William Gaddis - Intellectual Wasteland

Source: www.c-span.org/video/?479-1/i...
More William Gaddis videos:
• William Gaddis

[@ryanand154]

William Gaddist. Great novelist.

[@Dsuranix]

big fan of gaddist

[@ryanand154]

Gaddistic: adj. To reject the Jonathan Franzen BBQ invitation.

[@lordbunbury]

Great video. Thank you so much. If anyone else is wondering about the quote: Gaddis is quoting from Cyril Connolly's essay "Blueprint for a Silver Age: Notes on a Visit to America" (Harper's, December 1947, pp. 537-44); noting the insecurity in New Yorkers, the British essayist notes that "books on how to be happy, how to attain peace of mind, how to win friends and influece people, how to breathe, how to achieve a cheap sentimental humanism at other people's expense, how to become a Chinaman like Lin Yutang and make a lot of money, how to be a B'hai or breed chickens (The Ego and I) all sell in millions" (541). Gaddis quotes most of this sentence in "The Rush for Second Place" as well.

[@bawbtherevelator6445]

"?The Recognitions"? is one of the few novels I've reread. Why I've never read JR or his other works amazes me. This lapse will be remedied "tout de suite."

[@usererror7007]

Thanks for the citation.

[@Johnconno]

Sounds like Henry Miller.

[@occamsox5331]

Those people in the audience wouldn’t be chuckling today. It’s all to close today.

[@coymathewson9350]

Love when he disses the bakkers lol gaddis is the man

[@_aworldthatspoke950]

Don’t worry Bill it got better in the century that followed I just don’t know which one

[@atheistsince1210]

A towering Godzilla sized brain intellectual and one of the greatest yet most obscure and “challenging “ American authors of the 20Th century his JR novel was hysterically funny to the point of painful sides from the intensity of the laughter .

[@iuseitToo]

Criminally underrated.

[@2msvalkyrie529]

It's a pity then that he seems unable to formulate any of his thoughts in a coherent manner . ?

[@TheRealGnolti]

@@2msvalkyrie529 Not really. He's a writer, not a pundit.

[@princegobi5992]

@@2msvalkyrie529 maybe slow down a little bit? That whole dumbed down, bite sized of relaying information is patronizing. Focus, and try to pay attention.

[@BNardolilli]

makes it look like he's calling Sag Harbor an intellectual wasteland

[@2msvalkyrie529]

April is the cruellest month......

[@2msvalkyrie529]

I love how he quoted Cyril Connolly .! Notorious as a nasty , misogynist drunken bore but apparently an authority on the cultural life of New York....??

[@frank406]

It’s ok.

[@findbridge1790]

autonomous LOL as long as they do what Langley wants

[@reilly3565]

Touching on capitalism realism

[@ryanand154]

Are you or have you never been a jazz musician?

[@andrewmatthews9753]

The last line of this is a passing of the literary torch to DFW

[@ClearOutSamskaras]

5:04

[@garrisondinsmore5808]

ok so just to sum up what I think he's saying... tv has made us all dumb and this is affecting art, as well as causing us to do the right things for the wrong reasons? or is tv simply a complicating factor, since he quotes a guy talking about 1947 america as being much the same? i don't think tv was real big in 1947. is this just a capitalist thing and tv is the latest (at the time) symptom of it? and by "problem of the audience" does he mean that authors, of all kinds, but especially of novels, are warped by their desire to appeal to a corrupted audience? one that has been corrupted by capitalism? is this what he is saying?

[@goldbrick2563]

What year is he speaking? Thank u

[@goldbrick2563]

October, 1987, just clicked on ur cspan link, thank u

[@Johnconno]

The date is a long the bottom of the goddamn interview. 29-12-87

[@2msvalkyrie529]

He may be a great writer but his public speaking needs work ! My eyes glazed over after about 8 minutes. No doubt he sneered at Valley Of the Dolls .....? And any one who bought it. He sounds like a smug ,self opinionated bore ..

[@garrisondinsmore5808]

the video is 10 minutes long... sounds like he got you most of the way!

[@ryanand154]

A boring writer in a scarf.