The Rush for Second Place: Essays and Occasional Writings

by William Gaddis, Joseph Tabbi (Introduction), Joseph Tabbi (Noted by)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101176979
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/01/2002
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

William Gaddis (1922-1998) was a master of the American novel who was frequently compared with Joyce, Nabokov, and Pynchon. Two of his novels, J R and A Frolic of His Own, won the National Book Award. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the recipient of a MacArthur Prize.

Joseph Tabbi was the first scholar to be given access to the Gaddis archives. He conducts research in American literature and new media writing at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Joseph Tabbi was the first scholar to be given access to the Gaddis archives. He conducts research in American literature and new media writing at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Date of Birth:

December 29, 1922

Date of Death:

December 17, 1998

Place of Birth:

New York, New York

Place of Death:

East Hampton, New York

Education:

Attended Harvard University (no degree)

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. "Stop Player. Joke No. 4" (1951)

2. Agape Agape: The Secret History of the Player Piano (early 1960s)

3. Treatment for a Motion Picture on "Software" (early 1960s)

4. Cover Illustrations from the Corporate Writings (A Selection)
The Growth of American Industry (For the National Association of Manufacturers)
Educational Technology Shapes the Future... Are You Ready? (For the Eastman Kodak Company)
Answers to Cancer (For General Motors/Western Electric)

5. In the Zone (1978)

6. The Rush for Second Place (1981)

7. J R Up to Date (1987)

8. An Instinct for the Dangerous Wife
(Review of More Die of Heartbreak by Saul Bellow, 1987)

9. Erewhon and the Contract with America (1995)

10. Old Foes with New Faces (1995)

11. Occasional Writings
This Above All (1990)
J. Danforth Quayle (1992)
On Creative Writing and the National Endowment for the Arts (1994)

12. Speeches
On Receiving the National Book Award for J R (1975)
How Does the State Imagine? The Willing Suspension of Disbelief (1986)
On Receiving the National Book Award for A Frolic of His Own

13. Tributes
Dostoevski (1996)
Mothers (1996)
Julian Schnabel (1998)

Appendix:
Summary Notes on the Work in Progress (early 1960s)
Player Piano Chronology to 1929
Index

Editorial Reviews

Author of the deeply satirical novel JR (which features an 11-year-old capitalist who trumps up his Army surplus company in a manner that seems eerily prescient today) and of The Recognitions, Gaddis (1922-1998) was a fact-checker at the New Yorker and a corporate speech-writer before coming to prominence, but published very little essay-based work. Editor Joseph Tabbi here collects 29 short and occasional pieces, some left in manuscript at the time of Gaddis's death, others admiring encomiums to Saul Bellow or Julian Schnabel, all of which, as he notes, "create a sense of the environment in which Gaddis worked." (Oct.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

The great novelist (Agape Agape, p. 1053, etc.) explores his fascination with machines, greed, violence, and art in odd bits of nonfiction, some appearing in print for the first time.

Gaddis (1922–98) never hesitated from targeting the nation’s economic elite in his densely packed fiction, and his essays are no different. For example, in a piece that first appeared in the New York Times Book Review in 1995, he has no trouble linking Newt Gringrich’s Contract with America to Samuel Butler’s 1872 utopian novel, Erewhon. Both Butler and Gingrich, he argues, predicate their passion for law and order on stamping out difference, and their intent resembles the function of most technology, another Gaddis obsession. In an essay written as a script for an IBM promotional film, he writes that a player piano performs its music as beautifully as a real player might, raising the question of the artist’s purpose, but it also leaves one feeling cold, because ultimately the same humans replaced by the piano are the sources of, and the ones listening to, the music. There’s a connection here between Gaddis’s criticism of the Contract with America and of the player piano; both beget an alienated and usually underserved audience. The title piece argues that this audience, the American public, has opted for second place: the good life as defined by status and three square meals a day. Instead of holding fast to the Protestant work ethic that views material success as tantamount to goodness, Gaddis would prefer Americans to work on goodness and let the material success follow. Will the business leaders of American society ever make this transformation? On that point, the author is cynical. Joseph Tabbiprovides an excellent introduction and biographical background that’s particularly helpful in a collection that spans 50 years.

Sometimes dense, but always discerning: essential for Gaddis fans and those seeking an offbeat critique of American civilization.

Kirkus Reviews

"Sometimes dense, but always discerning: essential for Gaddis fans and those seeking an offbeat critique of American civilization." -- Kirkus Reviews

"Gaddis (1922-1998) was a fact-checker at the New Yorker and a corporate speech-writer before coming to prominence, but published very little essay-based work. Editor Joseph Tabbi here collects 29 short and occasional pieces, some left in manuscript at the time of Gaddis's death, others admiring encomiums to Saul Bellow or Julian Schnabel, all of which, as he notes, "create a sense of the environment in which Gaddis worked." -- Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher