B007RT1UH4 EBOK (117 page)

Alice Adams: an acquaintance from WG’s Harvard days (see letter of 9 March 1947). The other two judges were Richard Bausch and Beverly Lowry.

Hodding Carter: W. Hodding Carter III (1935– ), Southern journalist and travel writer.

To Richard Scaramelli

[
When Mead, Scaramelli, and I visited Gaddis on May 30th, Scaramelli dropped off a draft of a long article he had written on the school Gaddis attended as a boy and its director, John Kingsbury. Largely a historical account of the school, the essay contains a few conjectures on Kingsbury as a possible model for the Rev. Gwyon. During our visit, Scaramelli asked a number of questions about this period, and WG displayed an astonishing memory of names and incidents fifty-five years in the past.
]

Wainscott, New York 11975

1 June 1986

Dear Richard Scaramelli.

That is quite a piece of homework, thank you for letting me read it. A few points:

p. 2,9 I think 7 rather than 8 years boarding there

p. 15 & passim, Mr Kingsbury was not a tall or big man though for his authority & stress on ‘doing it right’ a formidable figure for a small boy (you did not sit on the edge of your bed to tie your shoes, you sat on the chair; the bed was to lie down on & sleep). Looking back, I can see him as a very gentle man, no nonsense or sentimentality but not dour either, & as distant from cigars or schnapps as possible; religion was not a constant or oppressive presence let alone mythic meanderings, he saw things as they were. The ‘John H.’ is so far as I know coincidence. The 2 syllable/Kingsbury (p. 16) quite farfetched; & the 1883 date pure coincidence, as is (p. 17) the YMCA connection. He’d never (19) espouse false religion.

p. 18, further extreme coincidence: I hadn’t known till now of his earlier marriage, such things would never have been discussed before us (p. 19)

p. 22, the ‘preface’ draft was dropped because it was pretentious

pp. 25,6 The Whitford material news to me, do. (p. 31) Timothy Dwight though most amusing.

I hope you all got home before midnight.

Yours,

W. Gaddis

To Michael [——

Wainscott, New York 11975

13 December 1986

Dear Michael.

I’ve just learned of your illness which inevitably recalled me to mine some 50 (! I find hard to believe) years ago, 2 years of what was at last resignedly diagnosed as a ‘tropical fever of unknown origin’ (I’d then never been in the tropics), told I’d accumulated the most voluminous case history in New York Hospital, and finally sent home without prospects when I demanded that my dog be brought in for a visit; after which things gradually mended with no more explanation than what it was all about in the first place. Lord, when I remember those hospital days waking bright as a penny sitting bolt upright learning/ practicing Old English lettering doing Do Not Disturb signs for the nurses (& I still vividly recall in all of age 14’s confusion lusting after Miss McElvar, I see her now coming in for the night shift with a fling of red lined blue cape) and by evening a tempeature of around 103
^o
& pains not generally earned till about age 80 . . .

At any rate, & since you’ve read
The Recognitions
, it’s all there (from page 41 on) written 12 or so years later as what, I wonder looking back, revenge certainly but perhaps not, as I must have meant it at the time, on the well intended medical blundering efforts, but on the gratuitous absurdity of the illness itself & equally, I must now suppose, of some glimpse of some part of the human spirit that refuses to accept it. Of course, as I note above, the actual (& equally gratuitous) solution was nothing as to the Heracles solution in the novel but it clearly did provide this material of innate indignation, indeed of human outrage at the accidental human condition & thus confirming its deterministic paradox that ‘everything happens for some reason’, in this case to produce ‘one more damned, thick square book’ of whatever merit but some sort of testimony, its reviews at the time notwithstanding.

