Most Popular Books by William Gaddis

A postmodern masterpiece about fraud and forgery by one of the most distinctive, accomplished novelists of the last century. The Recognitions is a sweeping depiction of a world in which everything that anyone recognizes as beautiful or true or good emerges as anything but: our world. The book is a masquerade, moving from New England to New York to Madrid, from the art world to the underworld, but it centers on the story of Wyatt Gwyon, the son of a New England minister, who forsakes religion to devote himself to painting, only to despair of his inspiration. In expiation, he will paint nothing but flawless copies of his revered old masters—copies, however, that find their way into the hands of a sinister financial wizard by the name of Recktall Brown, who of course sells them as the real thing. Dismissed uncomprehendingly by reviewers on publication in 1955 and ignored by the literary world for decades after, The Recognitions is now established as one of the great American novels, immensely ambitious and entirely unique, a book of wild, Boschian inspiration and outrageous comedy that is also profoundly serious and sad.

At the center of this hugely comic tale of "free enterprise" America stands JR--an eleven-year-old capitalist, eagerly following the example of the grasping world around him. Operating through pay phones and post-office money orders, JR inadvertently parlays a shipment of Navy surplus picnic forks, a defaulted bond issue, and a single share of common stock into a vast paper empire embracing timber, mineral and natural gas rights, publishing, and a brewery. At once a novel of epic comedy and a biting satire of the American dream, JR displays the style and extraordinary inventiveness that has made Gaddis one of the most acclaimed writers of our time.

A dazzling fourth novel by the author of The Recognitions, Carpenter’s Gothic, and JR uses his considerable powers of observation and satirical sensibilities to take on the American legal system.

A revelatory collection of correspondence by the lauded author of titanic American classics such as The Recognitions and J R, shedding light on his staunchly private life. UPDATED WITH OVER TWO DOZEN NEW LETTERS AND PHOTOGRAPHS Now recognized as one of the giants of postwar American fiction, William Gaddis shunned the spotlight during his life, which makes this collection of his letters a revelation. Beginning in 1930 when Gaddis was at boarding school and ending in September 1998, a few months before his death, these letters function as a kind of autobiography, and also reveal the extent to which he drew upon events in his life for his fiction. Here we see him forging his first novel, The Recognitions (1955), while living in Mexico, fighting in a revolution in Costa Rica, and working in Spain, France, and North Africa. Over the next twenty years he struggles to find time to write the National Book Award–winning J R (1975) amid the complications of work and family; deals with divorce and disillusionment before reviving his career with Carpenter’s Gothic (1985); then teaches himself enough about the law to produce A Frolic of His Own (1994). Resuming his lifelong obsession with mechanization and the arts, he finishes a last novel, Agapē Agape (published in 2002), as he lies dying. This newly revised edition includes clarifying notes by Gaddis scholar Steven Moore, as well as an afterword by the author’s daughter, Sarah Gaddis.

William Gaddis published four novels during his lifetime, immense and complex books that helped inaugurate a new movement in American letters. Now comes his final work of fiction, a subtle, concentrated culmination of his art and ideas. For more than fifty years Gaddis collected notes for a book about the mechanization of the arts, told by way of a social history of the player piano in America. In the years before his death in 1998, he distilled the whole mass into a fiction, a dramatic monologue by an elderly man with a terminal illness. Continuing Gaddis''s career-long reflection on those aspects of corporate technological culture that are uniquely destructive of the arts, Agape Agape is a stunning achievement from one of the indisputable masters of postwar American fiction.

This story of raging comedy and despair centers on the tempestuous marriage of an heiress and a Vietnam veteran. From their "carpenter gothic" rented house, Paul sets himself up as a media consultant for Reverend Ude, an evangelist mounting a grand crusade that conveniently suits a mining combine bidding to take over an ore strike on the site of Ude''s African mission. At the still center of the breakneck action--revealed in Gaddis''s inimitable virtuoso dialoge—is Paul''s wife, Liz, and over it all looms the shadowy figure of McCandless, a geologist from whom Paul and Liz rent their house. As Paul mishandles the situation, his wife takes the geologist to her bed and a fire and aborted assassination occur; Ude issues a call to arms as harrowing as any Jeremiad--and Armageddon comes rapidly closer. Displaying Gaddis''s inimitable virtuoso dialogue, and his startling treatments of violence and sexuality, Carpenter''s Gothic "shows again that Gaddis is among the first rank of contemporary American writers" (Malcolm Bradbury, The Washington Post Book World).

An essential collection of nonfiction essays by the National Book Award winning author of J R and A Frolic of His Own William Gaddis published only four novels during his lifetime, but with those works he earned himself a reputation as one of America''s greatest novelists. Less well known is Gaddis''s body of excellent critical writings. Here is a wide range of his original essays, some published for the first time. From "''Stop Player. Joke No. 4,''" Gaddis''s first national publication and the basis for his projected history of the player piano, to the title essay about missed opportunities in America during the past fifty years, to "Old Foes with New Faces," an examination of the relationship between the writer and the problem of religion-this diverse collection displays the power of an autonomous literary intelligence in an age increasingly dominated by political and religious conservatism.

