NP - Gaddis

Sat Jul 15 13:13:45 CDT 2017

Gaddis is excessive. He is quintessentially American. Too much. All the time. And even sated, bloated, obese you (I) want more.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Mark Kohut" <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
Sent: ‎7/‎15/‎2017 17:32
To: "Monte Davis" <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
Cc: "Jochen Stremmel" <jstremmel at gmail.com>; "P-list" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Subject: Re: NP - Gaddis

Perhaps like the cetology chapter in Moby Dick, or some of Dreiser even, or Beckett--independently of Gaddis, or Gaddis's later in life fave Thomas Bernhard or DF Wallace in The Pale King, Gaddis risked illustrating the inherent vice of inauthentic lives by 
over-embodying existential boredom, boringly, on the page. 

Some think he failed. 

On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 10:48 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:

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
Sent: ‎7/‎15/‎2017 3:54
To: L E Bryan
Cc: jesse gooch; Robert Mahnke; P-list
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-american-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"?!

Virus-free. www.avg.com 

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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