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Paper Empire: William Gaddis and the World System
Celebrates and illuminates the legacy of one of America’s most innovative and consequential 20th century novelists
In 2002, following the posthumous publication of William Gaddis’s collected nonfiction and his final novel and Jonathan Franzen’s lengthy attack on him in The New Yorker, a number of partisan articles appeared in support of Gaddis’s legacy. In a review in The London Review of Books, critic Hal Foster suggested a reason for disparate responses to Gaddis’s Gaddis’s unique hybridity, his ability to “write in the gap between two dispensations—between science and literature, theory and narrative, and—different orders of linguistic imagination.
Gaddis (1922-1998) is often cited as the link between literary modernism and postmodernism in the United States. His novels—The Recognitions, JR, Carpenter’s Gothic, and A Frolic of His Own—are notable in the ways that they often restrict themselves to the language and communication systems of the worlds he portrays. Issues of corporate finance, the American legal system, economics, simulation and authenticity, bureaucracy, transportation, and mass communication permeate his narratives in subject, setting, and method. The essays address subjects as diverse as cybernetics theory, the law, media theory, race and class, music, and the perils and benefits of globalization. The collection also contains a memoir by Gaddis’s son, an unpublished interview with Gaddis from just after the publication of JR, and an essay on the Gaddis archive, newly opened at Washington University in St. Louis.
The editors acknowledge that we live in an age of heightened global awareness. But as these essays testify, few American writers have illuminated as poignantly or incisively just how much the systemic forces of capitalism and mass communication have impacted individual lives and identity—imparting global dimensions to private pursuits and desires—than William Gaddis.
In 2002, following the posthumous publication of William Gaddis’s collected nonfiction and his final novel and Jonathan Franzen’s lengthy attack on him in The New Yorker, a number of partisan articles appeared in support of Gaddis’s legacy. In a review in The London Review of Books, critic Hal Foster suggested a reason for disparate responses to Gaddis’s Gaddis’s unique hybridity, his ability to “write in the gap between two dispensations—between science and literature, theory and narrative, and—different orders of linguistic imagination.
Gaddis (1922-1998) is often cited as the link between literary modernism and postmodernism in the United States. His novels—The Recognitions, JR, Carpenter’s Gothic, and A Frolic of His Own—are notable in the ways that they often restrict themselves to the language and communication systems of the worlds he portrays. Issues of corporate finance, the American legal system, economics, simulation and authenticity, bureaucracy, transportation, and mass communication permeate his narratives in subject, setting, and method. The essays address subjects as diverse as cybernetics theory, the law, media theory, race and class, music, and the perils and benefits of globalization. The collection also contains a memoir by Gaddis’s son, an unpublished interview with Gaddis from just after the publication of JR, and an essay on the Gaddis archive, newly opened at Washington University in St. Louis.
The editors acknowledge that we live in an age of heightened global awareness. But as these essays testify, few American writers have illuminated as poignantly or incisively just how much the systemic forces of capitalism and mass communication have impacted individual lives and identity—imparting global dimensions to private pursuits and desires—than William Gaddis.
- GenresEssaysNonfiction
304 pages, Paperback
First published February 4, 2007
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June 10, 2018Contains LeClair's interview from 1980 which was cut from Anything Can Happen: Interviews with Contemporary American Novelists.
Is strong on Agapē Agape ; which is refreshing ;; one can only take 'authenticity' talk so much.
Can't say how exactly ; but this collection seemed like a significant forward stepping in Gaddis interpretation.
Is he still the most well=known unknown Major Writer? Or are you so convinced nobody talks about nothing but Gaddis ;; save for joy=Joyce?
Five topics/sections :: Aesthetics ; Systems ; Capital ; Media ; Biography.
Four pieces in here by people with whom I've had some kind of electronical communications. Have even received some comp'd books by two herein in the snail=mails (one newly just yesterday).
I've purchased a book by the editor, Joseph Tabbi ; his Nobody Grew but the Business: On the Life and Work of William Gaddis. I own a first edition hd of Jeff Bursey's Verbatim: A Novel ; for which one abe seller is asking US$ 758.70. Tom LeClair once said to me (and I do quote) "I just saw a pile of books associated with you, books I thought no one else but I had read." I've never met Stephen J. Burn but I like what he's about.
Basically, volumes like this, collections of critical essays ; is sort of like this literary community of likeminded individuals who share a common interest in something that they believe is possibly of more importance and substance than some other area of possible interest. Basically, there's not a whole lot of us ; so we all kind of flock together when we can, like we do here on gr.
Joseph McElroy (I've been pushing his work now going on (what is it?) six years) his piece challenges the notion that J R is a novel in dialogue. It's not really dialogue is it.
There are a few Gaddis volumes I've not read ::
Harold Bloom's
The Ethics of Indeterminacy in the Novels of William Gaddis
William Gaddis, "The Last of Something": Critical Essays
A Vision of His Own: The Mind and Art of William Gaddis
The Orchestration Of Chaosthe Context And Structure Of The Novels Of William Gaddis
Carnival of Repetition (I have this on my shelf now for some time but hesitate to take the jargon=soaked plunge)
There's probably some more.
