NP - Gaddis

Sat Jul 15 10:39:51 CDT 2017

I see – but are you sure that there really was nothing new, no new aspect
of the drivel, and that it was not intended, the reader's growing annoyance.

(I'm sure I don't have to tell you about repetition, even seemingly endless
repetition as a comic tool – I seem to remember a story of Mark Twain that
exemplifies just that.)

2017-07-15 16:48 GMT+02:00 Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>:

> I meant "beyond" in extent rather than intensity: that after the first
> dozen depictions of banal, bohemian-bien-pensant conversation, there was
> nothing new -- just an increasing annoyance and a suspicion that Gaddis was
> working out some real-life resentment or spite at this subculture to no
> artistic effect.
>
> On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 9:30 AM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> A lot of truth in what you say.
>>
>> And, apropos of "It goes way beyond the call of satire" – do you really
>> know what you said there? I know that terrain exists – we have a lurid
>> example in Germany, a comedian who called an asshole a goat-fucker and when
>> the asshole went to court said: Oh, I was being satirical and therefore
>> innocent! – but neither Gaddis nor Pynchon did ever set foot in it, as far
>> as I'm concerned.
>>
>> 2017-07-15 14:42 GMT+02:00 Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>:
>>
>>> I will reference The Failures of Criticism by Someone Good (who I won't
>>> take time look up) as a terrific book on
>>> the whole long history of even the best and the brightest
>>> readers/critics missing real genius all the time. And,
>>> there are countless other examples and stories in almost any literary
>>> history.
>>>
>>> This book (and phenomenon) can lead one to this possible insight: many
>>> of the best reader/critics, full of seminal insight
>>> into many of the best of their time, are often so historically embedded
>>> with their insights and what supports them, that
>>> they, perforce, can be unable to notice originality of genius. [Johnson
>>> on Sterne: nothing so different can last (paraphrase, I'm sure).
>>>
>>> A--and, Pynchon was so appreciated sub rosa, what with his powerful
>>> so-smart agent; his story publishing reputation--including as we know, an
>>> early V. bit--his writing teacher's reputation and praise, etc. that that
>>> wide net cultural reader/presence that was George Plimpton--paris Review
>>> and all--who 'liked' most of what he wrote about (if he didn't it seems he
>>> did not write about it?) was, yes, lucky for Pynchon but also more and less
>>> than luck. It was a Faulkner First Novel winner, we know. Many/most good
>>> reviewers of the time probably would have reviewed it favorably, I suggest,
>>> largely because it deserved to be.
>>>
>>> Gaddis, however, as I understand, worked all alone on The Recognitions,
>>> as obscure as Pynchon became, I think. Attacking
>>> an ambitious stranger with no calling cards is easier for most.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 5:37 AM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> you can read it here: http://www.nyx.net/~awestrop/ftb/ftb.htm
>>>>
>>>> (you get the impression you either get the usual assholes or lucky like
>>>> Pynchon [getting Plimpton].
>>>>
>>>> 2017-07-15 11:11 GMT+02:00 Erik T. Burns <eburns at gmail.com>:
>>>>
>>>>> Have you ever read Jack Green's "Fire the Bastards"? Gaddis was bashed
>>>>> from the get-go.
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------
>>>>> From: Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>
>>>>> Sent: ‎7/‎15/‎2017 3:54
>>>>> To: L E Bryan <lebryan at sonic.net>
>>>>> Cc: jesse gooch <jlguuch at gmail.com>; Robert Mahnke
>>>>> <rpmahnke at gmail.com>; P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>>>> Subject: Re: NP - Gaddis
>>>>>
>>>>> So no help on the "who's bad-mouthing Gaddis" front? I'm genuinely
>>>>> curious.
>>>>>
>>>>> YOPJ
>>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, Jul 14, 2017 at 10:32 PM, L E Bryan <lebryan at sonic.net> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Frolic is worth reading just for the judge’s long decision about the
>>>>>> lost dog. My attorney friends loved it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Jul 14, 2017, at 7:02 PM, jesse gooch <jlguuch at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Very nice. Now I need to get around to reading Frolic.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Jul 14, 2017, at 5:27 PM, Robert Mahnke <rpmahnke at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Apropos of Gaddis not being trashed, here is an appreciation of A
>>>>>> Frolic Of His Own:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.themillions.com/2016/06/william-gaddis-and-americ
>>>>>> an-justice.html
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Maybe someone else already shared this -- if so, apologies.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Tue, Jul 11, 2017 at 10:09 AM, Mark Thibodeau <
>>>>>> jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Who is trashing Gaddis?! Particularly "beyond the idiot Franzen"?!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> Virus-free.
>>>>>>> www.avg.com
>>>>>>> <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Sun, Jul 9, 2017 at 12:18 PM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> The New Yorker just had a long piece on Texas and it's politics,
>>>>>>>> some harbinger of the future of America with its starved and obscene,
>>>>>>>> religious wing nuts, ad infinitum.
>>>>>>>> Gaddis was and remains for me  a refreshing cudgel upon the heads
>>>>>>>> of such rampant stupidity and malice but reading the article leads one to
>>>>>>>> think it's gotten even worse.
>>>>>>>> It's funny how often Gaddis gets trashed now beyond the idiot
>>>>>>>> Franzen. Yet no one has reached the heights WG landed in just 4 novels.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> rich
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Sat, Jul 8, 2017 at 2:54 PM Charles Albert <cfalbert at gmail.com>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I've spent the past couple of years feeling like one of those
>>>>>>>>> halfwit monks described in The Swerve. This is the first period of time
>>>>>>>>> I've had to read something big on the ever expanding list.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Given how hard it was to find for so long, I'm certain not
>>>>>>>>> everyone has The Recognitions, so I wanted to share the moment when I
>>>>>>>>> believe I may have fallen in love....
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> -Your father's father, she corrected him sharply, but her voice
>>>>>>>>> broke, almost bitter as she looked away, not for the death of her brother
>>>>>>>>> but to insinuate that he had abandoned her in this bondage of mortality.
>>>>>>>>> She talked to Wyatt familiarly of death, as though to take him with her
>>>>>>>>> would be the kindest expression of her love for him possible: still, she
>>>>>>>>> never spoke directly of death, never named it so, but continued to treat it
>>>>>>>>> with the euphemistic care reserved elsewhere for obscenity.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> It sets up like Bierce, and then the punchline is not another
>>>>>>>>> artfully engineered clause or sentence - it's ONE word.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> It gives me wood......
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> love,
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> cfa
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
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