B007RT1UH4 EBOK (138 page)

now designated New York State’s official

State Author ($10 thousand, to help pay the taxes on) the Lannan award ($50 thousand), another damned thick square book

meanwhile the electrical and

plumbing ravages attended to: a pacemaker, prostate resection, inguinal hernia I tell you it’s all metaphor.

In fact, I may well have looked you up last July had not the prostate venture kept me wandering the corridors of New York Hospital, a bag of bloody urine tied to my leg, from joining Eos (Muriel Oxenberg) tripping to a working (filming) visit to the archaeological dig at Ashkelon stopping off at the Wailing Wall to have a good cry; & despite Eliot’s dictum that old men ought to be explorers I find the notion of travel increasingly unattractive echoing, I believe, your own reservations

OR EVEN—not a glass of spirits lo these 4 years (but a glass of wine for the stomach’s sake) still fighting the tobacco monster breathless at the thought of staggering up those heights at Bellagio ever again,

Aunque sepa los caminos,

yo nunca llégare a Córdoba

as the original epigraph for this imminent (january)

last book which I replaced at the last minute with Thoreau (to Emerson):

What you seek in vain for, half your life, one day you came full upon, all the family at dinner. You seek it like a dream, and as soon as you find it you become its prey.

tdzzzk tdzzzk tdzzzk . . .

with corresponding best wishes,

WG

Lannan award: WG received its Lifetime Achievement Award earlier in 1993 and flew to Los Angeles to receive it.

Ashkelon: ancient coastal city in Israel, about 50 miles west of Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall.

Eliot’s [...] explorers: from part 5 of “East Coker.”

To Charles Monaghan

[
Monaghan informed WG that his publisher for the British edition of
R
, Timothy O’Keeffe, died on 11 January 1994. Monaghan had also had just read
A Frolic of His Own
, published in January.
]

[22 January 1994]

Sorry to hear about Tim O’Keeffe but we are beginning to get more such news daily, last time I saw him was at London pub some years ago & did the drink help him along? I’ve had no spirits (wine only) these 4 years & can’t say I like it but thanks for your note & glad you liked the book

—Gaddis

To John W. Aldridge

New York, NY 10021

9 February 94

Dear Jack Aldridge,

a great pleasure to hear from you on this more or less occasion mainly of course with your good opinion of the new book & ‘as up there with (my) very best’, some of the reviewers even grudgingly conceding its being more ‘accessible’; & since I’ve made a show of neither writing nor soliciting ‘endorsements’ your advance copy like them all went out with my short rein on the publisher to not even suggest such a thing to those on the list I gave them incl. yours, if Auchincloss & Heller simply couldn’t restrain themselves we all come off with a clean & happy slate.

I assumed (as I presumed you would) that

or should it be

I presumed (as I assumed you would) that you hardly courted the warm embrace of the
NYTimes
not, as you note, for scolding them over assigning novels to novelists & poets to poets but for putting their star daily reviewer on display as the quintessential symptom of the far greater plague to which you call attention—& in which the publishers (like their movie studio counterparts) are hardly blameless for its spread—wherein the field of criticism has been usurped by reviewers (see
A Frolic of His Own
foot of page 217) with the bland acquiescence of a lazy ‘readership’ for a fitting extrapolation of entropy where at last everything = everything else. Of course right now I’m hardly in a position to complain personally since Michiko Kamikaze (as she’s known locally) did, as some other reviewers, treat the book ‘respectfully’ if somewhat grudgingly & sublimely humourless in her earnest approach &, heaven knows, I’ve been beyond fortunate in the
NYReview of Books
,
Washington Post
,
Boston Globe
,
Phila Inquirer
even 4 not entirely rave but thoughtful pages in the
New Republic
& so, I think Gertrude Lawrence said, what we lose on the swings we can make up on the roundabouts.

In light of the above it’s very good news that you’re taking on Cormac McCarthy who is a rare one & well worth more serious attentions (some day I’ll tell you the pig joke he told me), meanwhile we’re in town for now if you’re both passing through before this insane winter weather gives in to the hounds of spring.

with all best regards

Gaddis

Auchincloss & Heller: brief statements by both novelists appear on the front and rear dust-jacket flaps, respectively.

page 217: the lawyer Madhai Pai corrects Basie: “I did not say book critics I said reviewers, there’s a world of difference although the reviewers are delighted to be referred to as critics unless they’re on the run, then they take refuge in calling themselves journalists.”

Michiko Kamikaze: Kakutani (1955– ) writes about new fiction for the daily
New York Times
, where she reviewed
FHO
on 4 January 1994.

Gertrude Lawrence: WG forgot that he had already used this line with Aldridge in his letter of 28 January 1976.

Cormac McCarthy: Aldridge’s essay “Cormac McCarthy’s Bizarre Genius” appeared in the August 1994 issue of the
Atlantic Monthly
.

the hounds of spring: a once-famous image from Swinburne’s verse drama
Atalanta in Calydon (1865).

To Clare Alexander

New York, New York 10021

13 February 1994

Dear Clare,

While US applause may echo rather hollow in the British press I nonetheless enclose a dozen or so reviews & interviews which may be of use in promoting your publication of
A Frolic of His Own
in June.

The reviews vary from respectful to quite marvelous, Jonathan Raban in the
NY Review of Books
is really stunning & such provincial capitals as Boston & Philadelphia happily intelligent & high spirited. The interviews, to which I submitted with some trepidation, turn out quite merciful & that in the
Washington Post
is surely all one could wish for. There is also a ½ page ad finally scheduled for the
NYTimes
Book Review
representing the whole extent of Simon & Schuster’s such efforts to date which seems rather feeble response with the enclosed material to draw on & especially short sighted in the country the size of this one where the
Washington Post
&
Los Angeles Times
have been so generous, & the smaller literary press quite overlooked.

Snow banked outside the windows makes the possibility of your bringing me to London in June daily more attractive & I look forward to hearing from you about further developments.

kind regards,

W. Gaddis

Jonathan Raban in the
NY Review of Books
: “At Home in Babel” in the 17 February issue, pp. 3–4, 6.

Washington Post
: “America’s Greatest Novelist?” by John Schwartz, which appeared on the front page of the Style section of the
Post
on 3 February 1994.

Los Angeles Times
: reviewed by Richard Eder in the 9 January 1994 issue.