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At the moment we plan to spend another week here, be back in NY around the 21st when I know it will seem we’ve been gone the entire summer, up to Piermont to see that it’s all in one piece & prepare my head for fall. We think & speak of you both often & I hope it’s all still going well. I have thought in terms of trying to get out of there at Thanksgiving but heaven knows what lies between now & then.
love from us to you both,
Papa
nothing but palm trees [...] the other way: from Eliot’s Sweeney Agonistes, “Fragment of an Agon”: “Nothing to see but the palmtrees one way / And the sea the other way.”
we won’t [...] when it rains: also from Sweeney Agonistes, “Song by Klipstein and Krum-packer.” Also quoted in J R (479).
sound of the coral sea: also from Sweeney Agonistes, “Song by Wauchope and Horsfall.”
Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia: Elizabeth Karageorgievich (1936– ), Serbian businesswoman, writer, and politician. Her first husband was Muriel’s cousin, Howard Oxenberg (1919–2010); see her Excerpts (78–80).
Richard Burton: Welsh actor (1925–84), at one time reputedly engaged to Princess Elizabeth.
Dalai Lama: Lhamo Döndrub (1935– ), formally recognized as the fourteenth Dalai Lama in 1950.
To Steven Moore
[At the time a bookseller in Littleton, Colorado, I had completed a draft of my Reader’s Guide and wrote WG to ask for a list of sources to R that Koenig (in his dissertation) implied was among his papers.]
Piermont, NY 10968
25 August 1979
Dear Steven Moore.
I have been away & have just got your letter in the course of clearing things up, though I’m afraid the specific request it contains is beyond such measures since I have no & never made any ‘list’ of the sources for The Recognitions. As a book written over a course of years it was not developed from sources set down at the outset, & there seemed little reason to do so when it was done. Numerous source references are certainly among my notes & papers from that time, which I have just begun to look over. But I trust you understand that to go through them & compile such a ‘list’ as you seek would take an amount of time I don’t have for such a purpose; & from past experience I have to say too that the time & dislocating attention demanded by detailed correspondence on ‘meanings’ & ‘sources’ &c are also beyond question right now.
If you’ve indeed got 85% of the references, you would seem well on your way. The Koenig thesis is hardly exhaustive among dissertations I have seen on the book, one among them I recall as more specific a Ph D at Cornell by Robert Minkoff 2 or 3 years ago. I don’t know or try to keep track of work being done on the book aside from the occasional thesis or bits of correspondence telling me of such things as a symposium on the book in California last summer; but clearly if I responded to it all in the detail it demands it would verge upon a full time occupation.
I appreciate your interest in my work but can do little more right now than wish you luck with what may be an act of folly approaching that of having written the book in the first place.
Yours,
William Gaddis
To John and Pauline Napper
Piermont NY 10968
30 Nov. 1979
Dear John & Pauline.
[...] Well, the separation with Judith is about complete, it has certainly been a long row to hoe for us both, she is still in Key West (Florida), and I, well, hold your breath: a few months ago I re-encountered, yes, Muriel Oxenberg (Murphy), & here we are. If ever life came full circle! Went right back to (where else?) Eliot & read the Portrait of a Lady and there it all is.
What a thunderous thing to do, your bonfire. But how it all ties together, the ‘getting free of something’ you express. Can one ever? Even in that vein, the book (unwritten) I am hawking about to publishers drawn, very much, on Shakespear’s 73rd sonnet, the ‘That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.’ &c. . .
And that boiled down is about the size of it. I’ve been teaching at Bard again this fall, a lifesaver but as you know a drain too, comes to an end at Christmas by which time I hope to have a book contract & that extortion that goes with it; spending most of my time in New York recently, stop at Piermont for the mail & try to figure out the next step, whether to rent that house out for a while but there’s all my books & papers (speaking of bonfires . . . no!), the whole prospect for a real change with the new Year. [...]
love & best to you both always,
Willie
To Johan Thielemans
Piermont NY 10968
8 January 1980
Dear J Thielemans.
Many thanks for your letter, with its rather wild (to me) Polish account. I am still tossed in air by these things. A letter last week from a man (Brian Morton) at the Universitetet I Tromsø (whose country I didn’t even know), has been lecturing on both my books at the Univ. of East Anglia (ENG) wants to do a ‘full length study’ &c. Confusing. A long letter a year or so ago from someone with Swedish radio asking for an interview which I turned down on grounds that it made little sense to be interviewed in a country where my work has not been translated. Backward thinking on my part: that might have stimulated a translation. Thus it would never have occurred to me there could possibly be a coven in Poznan, while I seem to continue as a fairly well kept secret in my own country.
So at any rate I am a good deal more relaxed about these things than when I first met you & would not at all mind talking with your Miss Bałazy should she ever appear here (though better, of course, your ‘improbable lake in the plains of Poland’, where I don’t appear to be headed), though indeed my concern with Catholicism (& indeed Christianity itself) has waned a good deal since that long eruption.
At the moment I am trying to seriously consider getting myself down to another book, something of considerably smaller scope in all ways, shorter & a simpler narrative &c done for practical reasons rather than another crusade. Again thanks for your continued interest in my work & vehemence on its behalf on such frontiers,
very best of course for the new year & indeed the decade,
William Gaddis
Brian Morton: he eventually published an essay entitled “Money, Medicine and the Host: The Novels of William Gaddis,” PN Review 52 (13.2) (1986): 47–51.
Miss Bałazy: Teresa Bałazy, a professor of American literature at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland, who visited WG in 1981. See 8 October 1981.
To Tom LeClair
[A critic (1944– ) and professor at the University of Cincinnati who was assembling with Larry McCaffery a collection of interviews with innovative novelists, originally intended to be published by Lee Goerner at Knopf—mentioned below—but eventually published as Anything Can Happen: Interviews with Contemporary American Novelists (Univ. of Illinois Press, 1983). As the address indicates (P.H. = penthouse), WG had moved in with Muriel Murphy.]
235 East 73rd street, P.H. A
New York NY 10021
23 February 1980
Dear Tom LeClair.
Thanks for your letter & enclosures. Goerner may have got me wrong, it’s not that I wasn’t ‘feeling up to’ an interview but rather that I’ve never seen much point to them: what a writer’s got to say about writing is either there in his writing itself or it’s not, furthermore it may change & probably should.
At any rate the conditions you suggest—approval, cancelation &c—are as promising as one could ask & if you want to call me at some point about arranging a brief interview (212-988-1361) when you expect to be in New York please do so. I must add that my plans at this moment are quite indefinite, that I may get away for some weeks so if you should call & not reach me that will be the case. In any event I will of course be curious to see your essay on J R when it’s published (No approval, no cancelation), I’d see
n & appreciated your piece in Commonweal.
Yours,
W. Gaddis
your essay on J R [...] Commonweal: later published as “William Gaddis, J R, & the Art of Excess,” Modern Fiction Studies 27 (Winter 1981–82): 587–600. LeClair had reviewed J R in Commonweal (16 January 1976, 54–55).
To Matthew Kiell
[Presumably a student writing a paper since his letter to WG was mailed from Swarthmore College (2 March 1980). What follows is a typed draft with numerous handwritten changes, undated and unsigned.]
[March 1980]
Dear Mr Kiell.
Your queries regarding the adaptation of ‘serious’ fiction for television appear as old as the problem raised so long ago by mass audience motion pictures; & given the number of variables & the nature of the industry today to be more or less academic. I don’t see really answering such questions but on a case to case basis, & wouldn’t in any case recommend the following general remarks for their novelty.
Obviously there will at the outset be disagreement over what constitutes ‘serious’ fiction; equally obvious as you imply that some fictions will lend themselves more satisfactorily than others: those developed through extended interior monologues for example would likely suggest similarly extended voice over & emerge accordingly dull, as opposed to those whose characters & situations are developed through action & dialogue. All this as I say is hardly news, but to answer your immediate question in these terms J R would certainly appear to me an obvious candidate, The Recognitions rather less so since its range would seem to demand the larger format of a full length motion picture for which, it has always seemed to me, that book is peculiarly suited.
I find any argument propelling the wide dissemination of ‘serious’ fiction to ‘millions of people, far more than have probably ever read a particular author’s works’, to be as tainted as the recent L.A. Times observation (25 Feb. ”80) ‘Thanks to the marvels of electronic technology, many ministers . . . speak to significantly more people every time they preach than Jesus did in his lifetime.’ Whether or not so intended, the equation implicit here embraces the profound simplicity of Jesus’ revelations on the one hand & the essential vulgarity of say, Norman Vincent Peale’s adaptation on the other. Thus rather than indict television wholesale for the purveyor of trash it so often is (but more than the printing press?), all this is simply to say that the acceptability, the quality of any ‘adaptation’ can only reflect the quality of those involved throughout its production.
This needn’t mean, as it is sometimes construed, a strict transcription from page to tube, but rather an intelligent grasp of the original fiction within the limitations of television itself. An incisive & highly amusing television presentation could for example be drawn from Samuel Butler’s Erewhon, but it would not be Butler & it would not be Erewhon, furthermore it needn’t be: all that has led a happy existence as a book for a century & will continue to do so. And finally, I doubt those who would fail to pursue Butler further for having seen such a television version would ever have read (even heard of) him in the first place; for those who did so much the better.
I hope these comments are of some use to you & would appreciate seeing what you publish. Often enough it seems to me I take the time to respond to such queries & never hear another damned word.
Norman Vincent Peale: popular American minister and author (1898–1993).
Butler’s Erewhon: a satiric utopian novel (1872), and the subject of one of WG’s rare critical essays (RSP 80–87).
To William H. and Mary Gass
[A postcard, without salutation or date (postmark illegible), with a reproduction of Prometheus Bound on the obverse.]
[Spetsai, Greece]
[April 1980]
All splendidly as we were told it would be—including (v. obverse) early portrait of the writer & his publisher—
best of course
Willie Gaddis
To Cynthia Buchanan
[New York, NY]
23 April 1980
Dear Cyndy.
