So where in the world is Nina Hartley ...? (gaddis)

[Tore Rye Andersen]

Keith quoted this classic passage from Gaddis' The Recognitions:

>- --Listen, this guilt, this secrecy, he burst out,  --it has nothing
>to do with this . . . this passion for wanting to meet the latest
>poet, shake hands with the latest novelist, get hold of the latest
>painter, devour . . . what is it? What is it they want from a man
>they didn't get from his work? What do they expect? What is there
>left of him when he has done his work? What's any artist, but the
>dregs of his work? the human shambles that follows it around. What's
>left of the man when the work's done but a shambles of apology?  (The
>Recognitions, p. 96)

Cf. also the fat book the reviewer in the green wool shirt carries around:

"It was in fact quite a thick book. A pattern of bold elegance, the 
lettering on the dust wrapper stood forth in stark configurations of red and 
black to intimate the origin of design. (For some crotchety reason there was 
no picture of the author looking pensive sucking a pipe, sans gêne with a 
cigarette, sang-froid with no necktie, plastered across the back.)" (p. 936)

- an evident standin for the first edition of The Recognitions itself.

And yet, as Crystal Alberts shows in her essay "Valuable Dregs" (from the 
new and highly recommendable anthology "Paper Empire: William Gaddis and the 
World System"), Gaddis loved reading author biographies, and he took great 
care in arranging his archives so as to preserve a carefully constructed 
image of himself for posterity. While overtly critical of our desire for 
extra-textual information about artists, Gaddis evidently shared some of 
this desire.

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