NP Gaddis

[Otto]

posted on the Gaddis-list today:

The Rush for Second Place
By William Gaddis, edited and introduction by Joseph Tabbi 
VIKING; 182 PAGES; $14 PAPERBACK

"I'm afraid of the death of the elite because it means the death of me of course I can't really blame them, I've been wrong about everything in my life it's all been fraud and fiction, let everybody down except my daughters maybe I can still rescue them, not their fault is it? Fact that I'm forgotten that I'm left on the shelf with the dead white guys in the academic curriculum that my prizes are forgotten because today everybody's giving prizes for that supine herd out there waiting to be entertained." 

The search for the Great American Novel is perhaps dead, and if that's so it's because the late William Gaddis -- whose works earned him comparisons to Herman Melville and James Joyce -- killed it in 1955 when he published his first novel, "The Recognitions." But now its ghost has returned from beyond the grave in the form of a short novel completed but unpublished at the time of Gaddis' death in 1998 -- "Agape Agape," which is either the last true masterpiece of the 20th century or the first of our new millennium.
(review by Andrew Ervin)
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2002/10/20/RV93190.DTL

regards

Otto
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