Well I think of Mark Twain in his late dark years clinging to humour in its deepest sense as courage in its best, & doubt we can do better than that.

again with warm hopes & good wishes,

William Gaddis

To Judith Gaddis

[
In his first letter to Judith since August 1980, WG enclosed this in a copy of
CG
, along with a note reading: “Some pain went into this as you will see but I hope it won’t recall enough of yours to spoil the ‘story’. No need to respond—it was, as they say (page 227) ‘the best I could do’—” After they separated, Judith moved to Key West, became involved in the arts scene there, was director of a small historic house museum, and eventually became a board member of the Key West Literary Seminar.
]

24 January 1987

Dear Judith,

well this time you should really read the book to the end if only because it doesn’t
end
(note no period at the last page) which in a way is what it’s all about (though I don’t plan a sequel) but since I’m off on this there are a few points of ambiguity which for the ‘reading public’ (Ch. Lehmanhaupt) I’m glad to leave that way, having always said You can’t go running after your book saying what I really meant was &c . . . but after some of the reviews I’ve got to realize that perhaps some points were more obscure than I’d intended although (1) I thought it clear enough that Liz, bad health, talk of high blood pressure, obviously alone in the house when she goes down, that the robbery was committed earlier, her head hits the table (‘blunt instrument’), kitchen’s orderly enough but when she’s found next morning (Mme Socrate has been told to come very early) the floor is strewn with placemats &c (Mme Socrate had seen where she kept her household $) & finally the check cashed in Haiti, obviously (I thought) she rushed back there into the dark & had a fatal heart attack, but too many read it that Paul killed her! Poor fellow, again reviewers finding him mean bad brutal &c where I found him desperate confused desolated as much or more a victim as anyone & his dependence (not simply $ly) painfully clear upon her & the last person to do her in as the FBI (& similarly dimwitted or only careless readers) adduce; then (2) is (as many inferred) McCandless ‘mad’? spent some time in a hospital though what sort is only implied, may have had a breakdown? but I didn’t think ‘mad’ unless I am which may be the good question; finally the point I think probably everyone missed so I must take some blame, wherein at the last where the woman shows up & introduces herself as Mrs McCandless this is
not
Irene but his first wife (old enough to have a 25yr old son) and that, muddy enough I admit, she & Liz each mistake the other for Irene who is never more than the constant presence haunting the house & McCandless, & Liz who in effect moves into Irene’s role in her desperate attempt to rescue her own shattered identity. So there it is. I’m finally resigned to the apparent fact that I shall never reach ‘the man at the airport’ but perhaps some doctoral students will be kept busy with it. [...]

And I’ve been fortunate finally I must say & as you probably know from Rust & others if only I would just cut down on the drink & quit the smokes as I’ve been postponing these 10 years. So I am being dragged somewhat reluctantly by circumstances to start another book though fortune keeps interrupting: where those 12 years ago indicting ‘free enterprise’ abuse got me that trip to Japan, with the last book indicting just about everything else the USIA invites me to go to Australia too good to turn down, aside from all that all goes calmly though I am appalled how the time passes as one grows older. I did appreciate your message, Key West seems 1000 years ago & I’ve often enough thought & hoped things have gone well for you there but not written since this is quite simply not a scene that encourages correspondence, otherwise though happy to hear you sounding well & bright as I remember.

with love,

W.

To Mary McCarthy

[
American novelist and crirtic (1912–89), an old friend of WG. She taught one semester a year at Bard College from 1986 until her death. “Leon” is Leon Botstein (1946– ), President of Bard since 1975.
]

Wainscott, New York 11975

4 February 1987

Dear Mary,

finally just a note of regret that I never managed to get up to Bard during your reign there, I talked to Leon who sounded elated with you[r] efforts and I must say all things considered how I admire you for taking it on and carrying it off. But what busted up our fall plans was an invitation to Sofia from the Bulgarian Writers’ Union, where we heard the US denounced and vilified by 200 ‘writers’ from 50odd countries though we did get a stop in Paris to see Sarah now in probably her last year there (and just harried to move to 6 rue de l’Assomption (chez Foisnel), 75016).

More and more amazed at how fast time passes and the sense of the past devouring the present as though frantic to consume it, we see Liz Hardwick and hope to see you both somewhere along the line,

very best wishes

William Gaddis

Liz Hardwick: Elizabeth Hardwick (1916–2007), American critic and fiction writer.