B007RT1UH4 EBOK (145 page)

Auguri!

—Gaddis

Eigen [...] v. J R Corp.: in July 1994 Comnes sent WG a mock e-mail document in which Thomas Eigen, represented by J. R. Vansant, threatens to take action against WG for misrep-resenting his work in
FHO
.

To Liesl and Molly Friedrich

[
The daughters of WG’s old friends Otto and Priscilla Friedrich, whose memorial service he had missed.
]

East Hampton, NY 11937

13 December 1996

dear Liesl & Molly,

when I called the house that Monday afternoon aware, first, of the commotion of voices people phone ringings kitchen doings more people, where’s the bathroom? can you move your car? is there any gin? preparing for Tuesday morning’s event &, second, aware that I wouldn’t get there or even, finally, that either of you would pick up the phone answered nonetheless by a young lady, Julia was it? Molly’s daughter? most courteous but so young, which crept in upon me as I fell into an old man’s plaint over how the loss of old close & faithful friends somehow diminished one’s own sense of being to which she responded not with some dismal platitude for this self-serving notion but rather a positive cheerful alternative which I must say reduced me still further—ah youth!

Nonetheless it is true. Vanity? fear? the chill memento mori in old Spain’s ‘vida sin amigo, muerte sin testigo’? But however it is immensely true for me at any rate in the loss of Otto & Priscilla, almost half a century, imagine! of every kind of up & down on all hands, extraordinary courage on their parts & a kind of idiotic ‘it can’t happen here’ on mine from Paris to Massapequa leaving me feeling somewhat like the Easter Bunny Who Overslept, Priscilla running a rather distracting household, I in the cellar saying No water today, I have to sink a new well & install new pump, & Otto walking that rainswept mile to the LIRR to the
NY Daily News
but still, my abiding memories are of wide lawns in the sun & 2 small unclothed beauties gamboling by, how deeply fond my mother was of you both & of Priscilla especially. I’ve always regretted that Otto never got round to writing the short & venomous book he contemplated on what happened to that sweet old town. I last saw him at a party of Ted Morgan’s on a sunny New York rooftop, one whole side of him still as a board but that incorrigibly warm even twinkling smile of, well, generosity?

Generosity, yes, yes that was probably what I felt most from them both putting their own travails aside for it, as that last & indelible time I saw Priscilla &, of course, both of you that sunny afternoon I got out to Locust Valley thank heavens, limping around with my own absurdities & —Willie? can we get you something? some cheese? some ham? in that charming room, sun crisp slipcovers books books books & Priscilla as always filled with brisk good cheer & all of you concerned for me & not the loss that still hung in the air, & how glad I am that I had that last long chat with Priscilla (aside from a few subsequent phone calls when, expecting to find her in extremis, instead hear her plan for an October trip where was it, Turkey? & again, she is off for Block Island; & again, this parting bit of advice: Just remember, Willie, you don’t have to do what the doctors tell you . . .

Character? Courage (which I suppose is a part of character?) So one can easily see how, for example, Margaret loved and admired her (with a rather wild kind of courage herself) & the efforts she made to get out there from New Hampshire to see her, makes us all want to go back (or feel we should) & read Emerson on Friendship.

So at any rate there you both are at this immense juncture & the responsibilities ahead that go with it but good heavens look at this terrific bunch of genes you’ve inherited to meet them. The last line in a marvelous BBC adaptation of Galsworthy’s
Forsyte Saga
, after dealing with every kind of betrayal, financial disaster, passions runs amock &c, the family lawyer who had overseen all this, Soames, asks “What was it all for?” but I think we know: since Nature’s mission is prolongation of the race, the tribe, the family &c it is this next generation that all these travails are ‘for’, from my & Otto & Priscilla’s generation you both, and Niki & Amelia too, & even that brief light of Tony [Otto’s youngest son], and Sarah, and Matthew, ‘for’ the next generation you all bring along. We do & will always owe you all so much for what you have given us.

Auguri! and love,

Willie

‘vida sin amigo, muerte sin testigo’: “life without a friend, death without a witness” (
R
112).

the Easter Bunny Who Overslept: title of a children’s book cowritten by the Friedrichs (1957), often reprinted and reillustrated.

Ted Morgan: French-American historian and biographer (1932– ), whom WG had known for years.

Locust Valley: the Friedrichs’ residence on Long Island.

Emerson on Friendship: an 1841 essay.

BBC adaptation of Galsworthy
Forsyte Saga
: a twenty-six-part serial broadcast in 1967 adapted from John Galsworthy’s trilogy of novels (1906–21).

To Don DeLillo

East Hampton, NY 11937

21 September 1997

dear Don,

the ‘physics’ of baseball is an astounding piece of work & as though served up for my nefarious purpose, many thanks for going to the trouble of getting it to me; as for the generously signed copy of your new grand entry I think you know the measure of my appreciation,

very best regards,

Gaddis

the ‘physics’ of baseball:
The Physics of Baseball
is a 1990 book by Robert K. Adair, a Yale professor of physics, and is cited in
AA
(47). “Your grand new entry” is DeLillo’s eleventh novel,
Underworld
(1997).

Top: WG’s final home on Boat Yard Road.

Bottom: Saul Steinberg, Judith Gaddis, and WG, Key West, 1997.

To Christopher Knight

[
A critic (1952– ) who contributed to
In Recognition of William Gaddis
, Knight sent WG a copy of his book
Hints & Guesses: William Gaddis’s Fiction of Longing
(Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1997). The following typed letter begins with a handwritten note at top:
]

My letter carefully written to you almost a month ago, and then as carefully packed with other papers for the journey home at any rate here it finally is

Key West, Fla.

25 April [1998]

Dear Christopher Knight.

I am sorry being so long about thanking you for sending your
Hints & Guesses
& for the work itself. I won’t go into the somewhat bizarre circumstances that have contributed to the long delay but rather the great pleasure & rewards I had on first examining it, & have even now not yet read it thoroughly through.

However what is immediately evident is your readiness (nay, appetite!) for pursuing situations beyond their appearances (as background of American Gothic (pp. 165fol.) even if contradictory; or better perhaps the citations of cases, pursuing outside references; or picking up on small but vital details consistently missed by ‘reviewers’ (as Cruickshank/Lester (obvious) leap from CIA to industrial espionage); also my attempt at the Holmes/Crease///Hand marvelous collision. Those for random starters.

Incidentally I thought it might amuse you (177fol.)
Jane Eyre
sequence, my attempt to find a writing style to conjure up a reading/visual style in such total contrast to the actual bed scene: this attempt to impose her fiction upon the reality almost coming to grief through editor’s failure to get permission for the already written sequence using
Lost Horizon
only to be denied (didn’t like the sex-context) at the very last minute by Hilton’s estate so I broke my neck rushing through every public-domain distinctive prose passage & think it worked (though not so well as the original).