Das satirische Porträt von nichts weniger als der gesamten modernen Welt - einer der wichtigsten Romane des 20. Jahrhunderts! Wyatt Gwyon wächst als Priestersohn unter der rigiden Obhut seiner Tante in der Provinz Neuenglands auf und entwickelt ein zeichnerisches Talent. Schließlich landet er Ende der vierziger Jahre im New Yorker Greenwich Village, wo er aus Not zu einem genialen Kunstfälscher wird. Doch er kopiert nicht etwa die alten Meister, sondern erfindet neue ”Originale“ und arbeitet damit korrupten Händlern und Hehlern in die Hände. Um ihn herum gibt es ein ganzes Heer an Künstlern, Kunstexperten, Schriftstellern, Geistlichen, Forschern und Politikern, die sich alle in einem Netz aus Lügen an der Fälschung der Welt beteiligen. Mit diesem sprachgewaltigen, amüsant und wild wuchernden Epos, das 1955 in den USA erschien, ist William Gaddis ein großer Wurf gelungen, ein Zeitroman über eine bodenlose, auf Lug, Trug und Schein aufgebaute Welt, ein Paukenschlag von einem Buch, das zu den bedeutendsten Meisterwerken der Literatur zählt und als Schlüsselroman der Moderne gilt.

Obsessed with seventeenth-century Flemish masterpieces, Wyatt Gwyon forges original artwork amazingly faithful to the spirit and techniques of the time.

Gaddis''s last, powerfully memorable novel features an unnamed narrator who is dying in bed, gaping in wonder and amazement at our lost capacity for sacred passion. This volume also includes a selection of Gaddis''s other writings, among them his seminal essay ''The Rush for Second Place'' and commentaries such as ''JR up to date'' and ''On Creative writing and the National Endowment for the Arts''.

"Si quisiéramos comprender el actual derrumbe de Estados Unidos, no hace falta más que leer Gótico carpintero, de William Gaddis. Escrita en 1985, cuando aún no eran del todo claros los efectos de la maquinaria financiero-corporativa que ha despellejado a la mayor parte de la sociedad hasta dejarla en los huesos [...]"-- Cubierta trasera.

A dying man lies in bed and embarks on a mental monologue on the mechanization of the arts, represented in the appearance of a mechanical piano. His reflections become a piercing diatribe against modern society and its deep-seated desires for fame and fortune. This novel is a heartbreaking story that does not grant any reprieve, and a superb diagnosis of the effects of technology, not only in the arts, but at the very core of contemporary everyday life. Un hombre que yace en cama moribundo se embarca en un monólogo mental a partir de la mecanización de las artes, representada en la aparición de la pianola. Su reflexión termina por ser una punzante diatriba contra la sociedad moderna, con sus arraigados anhelos de fortuna y reconocimiento. Esta novela es un relato desgarrador que no concede respiro alguno y que es un magnífico diagnóstico de los efectos de la tecnología, no sólo en el arte, sino en lo más hondo de la vida cotidiana contemporánea.

Agonie d''agapè est le chant du cygne de William Gaddis, le monologue d un homme rongé par la maladie et assiégé par les pages d''un manuscrit qu''il n''a eu de cesse de reprendre au fil des ans, l''apogée d''une obsession vieille de quarante années. L''auteur des reconnaissances et de JR y développe une réflexion sur la mécanisation des arts et le déclin de l''artiste ; parvenu au seuil de sa vie, Gaddis laisse émerger une voix singulière, une voix faite de cassures et de glissements, une partition criblée de douloureux silences : un narrateur solitaire réduit à la parole, un naufragé, qui une dernière fois s''insurge contre les puissances du faux et le règne des ventriloques.

Oscar Crease, dramaturge érudit, poursuit un producteur d''Hollywood pour plagiat. Ce procès, et une multitude d''autres péripéties - l''Eglise épiscopale contre Pepsi-Cola pour utilisation frauduleuse de son nom à des fins commerciales, Oscar lui-même, renversé par sa propre voiture - nous emportent dans un tourbillon judiciaire. Les idées les plus élevées de notre culture - la valeur de l''art, de la littérature - seront passées au crible de la langue du droit dont la méticulosité atteint les plus hauts sommets du surréel. Le roman de William Gaddis est une satire où avocats, juges, gredins et bonimenteurs s''interpellent dans une immense cacophonie dominée par le cri indigné d''Oscar, le "dernier homme civilisé" Si fragile devant le plus grand concurrent de l''âme : l''argent. Avec Le Dernier Acte, qui lui valut pour la seconde fois - fait exceptionnel - le National Book Award, William Gaddis se révèle comme le romancier de moeurs le plus spirituel et dévastateur de notre temps.