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William Gaddis

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Author

The Resume

    (December 29, 1922-December 16, 1998)
    Born in New York City, New York
    Wrote the novels 'The Recognitions' (1955), 'JR' (1975), 'Carpenter's Gothic' (1985), 'A Frolic of His Own' (1998), and 'Agape Agape' (published posthumously, 2002)

Why he might be annoying:

    He was forced to leave Harvard in his senior year after getting into a fight with police (1944).
    Cynthia Ozick summed up his literary position (essentially, more respected than actually read), with 'Mr. Gaddis has become famous for not being famous enough.'
    Jonathan Franzen -- whose own novels are not exactly the easiest of reads -- called 'The Recognitions' 'by a considerable margin the most difficult book I ever voluntarily read.'
    Even when he supported himself as a PR writer, the results were not easy to read: IBM complained about one project, 'The whole of the text is perhaps too much an impenetrable mass.'
    When 'V' was published (1963), there was speculation that Thomas Pynchon was a pen name for Gaddis, based on the authors' similar styles and a scarcity of background information about both writers.

Why he might not be annoying:

    A friend noted, 'He dressed himself from thrift shops, but he always looked as though he had been turned out by top-notch tailors.'
    He influenced Pynchon, Don DeLillo and David Foster Wallace.
    He was the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation 'Genius Grant.' (1982)

Credit: C. Fishel


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Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 3 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 6 Votes: 66.67% Annoying