William Gaddis

William Gaddis (died 1998 December 16). His first novel The Recognitions (1955), rich in language and imagery, was met with controversy, and Gaddis published nothing for 20 years. A second novel, JR (1975), uses long stretches of cacophonous dialogue to depict greed, hypocrisy, and banality of the American business world. Gaddisʼ third novel, Carpenterʼs Gothic is even more pessimistic in its depiction of moral chaos in modern American society.

“Breakage. Here, replacing glass, repairing doors, painting, refinishing and so forth, thirty‐three thousand two eighty-five. Thirty-three thousand dollars for breakage, isnʼt that what weʼre really talking about? Plain unvarnished vandalism? and another fourteen thousand plus item down here, repairs and replacement, chairs, desks, project tables, pianos, same thing isnʼt it? Breakage. . . ?”

The day on which a libidinal American President, counting the hours before his impeachment, launched yet another series of bomb attacks on an Iraqi population already unconscionably squeezed and starved, Americaʼs most proficient satirist died…

External links

• http://www.themodernword.com/scriptorium/gaddis.html
• http://www.gaddisannotations.net/