I might at least have sent you a card from ATHENS to explain this delay answering your good letter which appeared just before we took off: yes finally, at last, I’ve seen the Acropolis & most of the Peloponnesos & am ready to go quietly. It was all as splendid as anyone has ever said & early enough spring though chilly to miss most of the German tour busses & see green & wildflowers everywhere in addition to the reasons one supposedly goes, ruined temples everywhere. Then just to do it right a week or so in London & again green & flowers, it is such a handsome city & I think perhaps more than ever perhaps a serious candidate for a place to end up if one is going to continue this fool writing. To which right now I don’t see much alternative. I’ve started another book, short I hope, as the escape instrument from Kn*pf & do believe that is going to work out. (Though don’t mention it, to Lynn [Nesbit] or otherwise, till it does!) [...]
best wishes and love,
Bill Gaddis
To Jack Gold
[The British movie producer who had shown interest in a film version of J R. This letter accompanied a copy of Elkin’s Living End.]
235 East 73rd street, P.H. A
New York NY 10021
May Day, 1980
Dear Jack Gold.
Whatever the outcome, I’ve got to say how much I appreciated your taking time to come over to Eccleston street & for every bit of our conversation.
Regarding the enclosed book: I recall your saying (if & when the occasion looms) that you felt the screenplay should be done by an American writer, as I strongly agree. I also felt you had nobody particular in mind.
I’ve known this fellow Stanley Elkin for a couple of years, largely through his high regard for J R (which, he said, you ‘hear with your eyes’). He knows the book in detail & has got 2 or 3 screen credits though I don’t know what they are & probably minor; I haven’t spoken to him about this but thought I’d pass it along to you simply as a suggestion since there seems plenty of time. In fact I suppose it’s also possible he wouldn’t want to tangle with the book in these terms. But for the moment at any rate I thought the enclosed bit of blasphemy might give you some idea of his excellent ear, facility, & mordant humour if you should be interested in him as a possibility. (The book itself I understand has been optioned—quite a movie!)
Also, incidentally, & as I’m sure you’ve experienced, most writers probably go back & forth between wanting/fearing to do their own screenplays; but finally now having sat down & talked with you I’m the more convinced that whatever your approach it will be well & carefully thought out. Then for no more than a mention at this point, in my habitual tearing-out of news items I’ve compulsively gone on putting aside items related to the J R approach to ‘business’, not for another such book but possibly useful for updating situations in a screenplay (as for instance the Hunt brothers bringing the roof down with their attempt to corner silver).
Again, I very much hope we’ll see you when you’re through here in late summer. I know your schedules are tight ones, while mine anticipates little more than getting up and staring at another blank page every morning so it would be entirely at your convenience. And there’s no need to answer this (unless, of course, anything blossomed from the financing possibility you spoke of, which would be Good News indeed for everybody).
very best regards,
Bill Gaddis
Hunt brothers: two Texas financiers who in 1973 began to buy up silver as a hedge against inflation, thereby contributing to the collapse of the silver market in 1980, which created countless losses for other speculators as well. They declared bankruptcy and in 1988 were convicted of conspiring to manipulate the market.
To John R. Kuehl
New York NY 10021
24 May 1980
Dear John Kuehl.
I have got to write you at least this note of my appreciation for your constancy regarding that old book of mine. I look back on it but at it too as a project that only ‘youth may mount
and folly guide’ (youth could/can mount? I haven’t the source here) but the insistent fact remains—my ‘royalty check’ from Harcourt B. last week of $5.56 notwithstanding—that, as the book itself insisted it would do, it exists. I have got letters from Tromsø (Norway?) & even a cult in Poznan, students mainly & the point here being its apparent abiding reality for the young which is ($5.56 notwithstanding) the most gratifying essential a novelist can dare to ask. The point being of course that without such concern as yours they mightn’t ever have seen it let alone read it, let alone found its concerns their own, as some papers your student Deborah Rossi was kind enough to forward to me surely demonstrate.
Easy enough to take all this as homage, which is directly not the case—present as that may be—& why this note. I simply haven’t the time to respond to the inquiries that come along in the detail they both deserve and presume, & your generous understanding of that makes me doubly appreciative.
very best regards,
William Gaddis
your constancy: Kuehl regularly taught R at New York University during this period, and once invited WG to speak to his class.
‘youth may mount and folly guide’: often (and usually inaccurately) quoted by WG from Shake-speare’s As You Like It: “But all’s brave that youth mounts and folly guides” (3.4.48–49).
To Tom LeClair
[This and several later letters to LeClair concern the interview they did in the spring, which WG never allowed to be published. It appeared posthumously in Tabbi and Shavers’s Paper Empire, 17–27. The Wainscott address was Mrs. Murphy’s home in the Hamptons, and became the setting for Oscar’s house in FHO.]
PO Box 549
Wainscott NY 11975
11 July 1980
Dear Tom LeClair.
I’ve finally gone over the material you sent me & don’t see any way we can proceed with haste on it (or what I consider haste). My responses seem rambling, too much reference to ‘explaining’ published work &c & as a whole I don’t think does either of us great credit.