Memes aside, is he not the greatest modern American prose writer? After reading the The Recognitions, I was immediately struck by how consistently high quality the level of prose is throughout the book, despite its incredible length. This man is so fucking based and if any of you fucks haven't read his shit, you should do so immediately. Of all the memes or pseudomemes on this site, Gaddis is probably one of the greatest and the most underread so get on it.
You can't sell anyone on it that way.
Post a nice passage and maybe we'll believe you.
>you're chilling in a Gaddis thread
>suddenly, a gassposter rocks up and slaps your gfs ass
What do?
>>7984782
Silly OP, /lit/ doesn't want to be challenged (lol) or to work, it wants to be rewarded for name-dropping and posturing. Let's leave that for all Gass-posting and Gass-related threads. Gaddis is synonymous with work, and in the best sense of the word. The work is the world built out of the word, the worth plumbed out of the plumed work.
Yes, I am extremely drunk right now.
Oh he's a great writer sure enough; I'd say he excels at creating certain sorts of ghostly moments and expansive sentences which deftly weave static/placid material details, psychological and social layers of character awareness, and a sort of temporal depth that can unite dimensions of objects otherwise obscured by centuries through a handful words.
But the greatest modern American prose writer he is most certainly not. He can create very complex linguistic and syntactical structures but rarely without overplaying his hand faltering at a point or two. He also lacks the kind of poetic intensity needed for the title; like I said before he can work very ghostly phrases out, but they are reflective and haunting, idle and slow-breathing; he's none of the overwhelming, hyper-vivid intensity of a writer like Pynchon. He also lacks a certain sprachgefühl; while he's nowhere near as dreadful as someone like Wallace, he sometimes feels like he can't broaden the application of words in logical ways to highlight etymological and applicative depth they possess, nor does he seem to really own language like Falkner; he lacks the deep aural sense of word necessary to spellbind.
His position is quite perfect if you ask me. Respected and recognized among those who matter but rightfully obscured to a degree.
>>7984782
He writes consistently for a long period of time, but I wouldn't say the quality of that prose is better than John Barth. Still great though.
I've been looking for this book but the cheapest I can find it online is $40, and it simply doesn't exist at my local libraries or bookstores.
>>7985092
>what is amazon
>what is thriftbooks
>>7984835
I'd feel pretty great, since I just slapped my gf's ass.
>>7984782
Make all the claims of value about Gaddis' content that you want, since that is, in my opinion, what is best about him, but Gass is the best American stylist, hands down.
>there will never be Hawkesposting
Why do you have shit taste, /lit/?
>>7984835
I KO that nerd on the spot.
>>7985136
This reads like pasta
