“Saul Steinberg, the artist, said one of the major problems for the creative person is to avoid boredom. . . . If I’m bored, the reader is bored. There are writers that we know—we needn’t name them—I don’t understand why they don’t die of boredom at the typewriter. And they sell millions of copies.” William Gaddis in conversation with Malcolm Bradbury, on the occasion of the publication of Carpenter’s Gothic.
Dalkey Archive, publisher of new editions of both The Recognitions and J R, is doing their 10 books for $65/20 books for $120 winter sale right now. Be not bored.
Love this interview.
Me too, John; when Greg posted it a couple of years back, he included a link to the full interview that was audio only—another thirty minutes, if memory serves.
And I’m sure you already know this, but perhaps other readers will be interested to know that the brand new issue of Conjunctions includes 40 pages of unpublished letters from Gaddis to Katherine Anne Porter, David Markson, Don DeLillo, and others.
I can’t wait to read the new issue of Conjunctions. It’s a monster, once again. Looking forward to reading Gass on Borges. The Waldrops, the Olsen, the Jackson, the Field, the Evenson, the Bell, the everything, really.