B007RT1UH4 EBOK (92 page)

To Ólafur Gunnarsson

Piermont

2 May 1978

Dear Olafur,

Your generosity seems only exceeded by your enthusiasm; my indecision only by my general tendency to anxiety (perhaps should be translated as ‘laziness’: have you ever read perhaps the best novel in any language,
Oblomov
, by Goncharov?).

At any rate, your offer to send an air ticket forthwith is both immensely generous & something I cannot reward at this moment. I have got some matters here that are just taking day after damned day to clear up, & a summer house I have got to get ready to lease to tenants. The only thing that could change things abruptly would emerge from a British film producer who is interested in optioning rights to
J R
(that is one of the things I’m trying to get cleared up), of course if he offered to pay my trip across the sea I would go immediately —with a stop coming or going at Reykjavík of course.

Otherwise I have a hope in midwinter of visiting friends in England & if I can manage to work that out would let you know, assuming that Iceland is as uninhabitable as everywhere else that time of year, the schnapps notwithstanding. Meanwhile I hope your book has turned out as fine as your children—I do really look forward eventually to seeing it all & will stay in touch.

all best regards

W. Gaddis

To George Hegarty

[
A student at Drake University who sent WG his dissertation “Gaddis’s
Recognitions
: The Major Theme.”
]

Piermont, NY 10968

18 September 1978

Dear George Hegarty.

I feel badly being so late thanking you or in fact even acknowledging your kindness sending me your dissertation, especially so of course in the light of your generous estimate of
The Recogntions
& your grasp of its basic premises; that it is (p.12) essentially positive; that it is (39) ‘by its very nature imperfect’ & in fact in itself (13) a kind of forgery, this last a treat of sorts after being beaten relentlessly over the head with Th. Mann’s
Dr Faustus
in a very erudite dissertation from the Univ. of Colorado. I was also intrigued in your bibliography to learn of a number of critical pieces on the book which I didn’t know of.

All aside from the book’s major themes which, as I say, I do think you explore & present very clearly & well, I am always beguiled when I read these criticisms & dissertations (yours now about the 5th of the latter that I’ve seen) by points & parallels I’ve made quite unawares so far as I can recall—the ramifications (85) of ‘Irish thorn-proof’, of (95) the Narcissus Festival, &c—all of which of course delight me & for which I’m quite ready to seize full credit. (On the other hand one can be equally & perhaps less happily disconcerted when such exegeses take the opposite turn as I recall feeling they did in the B Benstock piece years ago which you cite, aside from its major theme (Joyce-pilfering) such supportive items as handkerchief-covered mirrors which I took, not from
Ulysses
which I hadn’t (haven’t) read but an experience of my own in a Panama hotel room.) But I suppose bemused is a better word (than beguiled) since chasing after & readjusting images (‘That is not what I meant at all . . .’) these days is even more futile a notion than it was back on page 152 of
The Recognitions
. But still . . .

Whether the following will serve any purpose but your own interest I don’t know & certainly, in the light of your dissertation’s overall accomplishment, these items are trivial enough but I pass them on anyhow: Page 12 contemptible I think you mean contemptuous? Page 50 I think Agnes D was a literary agent not a critic. Page 60 it is before magic despaired not disappeared, as page 63 it is Puritan indignance not indulgence. Though perhaps not quite clear in the book (p. 30), Wyatt confronts a Deadly Sin on the Bosch table where he eats, not (your p. 65) on a dish. Then curiously, & reflecting I suppose the innocence (to say nothing of ‘banned in Boston’ threats) of those days in the ’50s, I think all the distinguished novelist was doing (p 85) ‘meditatively engrossed in the landscape’ was having a pee; but your reading is somehow marvelously more pertinent to his self-absorbed isolation from the real experience at any level so I don’t mind at all letting it stand (& perhaps God knows in some forgotten future saying —Of course that’s what I meant . . .)

Finally & again (perhaps deliberately) obscure the Willie references (pp. 475–8) you quote (pp 45,6): all I meant attributable to him was as 1 of ‘the 2 young men’, ie p 475 from Philogyny? through become a misologist? Then 477, lines 9 through 12 & 15–18; & lastly p. 478 lines 27–32. (I can’t recall offhand who the ‘haggard boy’ was in the book (though I do in ‘real life’).)

Many thanks again for troubling to send me the dissertation.

Yours,

William Gaddis

dissertation from the Univ. of Colorado: Robert Charles Brownson’s “Techniques of Reference, Allusion, and Quotation in Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus and William Gaddis’s
The Recognitions
” (1976).

page 152 of
The Recognitions
: “Images surround us; cavorting broadcast in the minds of others, we wear the motley tailored by their bad digestions, the shame and failure, plague pandemics and private indecencies, unpaid bills, and animal ecstasies remembered in hospital beds, our worst deeds and best intentions will not stay still, scolding, mocking, or merely chattering they assail each other, shocked at recognition.”

To Elaine Markson

[
David Markson’s wife and a successful literary agent. In 1978 she published a novel entitled
Home Again, Home Again
(Morrow), and invited WG to her publication party.
]

Piermont, NY

22 Sept. 1978

Dear Elaine,

I am teaching up at Bard College this fall—a class Tuesday afternoon & another Wednesday morning—& of course your party is
Tuesday
eve, when I stay over up there—that seems the way life goes these days & I am sorry to miss this occasion to wish you well & good luck with your book, if there is such a thing any more (or in fact if there was ever); as well as the chance to thank you for your time & efforts on behalf of the various hopefuls I send in your direction. But I
do
mean the “good luck”.

best wishes,

Willie Gaddis

To Stanley Elkin

[
Critically acclaimed novelist (1930–95) and a professor of English at Washington University in Saint Louis. He wrote to invite WG to teach for three weeks there.
]

Piermont, NY 10968

7 October 1978

Dear Stanley Elkin.

I just got your letter forwarded & was most agreeably impressed by its proposal. Bill Gass some months ago had mentioned the possibility to me as just that & without going into terms which sound, as you present them, extremely inviting & I want & am glad to be able to accept.

My spring schedule is still in balance but at the moment the February turn looks preferable, perhaps if only because one would always rather be any elsewhere in February. As for obligations I would expect to do all I could along student lines but am not much for readings & have never in fact given one; as for talks I was obliged to clarify some of my prejudices for the Japan tour a couple of years ago & know it’s high time I got them together & trust we can sort that one out.

Beyond the above but no less persuasive, I must add that I’ve admired your ear (now there’s a line from one writer to another, recalls the young man from Devizes) since —this is Dick ‘Pepsodent’ Gibson, I’m very happy to be here in Minneapolis tonight . . . & very much look forward to meeting you & to seeing Bill Gass again, please give him my best regards & let me know details that need attention as they occur.

thanks again for your letter & invitation,

William Gaddis

young man from Devizes: from a limerick: “There was a young man of Devizes / Whose balls were of different sizes. / One was so small / It was nothing at all; / The other took numerous prizes.”

Dick ‘Pepsodent’ Gibson: this section of Elkin’s
The Dick Gibson Show
(1971) appeared in the same issue of the
Dutton Review
that featured the opening section of
J R
.

To Sarah Gaddis

Piermont

14 October 78