B007RT1UH4 EBOK (98 page)

Elizabeth Sifton: i.e., Eli
s
abeth Sifton (1939– ), daughter of Reinhold Niebuhr.
CG
would be published under her imprint in 1985.

To Sarah Gaddis

Wainscott, NY

[late October? 1980]

Dear Sarah.

Thanks, thanks for your bright letter. I wish I could do the same. I am at my worst right now, a worst you remember in terms of EKodak, IBM &c: uptight, strung out, bundle of nerves, on this piece I so lightly said I’d write for the
WSJournal
magazine on
Failure
& now have 4 days left & needless to say hundreds of shreds of paper which I keep rearranging: the constant threat which has silenced better minds than mine (v. Martin [Dworkin]) of being so overwhelmed by one’s material that one just gives it up (speaking of failure!), & always the wellwishers saying Oh don’t get upset, it will all fall into place . . .

So congratulations to Peter on getting published but tell him not to make a habit of it, it can drive you right up the wall. I didn’t see the
NYer
piece on publishing but the
NYTimes
did run 2 long articles, of course all one has ever heard is them bemoaning their difficulties over their lobster Newberg lunches but this time they may be right; the only thing is of course like everybody it never occurs to them to blame themselves for the sheer greed that has driven them to pay $1 and $2 million for crap like Judith Kranz & now find themselves in trouble & all the rest of us with them.

Though we did take time out for a vast NY party given by a bunch called Poets & Writers, took Matthew & his treat was dancing with Abby Hoffman’s girlfriend, mine was sitting beside a breezy dame who introduced herself as Joan Fontaine, now back in Wainscott (not MHG, he’s working hard in NY & very happy at it) at a ‘work table’ with these thousand paper scraps looking out at rain wild winds & whitecaps on the pond, frantic V formations of ducks & geese honking in the grey skies I hope they know where they’re going.

& one other item enclosed, you have got to go see this Japanese movie
Kagemusha
because—aside from the story, largely battles between 16th century war lords—their outfits are simply staggering, I have never seen so many different patterns & colours & could only think of you in there with a pad & pencil going mad at not being able to note them down fast enough.

Aside from this frantic
WSJ
piece (& the $ that should go with it) plans are fluid, I think we’ll go back into NY to stay right after the elections which should give us a good deal of entertainment, I have to confess I see it all so hapless that this year for the first time I think I may not vote, I know that is the bad citizen but I have voted against people rather than for their opponents so many times (HHumphrey for 1) that I am just not going out to vote against Reagan now, though if he is elected he should offer us a good 4 years of awful entertainment (in my opinion!).

I’ve got to get back to my scrap heap & just look forward, as I always do, to the day we can all relax together though it seems to be always just around the corner. [...]

best to Peter & much love always,

Papa

Failure
: WG’s essay “The Rush for Second Place” was originally entitled “Failure” and intended for a new magazine supplement to the
Wall Street Journal
, but when that failed to materialize, WG submitted it to
Harper’s
, where it was published under a new title in April 1981 (
RSP
38–61).

Poets & Writers: the writers’ organization held a tenth-anniversary party on 22 October 1980 at the Roseland Ballroom.

Abby Hoffman: American political activist (1936–89).

Joan Fontaine: British American actress (1917– ) who had published her autobiography,
No
Bed of Roses
, two years earlier.

Kagemusha
: 1980 film written and directed by Akira Kurosawa.

HHumphrey: Democrat Hubert Humphrey ran against Republican Richard Nixon in 1968.

WG and Muriel Oxenberg Murphy at the Poets & Writers tenth-anniversary party, October 1980 (photo by Thomas Victor).

To Tom LeClair

235 East 73rd street, P.H. A

New York NY 10021

22 November 1980

Dear Tom LeClair.

Just a note to say that a friend pointed out to me your letter in the
New Republic
& well done: how Kazin’s dreary pomposity is still taken seriously is quite beyond me, he has been around ‘patronizing his betters’ for far too long & some kind of disestablishmentarian movement is long overdue.

You make your case most succinctly which is really the point of this note as the element I found missing in our interview & due, I readily believe, to my own maundering in conversation as opposed to the better chance for trenchancy in the (re)written word. We may try again some time (not immediately); meanwhile, good work

and best regards,

William Gaddis

letter in
New Republic
: a letter to the editor (22 November 1980, 3) in response to Kazin’s article “American Writing Now” (in the 18 October issue) chastising Kazin for ignoring WG and other innovative novelists.

To William H. Gass

[
Upon being awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, for which Gass had written a recommendation.
]

New York, New York 10021

12 April 1981

Dear Bill.

Do you read the small print in the
Times
? Do you KNOW what joy (read money, prestige, vainglory) your kind effort has contributed to this modest household? That yes, the Guggenheim people did actually respond positively to your recommendation? Of course I should never have doubted.

But what a treat, what a treat to have managed such a thing without Mitcheners & Mailers, Biddles & Bobs (Gotliebs) & ‘who you know’; rather, 3 noncelebrities & 1 Captain (yourself) by whom I flatter myself I’m a captain.

I should also note I really am working on the book, the ‘romance’ (nothing I think that can be accused as ‘experimental’ here!), came back a few days ago from Mexico with 50 clean first draft pages so it is not all hornswoggle (though it may turn out to be about hornswoggle) . . .

   Joyce?:   Q. What are you writing about?

A. I am not writing about something. I am writing something.

Enough of that.

At any rate, we plan to be here & Long Island for the next couple of months and if any chance of you/Mary/the youth group in the neighborhood we would certainly hope to hear & share our quarters city or country. Our summer plans quite happily unresolved though Guggenheim’s kindness opens possibilities well beyond Atlantic City; meanwhile 2 phone numbers below, every best regard to Stanley.

warm thoughts to Mary, to yourself with thanks again,

Bill Gaddis

PS I let off some steam in April
Harper’s
Magazine
which may sporadically amuse you.

Mitcheners [...] Gotliebs: James Michener (correct spelling) and Norman Mailer were novelists; Gottlieb (correct spelling) was WG’s editor at Knopf; Biddle unidentified.

Joyce?: Samuel Beckett said Joyce’s “writing is not
about
something;
it is that something itself
” (“Dante . . . Bruno. Vico . . Joyce,” in
Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress
[Shakespeare and Co., 1929]). Cf.
AA
18.

April
Harper’s
: “The Rush for Second Place,” April 1981, pp. 31–39 (
RSP
39–61).