam
—which you’ve never read (don’t, it’s terrible) which I was working on at 2nd Avenue when you were about 5 & Matthew 4, so clearly those characters were formed before you were. But it is odd—or perhaps not so odd: someone has said that every writer writes the same book over & over again—to discover that somewhere in one’s mind, one’s fabricated memory, that the same characters & their relationships exist, whether the war is the Civil War or Vietnam. At any rate I hope I’ve read it for the last time; it’s not a book I finished in the high spirits I did
J R
or even
The Recognitions
, but that is probably largely the difference between being 32, or 52, & being 62. I’m sure you’ll come across some familar items—forgive me! but we take our material where we find it as you know & especially that which has touched us closest—in fact the whole passage where Liz talks about seeing herself as a child through a telescope light-years away [
CG
153], grew out of my remembrance of the story of yours that of course touched me closest about the girl watching her father going down the walk at Fire Island.

with much love always,

Papa

To the Editor,
New York Times Magazine

[
Regarding a film Matthew had worked on; unpublished.
]

Wainscott, New York 11975

8 April 1985

In his piece ‘Louis Malle: An Outsider’s Odyssey’ (April 7), John Culhane notes that a number of viewers have found Malle’s new film
Alamo Bay
to be

‘“anti-American”—and, particularly, anti-Texan. In this view, the film showed white Texans as unsympathetic —racist and bigoted . . .’ as well might anyone with only Mr Culhane’s description of the film to go on, since nowhere in it is there even a mention that an essential tie binding these ‘Anglo’ fishermen together—their ‘belonging’, to use Mr Culhane’s word and theme—is the fact, established in the film’s opening hitchhiking scene and repeatedly borne out, that these men are veterans of the Vietnam war, which gives quite a different, credible, and far larger dimension to their outrage and that of the film itself.

William Gaddis

Louis Malle: French director (1932–95).

To Sarah Gaddis

[Wainscott, NY]

7 May 1985

Dear Sarah.

Terrible how the telephone monster (even transatlantic) breaks down the practice of writing, —I want to call her Thursday anyhow so I’ll just wait . . . till finally weeks have gone by without even a note.

Not that there’s that much to report & certainly nothing momentous though it is strange how one finally recognizes patterns emerging in one’s life: spring bringing moving stuff from pink house to barn in Massapequa; from 2nd Avenue to Saltaire, now from New York to here, patching, painting, the whole thing reversed in the fall, so it’s been that kind of back & forth for this last month, into town next week for the big annual Academy lunch & host to Bill & Mary Gass then out here for more or less good.

And I suppose there’s a kind of secret suspense that colours everything else, waiting for that book to come out (though I was sure that this time I’d treat it as a minor event (which of course it may be!!)). I’ve practically lost contact with Viking, & having made all the suggestions I could decided any more will simply aggravate matters so I guess I’ll just wait for the thing to appear. Just turned down a $5 thousand offer from a Brit publisher hoping to do better. Also asked for an interview for
Rolling Stone
which I think I’ll do since it reaches the Young where one wants one’s readers. Otherwise a grand silence pervades all.

Then of course another & probably the larger reason for postponing writing had been waiting to see how your plans developed & hoping to see you here soon; & it’s not disappointment but rather concern that when we talked last week your spirits didn’t sound high as they have almost always this past year & more, & I hope it was only a passing case of the blues though I felt, as the possibility came closer, your being disturbed at the prospect of coming ‘back’ for a visit which, as I said, I’d all this time pictured as a kind of reverse vacation not a threat of the future or jobs or anything like that & I do just wish—& this goes for your brother too—that you don’t have feelings that such a visit entails your having to ‘prove’ something, anything; anything but Yes Paris is marvelous, Yes everything’s good as can be . . . because it really is you know, & crass & awful as it sounds the very Freedom you & Matthew (me too!) have with the money horrors off our backs is major. Not for a moment that ‘money buys happiness’ Lord no! from the examples around us in fact it often looks like the more of one the less of the other; but the comparative freedom we have now, you he & I, to look around for what we really want to do instead of being driven to what we don’t like 99% of mankind (or as ee cummings phrased it manunkind): not buying happiness no, but the grand luxury of a sense of proportion & self worth, Joan D[idion]’s ‘self regard’ or Mister Gibbs in
J R
observing there’s nothing more demoralising than failing at something that wasn’t worth doing in the first place, meaning something one had a kind of contempt for (I think I’ll write a pop song & make a million dollars) . . . because, again, we the 3 of us I think have paid our dues in the nickel & dime department, & now it is up to us whether to let all that have ‘strengthened our character’ or warped it. Well! enough of another of ‘Papa’s little talks’ . . .

Meanwhile I’m trying to make random notes around another novel, or rather concept for one, dealing with the ‘final problem’, what else? death and money. I’ve heard a few comments on the new book in fierce intellectual terms (its density & resonances accomplish everything the earlier books did at 3 times the length) and it ‘is very, very funny’ which is the heart of it, which is ‘positive absurdity in the face of absolute idiocy’ as I read recently somewhere, which is where death & money will eventually end up too.

I think your talking on french radio, if that came through, is just wild, just a marvelous burst of the things around us; & your ‘dealing with the client’ over the invitation . . . oh! that’s the real world out there! As for pressures you seem to feel on you for a visit back they are simply those of love & pride in you, in you both.

with much love as you know,

Papa

interview for
Rolling Stone
: never happened.

ee cummings phrased it manunkind: poem 14 in
1 x 1
opens: “pity this busy monster,manunkind, / not.”

‘it is very, very funny’: so said
Esquire
in a feature on forthcoming novels (August 1984).

‘positive absurdity in the face of absolute idiocy’: in an article in the 1 May 1985
New York Times
, the president of Canada’s absurdist Rhinoceros Party praised its founder for teaching “us the power of positive absurdity in the face of absolute idiocies.”

To Sarah Gaddis

Wainscott

6 June 1985

Dear Sarah.

I keep expecting I’ll have something to send you in the way of news on the book’s progress & it keeps not arriving—in this case a review in a rag called
Kirkus Reviews
very much read by booksellers and ‘the trade’ (also movie sharks) & usually quite unkind (they called
The Recognitions
‘totally undisciplined’) but in this case apparently quite excited, some slavey at Viking called & read it to me (the only words I remember are ‘virtuoso’ & ‘dazzling’) said they’d send it immediately but of course have not. Next,
Publisher’s Weekly
is sending someone out here to interview me & while as you know I’ve generally avoided such foolishments in this case I am trying to be more like a regular grownup & help sell the book rather than pretend I’ve never heard of it. So as all this mounts toward publication even though I’ve thought of getting away, even a hop over to see you, it is better to stay here & do what I can (short of a ‘talk show’) to cooperate at this rather crucial stage of things. My only other commitment is the last week of June at Bard to which I can’t say I look forward but it is $3 thousand and they were good to me back in the late 70s when as we all remember things were pretty rough.