Brigitte Felix: If I may ask the same question, phrasing it differently: Jack Gibbs says at one point “Most god damned readers rather be at the movies because when you walk in to the movies you walk in empty-handed and leave much the same way.” What do you think your readers walk out with, after reading J R, for example?
William Gaddis: [after a long pause] I suppose . . . here’s the heart of the matter, he’s drawn a picture of . . . In J R someone is repeatedly saying “This is what America is all about.” It’s buried usually under paragraphs, but this is what America is all about. I suppose that one wants the reader to put the book down finally, having finished it — not after starting it, which is the case, frequently — and say, Yes, that’s what America is all about: it is a paper empire, it’s Gresham’s Law, the bad drives out the good, and so forth . . .
Day: September 24, 2020
Goethe in Purgatory — Thomas Theodor Heine
Goethe In Purgatory, 1932 by Thomas Theodor Heine (1867–1948). Via/more.
The Magician — Xiao Guo Hui
The Magician, 2010 by Xiao Guo Hui (b. 1969)
It is hard not to be appalled by existence | Ron Padgett
It is hard not to be appalled by existence.The pointlessness of matter turns us into cornered animalsthat otherwise are placid or indifferent,we hiss and bare our fangs and attack.But how many people have felt the terror of existence?Was Genghis Khan horrified that he and everything else existed?Was Hitler or Pol Pot?Or any of the other charming figures of history?Je m’en doute.It was something else made them mean.Something else made Napoleon think it gloriousto cover the frozen earth with a hundred thousand bloody corpses.Something else made . . . oh, name your monsterand his penchant for destruction,name your own period in history when a darkness swept over usand made not existing seem like the better choice,as if the solution to hunger were to hurl oneselfinto a vat of boiling radioactive carrots!Life is so awful!I hope that lion tears me to pieces!
Biblioklept 