B007RT1UH4 EBOK (68 page)

with very best regards. I hope my next can be somewhat more coherent,

W. Gaddis

Mondadori: Vincenzo Mantovani’s translation
Le perizie
was published by Mondadori in 1967.

To John D. Seelye

Croton-on-Hudson, New York

10 May 1963

Dear Mr Seelye.

I recalled recently having written you some time past and noting, in response to my ‘next book’ as an item of interest to you, that it would be a report on school television for the Ford Foundation; and as little moment as it is I am obliged and I must confess relieved to say that the project fell through after time work travel wasted and a little money changed hands, all too predictable, so—I’ve escaped back to my own ‘next book’ though how long it will be (in the writing I mean, not the length) heaven knows.

Indirectly word reached me of an announcement in
Prairie Schooner
for the issue in question this summer? And further developments, if this can be called so, include $2500 handed me nicely outright and unsolicited later this month by the National Institute of Arts and Letters, what ever possessed them?

Yours,

William Gaddis

National Institute of Arts and Letters: the award was presented by Malcolm Cowley on 22 May; the citation reads: “To WILLIAM GADDIS, novelist, born in New York City, whose novel
Recognitions
exhibits breadth and subtlety of imagination, a sense of fictional architecture with a remarkable effectiveness in the rendering of details, and unflagging stylistic verve.” ($2,500 = $19,000 today.)

To David Markson

Croton-on-Hudson, New York

9 June 1963

Dear Dave.

Many thanks for the ‘Observer’ clip, which frankly I would find more of a comfort if I were
not
trying to do it all again —include & order
everything
—as appears to be happening, that or end up like the Collier brothers. Our summer is quite unplanned but mine will certainly include some stumbling against y
^r
doorbell.

Yours,

W Gaddis.

‘Observer’ clip: Philip Toynbee’s favorable review of the English
R
in the
Observer Weekend Review
, 9 September 1962.

Collier brothers: Langley and Homer Collyer made news in 1947 when the two elderly men were found dead in a house in Harlem cluttered with 120 tons of junk. It took eighteen days just to find the bodies.

To Jack P. Dalton

[
An American Joyce critic (d. 1981) who, assuming WG was influenced by Joyce, invited him to contribute an essay to a book on the Irish writer, eventually published as
Twelve and a Tilly
(1965). The “
[
sic
]
” in the final sentence is WG’s.
]

27 September 1963

dear Mr Dalton.

I regret I cannot oblige on your request which I found as flattering as I did the original reviews frustrating in their generally invidious comparisons between
The Recognitions
and the work of Joyce, not then having read any more of him than
Exiles
, the
Dubliners
stories, about 40 pages of
Ulysses
& 10 of
Finnegans Wake
, and still unconvinced of the osmosis theory of literary influence in which the reviewers take refuge, but sorry nontheless [sic] to be no more help to you here beyond wishing you luck with your project.

Yours,

William Gaddis

To Pat Gaddis

[
WG went to Germany in the summer of 1964 to assist the U.S. Army with a film entitled
The Battle at St. Vith
on the loss of the Belgian town during the Battle of the Bulge (December 1944), as does Thomas Eigen in
J R
. See Gibbs’s outraged description of the battle on pp. 390–92, where St. Vith is called Saint Fiacre. The documentary was written and directed by Michael J. Laurence and produced by Hunter Low, both mentioned below.
] dear Pat—I’ve just got your letter of 7 July—through all the routine delays of “military channels”—someone
must
write the satire on the peacetime occupying army of Europe, a vast floating welfare state & good explanation of how Eisenhowers are manufactured. [...]

Munich, Germany

12–14 July 1964

WG with director Michael J. Laurence and film crew in Germany, 1964.

I cannot say things here have been going awfully well, due largely to poor preparation from New York end—I should have been over here a month before I was—certainly H. Low’s letters to the people to be interviewed should have gone out far before they did, to allow for answers before I left. But even that is minor in comparison to the problems over the massive archaic studio equipment we are saddled with, constant breakdowns of one thing or another, needed parts never sent, all this working extreme frustration on director and crew—and eventually on subjects being interviewed and me. Much strong feeling, especially on Mike Laurence’s part (and I don’t blame him a bit since he does work hard & long) of being a projection of Hunter Low fantasy, resentment over lack of support from New York—Lord! what a thing this army is.

We had lunch on Saturday, for instance, at 5 pm—having had old Gen. Blumentritt taped to a bench (microphone cable) but in hotel “garden” where it was cold, light failed, police came in to say people were calling to complain about our generator noise in the street & 1 woman having a nervous breakdown, the general’s hands getting progressively more trembling—ended grandly when our truck knocked some glass out of the hotel marquee—
all
out of E. Waugh. Yesterday the most difficult to date, we finally ended up doing sound interview in depths of a German forest at 10 pm—got back & no place to eat—and just about all of this due to equipment problems.

The biggest disappointment so far—and most interesting tangle—was call to me from Washington cancelling completion of the Skorzeny filming—I was supposed to be there (Madrid) today, but the State Department got word of it, forced its cancellation & forbids my further contact with him. I’m sure I haven’t heard the last of it.

General Bayerlein is mad as a hatter—& we’d got all our equipment to Wurzburg, after talking twice to him on the phone & no reason to believe he’d say no—arrived at his carpet shop & he said he must have time to “prepare”, we are going to try again with him later—I’ve never seen a man with a face the color of red of his—