|
|  |
|  | | William Gaddis
Long before "intellectual property" became a buzz phrase of the digital age, William Gaddis was exploring the collision of creativity and the modern world in influential novels such as The Recognitions and A Frolic of His Own. Gaddis was an author who raised crucial questions about art, mechanization, ownership and industry; though he never promised to answer them.
 Read the biography
|
Fact File
| Name:
William Gaddis
Date of Birth:
December 29, 1922
Place of Birth:
New York, New York
Date of Death:
December 17, 1998
| | Place of Death:
East Hampton, New York
Education:
Attended Harvard University (no degree)
Awards:
National Book Award for JR, 1976; National Book Award for A Frolic of His Own, 1995
|
The Best Book to Read First
| Published Novels
| ![Book Cover Image. Title:
Recognitions, Author:
William Gaddis, William H. Gass (Introduction).]()
Our Price:
$
25.00
| | Recognitions
by
William Gaddis, William H. Gass (Introduction)
Never mind that you didn't make it through Gravity's Rainbow or Underworld; the mother of all postmodern novels is also the wittiest, most artful and most consistently entertaining of the lot. Gaddis's fine ear for dialogue is fully evident in his first book, as are his entwined visions of entropy and absurdity. "We live in a comic time," says one character. "The worse it gets the more comic we are." And the more Gaddis' satire shines. | | ![Book Cover Image. Title:
JR, Author:
William Gaddis, Frederick Karl (Introduction).]()
| | 
The Recognitions (1955)
JR (1975)
Carpenter's Gothic (1985)
A Frolic of His Own (1994)
Agape Agape (2002)
See the
William Gaddis chronology
| | |
A Posthumous Novel
| ![Book Cover Image. Title:
Agape Agape, Author:
William Gaddis, Joseph Tabbi (Afterword).]()
Our Price:
$
13.54
You Save:
3%
| | Agape Agape
by
William Gaddis, Joseph Tabbi (Afterword)
This novel, a dying man's last meditations on the mechanization of art, was pieced together by Gaddis before his death in 1998 from 50 years' worth of notes on the subject, framed by a history of the player piano. Remarkably, a second book from Gaddis arrives within two months of this novel: The essay collection The Rush for Second Place.
The Rush for Second Place: Essays and Occasional Writings
by
William Gaddis, Joseph Tabbi (Editor)
|
|
Taking Aim at Critics
| After The Recognitions was panned by several critics, independent publisher Jack Green attacked the media in a three-part series he originally published in his magazine newspaper in 1962. The 70-page diatribe, titled Fire the Bastards!, excoriated the book's critics for their factual and interpretive errors. Green's screed was issued in book form in 1992, with an introduction by Gaddis scholar Steven Moore.
| |
| | Photo by Jerry Bauer |
|
|
