gass/gaddis: rfi/s+d

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another two post-war canonical american authors who i know nothing about, except that gass wrote "the tunnel" (i hope). help me to distinguish them!

― toby, Wednesday, 3 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i bought a william gaddis book last year, but its still in the 'to read' pile, i can't remember which one it is now. don't know the other guy...

― gareth, Wednesday, 3 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Gaddis has a genius for dialogue/dislocation/scene-swapping, without ever getting 'zany' or 'surreal'. Try 'Carpenter's Gothic', his shortest (by some distance) nov, which is a funny and furious attack on creationists, and then move on to 'JR', which is prob. his masterpiece.

The only Gass I've read - a novella called "In the Heart of the Heart of the Country", collected in the Granta Bk of American short stories, edited by Richard Ford. More 'experimental' and 'difficult' than Gaddis, on the whole; Gore Vidal sez semi-nasty things abt him (and Barth, Barthelme and Pynchon) in his v. snooty and silly essay abt 'the new novel'. I worked in a 2nd-hand bkshop for abt 5 years, managed to pick up pretty much everything I ever wanted in the way of yr modern Americans, but cld never ever find any Gass - so gd luck (his books are prob. all over Amazon now or something, but his UK profile seems to be less than zero...)

― Andrew L, Wednesday, 3 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Gass likes wordplay and conservative satire. Gaddis likes word association and liberal satire. Gass' narrators are smart, Gaddis' are less so.

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 3 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

but which books should i read, sterling?

(i think i'd better take an empty suitcase with me when i go to boston to bring back all the barthelme/vollmann etcetcetc books that i'll inevitably purchase there).

― toby, Wednesday, 3 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Avoid The Tunnel. Gass essentially wrote Omensetters Luck (which is a novel), Heart of The Heart of The Country and a few other key early "postmodern" stories then started just doing essays and criticism, while working for years and years on an incredibly dense magnum opus which is v. frustrating. So either get his earlier stories or maybe a book of his essays (World within the Word and Finding a Form are both good).

Anything by Gaddis is good, and A Frolic Of His Own and JR are my two faves (and both fun easy reads, relatively). The Recognitions takes more work.

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 3 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Gaddis is given a lot of credit by people I admire (not least Tony Tanner, who sees him as the big unacknowledged influence on Pynchon). I enjoyed JR - good, slangy, enterprising fun once you get used to following stories entirely told in dialogue - but could never quite crack the more austere The Recognitions. I'm not sure he will never quite build up a following outside the academy.

I get the feeling that Gass is a great critic but not so hot in practice. Like Andrew, I've only read 'In the Heart...', but it was so tiresome, and his essays are so good, that I hope this is an accurate hunch. His piece on Bartheleme ('The Leading Edge of the Trash Phenomenon') is one of the few sensible critical essays on DB. He's involved in a conference transcript which is included in the DB anthology 'Not Knowing' if you want to get a feel for the man and his ideas in a comparatively procurable book.

― The Ghastly Fop, Wednesday, 3 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Gass is one of my favourite writers.

― anthony, Wednesday, 3 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I've only read Omensetter's Luck (I'll lend it to you if you want Andrew), but I loved that. I vaguely remember it as a sort of Postmodern anti-Flannery O'Connor if that helps, and it doesn't.

Gaddis is great. He doesn't make life terribly easy for the reader, but he is very, very funny. I've not read his first, but the others are all wonderful books.

― Martin Skidmore, Thursday, 4 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Thank you Martin yes I wld like to borrow the Gass.

― Andrew L, Thursday, 4 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...

wow, that was in the 'to read' pile for a while! ok, i started 'carpenters gothic' today

― charltonlido (gareth), Wednesday, 22 October 2003 12:16 (twenty-two years ago)

As previously mentioned, I was reading A Frolic of His Own, got within 100 pages of the end, realized "You know, I'm really not enjoying this at all," and stopped reading it. Frustrating and unrewarding.

― NA (Nick A.), Wednesday, 22 October 2003 12:34 (twenty-two years ago)

four years pass...

Carpenter's Gothic is making me want to hit things.

― Matt DC, Friday, 10 October 2008 12:00 (seventeen years ago)

Although it's his shortest book, Carpenter's Gothic is probably his worst book.

― Mr. Que, Friday, 10 October 2008 12:08 (seventeen years ago)

I got further in A Frolic of His Own than I did in Carpenter's Gothic, and found the former to be MUCH funnier. I probably would have finished A Frolic of His Own, and liked it, if it weren't for all the civil war drama scenes. Which seemed like the least-funny shaggy dog evar.

― ian, Friday, 10 October 2008 21:38 (seventeen years ago)

nine years pass...

gass died

― johnny crunch, Friday, 8 December 2017 13:46 (seven years ago)

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