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William Gaddis (1922–1998)

Författare till The Recognitions

9+ verk 6,191 medlemmar 88 recensioner 55 favoritmärkta

Om författaren

William Gaddis was born on December 29, 1922, in Manhattan, New York City. He was an American novelist. In Recognition of William Gaddis (1984) is a collection of essays supporting the view that Gaddis is the Herman Melville of the twentieth century. The comparison may prove justified, not only visa mer because of artistic similarities, but also because both writers suffered from years of neglect before achieving fame. Gaddis' novel The Recognitions (1955) baffled and angered most of its initial reviewers, but it has slowly, steadily attracted a growing number of appreciative readers willing to work through its more than 900 demanding pages. Its length and encyclopedic complexity caused some critics mistakenly to hail it as the American Ulysses, but Gaddis disclaimed much knowledge of James Joyce. It was named one of TIME magazine's 100 best novels from 1923 to 2005. As if to make amends for the neglect of The Recognitions, most reviewers greeted Gaddis' second novel, JR (1975), with respectful attention. Although not a popular success, it won the National Book Award. Gaddis won a second National Book Award in 1994 for his book, A Frolic of His Own. Gaddis died at home in East Hampton, New York, of prostate cancer on December 16, 1998. visa färre
Foto taget av: William Gass / Washington University

Verk av William Gaddis

The Recognitions (1955) 2,155 exemplar
J R (1975) 1,338 exemplar
A Frolic of His Own (1994) 1,101 exemplar
Carpenter's Gothic (1985) 786 exemplar
Agape Agape (2002) 579 exemplar
Letters of William Gaddis (2013) 81 exemplar
Gaddis William 1 exemplar

Associerade verk

Legal Fictions: Short Stories About Lawyers and the Law (1992) — Bidragsgivare — 49 exemplar
Writers in Revolt: An Anthology (1963) — Bidragsgivare — 32 exemplar
Self-portrait: Book people picture themselves (1976) — Bidragsgivare — 27 exemplar
New World Writing: First Mentor Selection (1952) — Bidragsgivare — 11 exemplar
The Writer and Religion (International Writers Center Series) (2000) — Bidragsgivare — 10 exemplar

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Gaddis i Le Salon Littéraire du Peuple pour le Peuple (juni 2012)

Recensioner

I didn't read this book i experienced it. It got into my dreams. It is the funniest classic book i have ever read, laugh out loud funny. The settings were indelible. At times it annoyed the hell out of me. There are pages and pages of people talking on and on while someone tries but can't get a word in edgewise. In some ways it is a 700+ page Bob Newhart on the telephone skit.
I don't think it was as hard to read as i have heard. It's like a lot of more modern books if it was a film no one would complain about it being difficult. The difficulty of most modern fiction would even be commented on if it were in a film. People are a lot more sophisticated when it comes to decoding film.
It shines out in the wasteland that is american fiction. One has many more fingers than necessary to count the number of books written in america since this was published that deserve to be read more.
… (mer)
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Flaggad
soraxtm | 17 andra recensioner | Apr 9, 2023 |
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 paniola. Su reflexión termina por ser una punzante diatriba contra la sociedad moderna, con sus arraigados anhelos de fortuna y reconocimiento.
 
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Natt90 | 7 andra recensioner | Feb 14, 2023 |
i have yet to find an exception to sontag's offhand claim that the best novelists are failed poets. toward the end of a career, many such authors are tempted to try at failing at philosophy as well - think nabokov. here gaddis has succeeded (at failing).



the author of Agapē Agape - a provactive title - has forgotten something critical: he is not walter benjamin however much he might pay obeisance. Gaddis isn't thomas bernhard either. whether, in his imitation of bernhard's inimitable rant, gaddis has "given musical form to the work itself" as joseph tabbi puts it, is the subject of a finer analysis. however, i am certain this is not The Goldberg Variations.… (mer)
 
Flaggad
Joe.Olipo | 7 andra recensioner | Nov 26, 2022 |
The Recognitions charts the life of a capital-A Artist, though thankfully it spends more time on the people who encounter him than on the artist himself, before forgetting about him completely and transitioning into a sort of novelization of Durkheim's Suicide.

Much of the action of the book takes place off-screen, as it were, with events having to be inferred from the dialog between characters. This is not as horrible as it sounds: Gaddis is astonishingly good with dialog, and even more astonishingly bad with description.

This is probably one of those novels, like Catcher in the Rye, that is improved significantly by the reader having lived in New York City - in that quite a lot of the novel is how the city of New York, embodied by its denizens, reacts to the characters, and how the characters thrive or crumble under the indifference of such a concentrated population. One amusing aspect of The Recognitions is how little New York has changed since 1955: the people are the same, the problems are the same, and every party/bar/restaurant scene could have taken place yesterday.

Ultimately, though, it doesn't really say much, and the overwritten descriptive passages weigh down what would otherwise be a quite enjoyable book. I found JR to be a much better novel, and the lasting effect of this novel may be to make me re-read the other.
… (mer)
 
Flaggad
mkfs | 34 andra recensioner | Aug 13, 2022 |

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Associerade författare

Sarah Gaddis Afterword
William H. Gass Introduction
Janet Halverson Cover designer
Frederick R. Karl Introduction
Joseph Tabbi Introduction, Editor

Statistik

Verk
9
Även av
7
Medlemmar
6,191
Popularitet
#3,969
Betyg
4.0
Recensioner
88
ISBN
102
Språk
8
Favoritmärkt
55
Om
1
Proberstenar
240

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