You know, it's nice seeing so much critical work being done on Gaddis. But you know what else? The Gaddis mill is like peanuts next to the DFW=papermill which is really getting churning. Why just yesterday the 5th (fifth!) annual DFW=conference wrapped up. And who knows how many volumes have been pub'd, speaking in book form alone ; leave aside the dozens and dozens of essays in journals and stuff like this. It's really rather pleasing thing to see.
This volume ; probably around fourth/fifth place on my imaginary Gaddis=Seminar syllabus.
Is strong on Agapē Agape ; which is refreshing ;; one can only take 'authenticity' talk so much.
Can't say how exactly ; but this collection seemed like a significant forward stepping in Gaddis interpretation.
Is he still the most well=known unknown Major Writer? Or are you so convinced nobody talks about nothing but Gaddis ;; save for joy=Joyce?
Five topics/sections :: Aesthetics ; Systems ; Capital ; Media ; Biography.
Four pieces in here by people with whom I've had some kind of electronical communications. Have even received some comp'd books by two herein in the snail=mails (one newly just yesterday).
I've purchased a book by the editor, Joseph Tabbi ; his Nobody Grew but the Business: On the Life and Work of William Gaddis. I own a first edition hd of Jeff Bursey's Verbatim: A Novel ; for which one abe seller is asking US$ 758.70. Tom LeClair once said to me (and I do quote) "I just saw a pile of books associated with you, books I thought no one else but I had read." I've never met Stephen J. Burn but I like what he's about.
Basically, volumes like this, collections of critical essays ; is sort of like this literary community of likeminded individuals who share a common interest in something that they believe is possibly of more importance and substance than some other area of possible interest. Basically, there's not a whole lot of us ; so we all kind of flock together when we can, like we do here on gr.
Joseph McElroy (I've been pushing his work now going on (what is it?) six years) his piece challenges the notion that J R is a novel in dialogue. It's not really dialogue is it.
There are a few Gaddis volumes I've not read ::
Harold Bloom's
The Ethics of Indeterminacy in the Novels of William Gaddis
William Gaddis, "The Last of Something": Critical Essays
A Vision of His Own: The Mind and Art of William Gaddis
The Orchestration Of Chaosthe Context And Structure Of The Novels Of William Gaddis
Carnival of Repetition (I have this on my shelf now for some time but hesitate to take the jargon=soaked plunge)
There's probably some more.
You know, it's nice seeing so much critical work being done on Gaddis. But you know what else? The Gaddis mill is like peanuts next to the DFW=papermill which is really getting churning. Why just yesterday the 5th (fifth!) annual DFW=conference wrapped up. And who knows how many volumes have been pub'd, speaking in book form alone ; leave aside the dozens and dozens of essays in journals and stuff like this. It's really rather pleasing thing to see.
This volume ; probably around fourth/fifth place on my imaginary Gaddis=Seminar syllabus.
June 29, 2011
As a contributor to this volume, I'm biased. That being said, the essays in here are well worth checking out for those interested in William Gaddis, a writer with a great imagination for coming up with structures that are as much what each book is about as are the topics.
The essays highlight most of his books, though _The Recognitions_, _J R_, _Agapë Agape_, and even _Carpenter's Gothic_, feature more than _A Frolic of His Own_. (None discuss at length _The Rush for Second Place_.) A few are more theoretical than others, but there is almost always something of interest to be found in this wide-ranging collection that features essays on postmodernism, cybernetics, Relevance Theory, the encyclopedic novel, music, and more (including an essay by Joseph McElroy).
The essays highlight most of his books, though _The Recognitions_, _J R_, _Agapë Agape_, and even _Carpenter's Gothic_, feature more than _A Frolic of His Own_. (None discuss at length _The Rush for Second Place_.) A few are more theoretical than others, but there is almost always something of interest to be found in this wide-ranging collection that features essays on postmodernism, cybernetics, Relevance Theory, the encyclopedic novel, music, and more (including an essay by Joseph McElroy).
January 29, 2022
дуже цінна колекція есеїв+безцінне інтерв'ю+гарна біографія+найкращі матеріали про "Агапе агов"
July 3, 2015
Quite a good collection of essays on William Gaddis. While only Stephen Burn's The Collapse of Everything: William Gaddis and the Encyclopedic Novel was required reading for my own thesis, I still happily leafed through the rest of them.
Especially Joseph McElroy's Gaddis Dialogue Questioned, Anja Zeidler's Mark the Music: J R and Agape Agape and Steven Moore's The Secret History of Agape Agape (has this man ever written a boring text?) are worth a read.
When, and if I finally get done with my thesis, I need to read the rest of Gaddis' works.
Especially Joseph McElroy's Gaddis Dialogue Questioned, Anja Zeidler's Mark the Music: J R and Agape Agape and Steven Moore's The Secret History of Agape Agape (has this man ever written a boring text?) are worth a read.
When, and if I finally get done with my thesis, I need to read the rest of Gaddis' works.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews