Лучшие книги Уильяма Гэддиса

«Плотницкая готика» (1985) — третий, камерный роман-фуга американского писателя Уильяма Гэддиса (1922–1998). В названии этого компактного, по меркам предыдущих работ автора, романа отражено название архитектурной моды, распространенной на Юге Америки — деревянной «подделки» викторианских каменных особняков. Действие «Плотницкой готики» почти целиком происходит внутри такого дома, но, как отметила в своей проницательной рецензии Синтия Озик — «Гэддис подобен потопу»; писатель, работая в искусственно ограниченном пространстве, компенсирует недостаток художественной территории виртуозным владением всеми нюансами и регистрами английского языка, сатирой и напряжением, созданным за счет почти непрерывного диалога людей, неспособных сопротивляться собственному эгоизму и симулякрам окружающего их мира.

В 1986 году «Плотницкая готика» номинирована на премию ПЕН/Фолкнер, а роман «Распознавания» вошел в список 100 лучших романом по версии «Тайм». Романы «J R» и «Его забава» отмечены Национальной книжной премией. В 1982 году Гэддис получил грант Фонда Мак-Артуров (так называемый грант гениев), а в 1989 году стал членом Американской академии искусств и литературы.

Издание романа так же будет дополнено послесловием Максима Нестелеева, который переводил на украинский язык и комментировал другой роман автора — «Agapē Agape» («Агапе Агов», изд-во «Темпора», Киев, 2016).

Останній твір одного з перших американських постмодерністів, «Містера Складного» (Дж. Франзен), культового автора для багатьох поколінь письменників. Повість у формі пристрасного передсмертного монологу митця, що безнадійно прагне завершити свою книгу про історію механічного піаніно, болісно згадуючи пережити та прочитане.

A great masterpiece by William Gaddis, with a new introduction by Rick Moody. Winner of the 1976 National Book Award, J R is a biting satire about the many ways in which capitalism twists the American spirit into something dangerous, yet pervasive and unassailable. At the center of the novel is a hilarious eleven year old—J R—who with boyish enthusiasm turns a few basic lessons in capitalist principles, coupled with a young boy’s lack of conscience, into a massive and exploitative paper empire. The result is one of the funniest and most disturbing stories ever told about the corruption of the American dream.

Wyatt Gwyon's desire to forge is not driven by larceny but from love. Exactingly faithful to the spirit and letter of the Flemish masters, he produces uncannily accurate 'originals' - pictures the painters themselves might have envied. In an age of counterfeit emotion and taste, the real and fake have become indistinguishable; yet Gwyon's forgeries reflect a truth that others cannot touch - cannot even recognize. Contemporary life collapses the distinction between the 'real' and the 'virtual' world, and Gaddis' novel pre-empts our common obsessions by almost half a century. This novel tackles the blurring of perceptual boundaries, The Matrix…

Now recognized as one of the giants of postwar American fiction, William Gaddis (1922-98) shunned the spotlight during his life, which makes this collection of his letters a revelation. Beginning in 1930 when Gaddis was at boarding-school and ending in September 1998, a few months before his death, these letters function as a kind of autobiography, and are all the more valuable because Gaddis was not an autobiographical writer. Here we see him forging his first novel The Recognitions (1955) while living in Mexico, fighting in a revolution in Costa Rica, and working in Spain, France, and North Africa. Over the next twenty years he struggles to find time to write the National Book Award-winning J R (1975) amid the complications of work and family; deals with divorce and disillusionment before reviving his career with Carpenter 's Gothic (1985); then teaches himself enough about the law to indite A Frolic of His Own (1994), which earned him another NBA. Returning to a topic he first wrote about in the 1940s, he finishes his last novel Agape Agape as he lay dying.

William Gaddis published only four novels during his lifetime, but with those works he earned himself a reputation as one of America's greatest novelists. Less well known is Gaddis's body of excellent critical writings. Here is a wide range of his original essays, some published for the first time They include: 'Stop Player. Joke No. 4', Gaddis's first national publication and the basis for his projected history of the player piano; the title essay about missed opportunities in America during the past fifty years; and 'Old Foes with New Faces', an examination of the relationship between the writer and the problem of religion. This diverse collection displays the power of an autonomous literary intelligence in an age increasingly dominated by political and religious conservatism.

A dazzling fourth novel by the author of The Recognitions, Carpenter's Gothic, and JR uses his considerable powers of observation and satirical sensibilities to take on the American legal system. Reprint. 30, 000 first printing.