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dllh's review
4.0
I'm a Gaddis junkie but didn't anticipate hoovering this one up as I did. I had thought I might pick at it over a long period, maybe on the toilet or in dribs and drabs at bedtime. But I read every word of it over the course of about a week and enjoyed it a great deal. Plenty of it is routine, perhaps even outright boring, as a young Gaddis writes his mother dozens of letters to briefly report his location and ask for books or money, but there's plenty besides that, and even seeing the progression as Gaddis grows and struggles and publishes and struggles some more is fascinating.
Writers of great books have always seemed in a way untouchable to me, erudite, talented beyond the grasp of mere mortals, maybe even almost vatic. As a sometime-scribbler, I've read work by the likes of Gaddis and felt simultaneous despair ("I could never do what he's done") and inspiration ("I should try!"), but in the end I've always come around to feeling like it must be somehow easier for such among the elect as Gaddis than it has felt for me. Reading his frustrations and false starts shows me that he is human and that putting out work like his is a task of staggering difficulty (which I knew, of course, but that, in fits of laziness, it's easy to forget). Reading the letters makes me feel, well, yes, still as if Gaddis is light years beyond me in intelligence and talent and work ethic, and, no, I could not do what he did in writing his great books... but maybe it's not as far out of my reach as it's easy to roll over and feel. So then there is a kind of hope in these pages for the sometime-scribbler.
I especially enjoyed letters from the time during which he was writing J R (my favorite of his books by a mile), and a few letters to his children are tender and lovely.
Probably this would be a snooze for anybody not already pretty well wrapped up in Gaddis.
Writers of great books have always seemed in a way untouchable to me, erudite, talented beyond the grasp of mere mortals, maybe even almost vatic. As a sometime-scribbler, I've read work by the likes of Gaddis and felt simultaneous despair ("I could never do what he's done") and inspiration ("I should try!"), but in the end I've always come around to feeling like it must be somehow easier for such among the elect as Gaddis than it has felt for me. Reading his frustrations and false starts shows me that he is human and that putting out work like his is a task of staggering difficulty (which I knew, of course, but that, in fits of laziness, it's easy to forget). Reading the letters makes me feel, well, yes, still as if Gaddis is light years beyond me in intelligence and talent and work ethic, and, no, I could not do what he did in writing his great books... but maybe it's not as far out of my reach as it's easy to roll over and feel. So then there is a kind of hope in these pages for the sometime-scribbler.
I especially enjoyed letters from the time during which he was writing J R (my favorite of his books by a mile), and a few letters to his children are tender and lovely.
Probably this would be a snooze for anybody not already pretty well wrapped up in Gaddis.
leelulah's review
2.0
Good to get a glimpse into the author's life, with a few interesting bits. It's incredible to think of the span of years he lived and in which he wrote letters, and it made me think of the fact that soon we won't have these resources when studying the next generation of writers, as well as of the fact that it provided so much practice for them to write and tell events of thier lives.
jeremiah's review
Desiccating to see the man behind "the work itself." Do the letters contravene Gaddis' old saw that one is to read the works themselves and look to the author to go following his work explaining what he meant? I don't think so. Meaning doesn't really have a part in the letters. Doctoral students would ask him about certain parts and the sources for his books, and Gaddis explains them (much less so with the sources; he was too lazy go back and check, seeing the students as not worth the time). But the explanations, seldom given by Gaddis, don't give away the books.
These letters serve as Gaddis' autobiography and scholar Steven Moore's biography of Gaddis, since it's all here: Harvard days, traveling, genesis of the Recognitions, Fire Island, JR, the kids, divorce, money trouble, money replenishing awards, Joyce mix-ups, etc. What boggles my mind is the gap between Gaddis as the "mother's boy" traveling and asking for money, seeming without a thought in his head, and the 32 year old who had just completed the Recognitions.
These letters serve as Gaddis' autobiography and scholar Steven Moore's biography of Gaddis, since it's all here: Harvard days, traveling, genesis of the Recognitions, Fire Island, JR, the kids, divorce, money trouble, money replenishing awards, Joyce mix-ups, etc. What boggles my mind is the gap between Gaddis as the "mother's boy" traveling and asking for money, seeming without a thought in his head, and the 32 year old who had just completed the Recognitions.
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