William Gaddis - The Letters of William Gaddis

good weather & warmest wishes to you both

Gaddis

To Judith Gaddis

[ Typed on the back of a Harvard newsletter regarding WG’s 50th class reunion. ]

Wainscott

15 Jan. ’95

Dear Judith,

response of sorts to your long delightful multitypeface (this is still the toy Olivetti I gave Sarah off to George School) letter & handsome letterhead (see other side) of, dare I say it? last September. . but frankly it seems much longer ago than that, upheavals on every front: outrage at the publisher’s failure to advertise, then the Book Award (sound paintfully familiar? but not entirely broke this time); health coming & going, travel slowed by those decades of tobacco but no whisky now for some 5 years (a little wine with dinner); the last couple of months a kind of running horror of being asked to give ‘readings’ & getting up to give a presentation on why I don’t give readings & don’t think anyone else should, why did we invent the printed page? the whole vain nonsense of ‘writers in performance’, everything is performance; & ‘book signings’. . none of it to do with the work itself, please! […]

And now when it would seem that one could finally sit down & gape at the Golden Years the success of this last book makes a profitable opportunity for the next one which I suppose must be taken advantage of though I’ve no idea what it would be ‘about’ but as J R said at some point — Even when you win you have to keep playing [p. 647]. […]

and so good to hear you sounding well & in such good spirits

W.

To Sarah Gaddis

[ Typed on the back of a photocopy of an article on WG in the French newspaper Le Monde.]

Wainscott

7 Feb. 95

Dear Sarah,

well! Which would we prefer, Le Monde or the ‘Pulitzer Prize’ —I’ll settle for the French, after what Oscar had to say about the Pulitzer on page 369 and these people picked up and attributed to me ! Well, so long Pulitzer (I think they hand them out in April)(in case anyone got as far as p. 369 which I’d doubt, Oscar is right). Lord knows what this Book Critics Award thing is, I think no $$ just the ‘prestige’ (who needs it). .

At least, after hearing you on the phone last night, I can reread your letter & feel that at least you can take a good deal of satisfaction in your work & how well you have done it & that there are some serious people around who are aware of it & appreciate it but believe me recalling those 5 Pfizer years, & now seeing your ‘boss’ (from outside thank God) so perfectly cloned in this cheery dense utterly self-centered ‘cute’ bird-brain at S&S I feel for you, how consistently these ridiculous people get themselves into positions of power is one of the great sad commentaries on our times but all this is cold comfort I know + the fact that they can turn quite vicious if ‘crossed’. . the only revenge probably a short novel about such a scene but of course that’s been done too (though there’s always room for one more if well done: take notes! (right down to the lipstick smear on her teeth as I did with Miss Flesch in J R who was ‘inspired’ by this ghastly woman at Pfizer). .)

Meanwhile I’m simply fiddling around trying to dredge up some idea for a project both to keep my mind in 1 piece & to embark on a regular income from S&S or Knopf &c, & very sadly meanwhile here again Candida in difficulty in hospital with a leg/foot operation, some rare circulatory problem that will leave her impaired & a long and painful haul & I am trying to convice her to sell her agency & retire &c, count our blessings as they say but at what cost!

much love again,

Papa

Pulitzer on page 369: “—The Pu, good Good talk about being famous for five minutes the Pulitzer Prize is a gimcrack out of journalism school you wrap the fish in tomorrow, talk about the great unwashed it’s got nothing to do with literature or great drama it’s the hallmark of mediocrity and you’ll never live it down […].” WG’s low opinion of the Pulitzers is also expressed in his letter of 1 May 1990 and in AA (60–62).

Book Critics Award: the National Book Critics Circle gives out awards every spring. FHO was a finalist for the 1994 fiction award but lost to Carol Shield’s Stone Diaries .

Miss Flesch in J R : a “curriculum specialist” at J R’s school, later hired as “project director” (and Thomas Eigen’s boss) at Typhon International (=Pfizer). Miss Flesch’s lipstick-smeared teeth are noted at her first appearance in the novel (22).

To Muriel Oxenberg Murphy

[ A fax without salutation entitled “In the Style of Thomas Bernhard.” WG describes the end of their relationship in the manner of the Austrian writer’s 1970 novel The Lime Works , in which a narrator tells the disjointed story of an eccentric writer named Konrad who has just killed his wife, drawing on hearsay by characters like Konrad’s acquaintance Fro. The opening paragraph is from pages 128–29 of Sophie Wilkins’s translation (Knopf, 1973); WG photocopied the same passage and sent it to Greg Comnes in 1996 with a note saying “You may see where I have found my Cicero for all future engagements.” WG’s final novel AA is very much “in the style of Thomas Bernard.” ]

Feb. 17’95

“Words ruin one’s thoughts, paper makes them ridiculous, and even while one is still glad to get something ruined and something ridiculous down on paper, one’s memory manages to lose hold of even this ruined and ridiculous something. Paper can turn an enormity into a triviality, an absurdity. If you look at it this way, then whatever appears in the world, by way of the spiritual world so to speak, is always a ruined thing, a ridiculous thing, which means that everything in this world is ridiculous and ruined. Words were made to demean thought, he would even go so far as to state that words exist in order to abolish thought. . In any case, words were bringing everything down, Konrad said. Depression derives from words, nothing else. . It was comforting, one of those rare times when one feels that everything is possible again, Konrad is supposed to have said to Fro. Suddenly everything. .

— Thomas Bernhard, The Lime Works

. . is sad, Konrad said to Fro, that was not my word, Konrad said, it was not my word but it was the perfect word, it was the word that took in everything, the whole past present even perhaps the future while looking for the words to forestall that future because none of this was new, it had been going on for months, even years, even all the years since the dreadful third party came into the picture to help, I want you to help me with her the dreadful third party said gradually shifting the burden over months and finally years having to explain, having to account, being called to account Konrad told Fro, but every explanation or rather every attempt at explanation only demanded further explanation which was disregarded, every appeal was disregarded, shrugged off by the dreadful third party, the last thing I ever want to do is hurt her I told Fro, hurting her is absolutely the last thing I want to do so that finally it seems (I am told) all I do whatever I do or say hurts her until I hardly know what I am saying (or doing) which is the last thing I want to do (or say) because the next to the last thing I want to do is to enrage her but as the years go by and turn into months and finally the months turn into weeks everything I do or say seems to eventually enrage her I tell Fro, I’m going to run down and get the newspaper I’ll be back in a minute in my coat, standing there in my coat she is suddenly enraged because I thought there would be an interview with me in the newspaper (of course there wasn’t I tell Fro), none of my small triumphs seem to please her when I had thought they would please her when what I thought would please her is usually met with silence or even derision or even what seems like contempt because it means that I have put other obligations first, that is what hurts her and angers her, wouldn’t any woman feel that way I ask Fro? Is there anything surprising about that ? That I put other obligations or what I think are obligations before my obligations to her, work obligations social obligations (contracts) the house obligations to her house here but she is not the house she is not talking about the house the house has nothing to do with her so that every attempt at explanation demands further explanation, with Q & A with a siege a veritable siege of Q & A living under siege at every encounter overflowing with conditions ultimatums assignments all totally unpredictable because the only thing that is predictable is its unpredictability overflowing with evidence of commission and omission which are always my sins of commission and omission I tell Fro, thoughtlessness carelessness memory lapses for insignificant moments or what I thought were insignificant moments become momentous events harbouring secrets which would only complicate things and which always complicate things on trial being on trial when One is not aware of being on trial because one is always on trial and any gesture of autonomy even the simplest gesture or the most complicated one becomes an evasion of control, or being controlled leading to assignments ultimatums conditions, there must be no conditions Eric is supposed to have said, I tell Fro, he (Eric) is a doctor and not only a doctor but a serious person making the statement “there must be no conditions” looking for relief, looking for blessed relief in the morning paper which may explain everything I tell Fro, here is a headline in the morning paper MEN AND WOMEN USE BRAIN DIFFERENTLY, STUDY DISCOVERS (“Using a powerful new method for glimpsing the brain in action”) which may explain everything. .