A Portrait by N.C. Mallory

A portrait of William H. Gass by N.C. Mallory, an American artist.

Rating Writes at HuffPo

The Huffington Post, peeved by news of Palin and her book, asks readers to rate real writers. Gass, among them. (Funny sidenote: That means there's now a "William Gass" tag at Huffington Post.)

Do I Hear $251?

There's a William H. Gass self-portrait for sale at Live Auctioneers. 

Stephen King and The Tunnel

From Bradford Morrow's "A Girandole for Mr. Gass," one of many tributes published in the Fall 2004 Review of Contemporary Fiction:

Even Stephen King, much to Bill's astonishment when I told him about it in Paris, many years later, loved The Tunnel and prefaced his own reading at Princeton, where I was guest-teaching at the time, with an opening remark to the crowded audience of academics, students, and leather-clad bikers, 'Have you heard of this guy, William H. Gass? He's unbelievable. Let me read you from his new book,' and so he did.

Nobel Odds for William Gass: 100 to 1

From MediaBistro:

As literary types speculate about this year's nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature before the October announcement date, UK gamblers are hard at work trying to predict a winner of the prestigious prize.

According to the betting site Ladbrokes, Israeli author Amos Oz has the best odds of winning--the 4 to 1 favorite. The long shots are William H. Gass and Paul Auster, both with 100 to 1 odds. Bob Dylan clocks in with 25 to 1 odds. Americans Joyce Carol Oates and Philip Roth both have strong 7 to 1 odds. Haruki Murakami and Thomas Pynchon both weigh in with respectable 9 to 1 odds.

The complete list is here.

A New Essay (Sort Of)

The new September issue of St. Louis Magazine features "Always On the Rise," in which Gass explores what the Gateway Arch is really up to. While this is the first time the piece has appeared in print, Gass read it aloud at the “On the Riverfront: St. Louis and The Gateway Arch” symposium at Washington University in January 2009.

Video clip: Gass Reading Ovid

From here.

Gass to Kick Off "A Marathon Metamorphoses"

William H. Gass will be the first of more than 70 St. Louisans to read "A Marathon Metamorphoses" at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in St. Louis. Details on the two-day event, including times and names of other readers, is here.

A Birthday Nod from Garrison Keillor

On his July 30 "Writer's Almanac" program, Garrison Keillor wished WG a Happy Birthday:

It's the birthday of the essayist and novelist William H. Gass, (books by this author) born in Fargo, North Dakota (1924). He wanted to write fiction, but he was afraid he wouldn't be able to support himself. So he got a job teaching philosophy, and he was busy teaching and raising three kids, so he wrote slowly. He only had one copy of his manuscript, written on a typewriter, and it was stolen and he had to start all over. When he finally did finish it, it was rejected over and over again. Finally, in 1966, he published Omensetter's Luck. He's also published several books of essays, including On Being Blue (1976) and Tests of Time (2002), and in 1995 he published The Tunnel (1995), a novel that is more than 600 pages long and took him almost 30 years to write.

A New Edition of Finding a Form

Dalkey Archive Press is publishing a lovely new edition of Gass' essay collection Finding a Form (cover illustration by Nicholas Motte, who was interviewed here and here about the work he's been doing for Dalkey, including other Gass covers). Personally, it's one of my favorite WG collections, behind Temple of Texts. First published in 1996, Form features the following: 

• Pulitzer: The People's Prize (excerpt)
• A Failing Grade for the Present Tense
• Finding a Form
• A Fiesta for the Form
• Robert Walker
• Ford's Impressionisms
• The Language of Being and Dying
• Nietzsche: The Polemical Philosopher 
• At Death's Door: Wittgenstein
• Ezra Pound
• Autobiography
• The Vicissitudes of the Avant-Garde
• Exile
• The Story of the State of Nature
• Nature, Culture, and Cosmos
• The Baby or the Botticelli
• Simplicities 
• The Muse of Prose
• The Book As a Container of Consciousness

Check your local bookstore or an online retailer, but keep in mind that Dalkey's offering it at 20% off. Scott Esposito at Conversational Reading has been enjoying his copy.

New Harper's Essay: "Kinds of Killing"

The August 2009 Harper's includes a long Gass piece called "Kinds of Killing: The flourishing evil of the Third Reich." (subscription only), a review essay on Richard J. Evans' The Third Reich at War. Yes, it's a stomach-turning read:

Some camps were for show, like the back lots of movie studios, and were unable to make direct contributions to the killings, only mislead chosen visitors about them. In a few ghettos (Warsaw is the best known) there were uprisings as well as scattered signs of individual resistance by the Polish underground; but what slowed the German war on humanity (besides the Soviet army) was simply the size and consequent inefficiency of it. Evans ascribes the principal cause of the monstrous behavior required of its organizers to their “visceral hatred of Jews,” but the word “visceral” tends to beg the question. How was anti-Semitism, so patently false in all its ages of activity, able to lodge itself in so many minds and thereafter weaken—no, remove—their moral character? How, in general, do people become slaves of foolish ideologies, support them with treasure, allegiance, and time, and act, at their behest, so vilely, so contrary to their own interest? History is full of absurdities masquerading as absolutes. Like whooping cough, beliefs get to children early, make their symptoms chronic, hold out useless hopes, and offer vain excuses. It is reason’s business to disbelieve, but the voices of reason have as much effect here as frogs in a swamp.

A Few New Nods

Here. Sorry that it's been awhile. 

"The Boulevard of Broken Dreams"

In its April 2009 issue, St. Louis Magazine published a text/photo portfolio called "The Boulevard of Broken Dreams," with an essay by William H. Gass and photographs by Gass' friend and collaborator Michael Eastman. [Stephen Schenkenberg, who runs Tunneling, is the editor of SLM.]

A Nod From Jarvis Cocker

First Jeff Tweedy, now Jarvis Cocker. From a Times Online profile of the British songwriter: 

Cocker admits that he was most worried about how his wife would view the plaintive I Never Said I was Deep (“that’s probably what should be etched on my tombstone,” he says wryly) and the lusty Leftovers (“I come to you filled with guilt and self-loathing . . . I fall upon your neck just like a vampire”). The latter was inspired by a short story, In The Heart of the Heart of the Country, by the American author William H. Gass.

“I’d never read that writer before, but it seemed to be autobiographical, about this middle-aged guy in this backwoods town who’s mourning the breakdown of a relationship. And there was one phrase that stuck in me mind. He was describing his mixture of disgust and surprise at the fact that he still had desire left. He likened it to still having some sweets in the bottom of the paper bag the day after Hallowe’en.” Jarvis knew the feeling. “In some ways I wish I was out of that. I wish I could retire from the game.”

The sexual game?

“Yeah. And just be a neutral, reasonably friendly person. ‘cause it takes you to problematic places. But then I realised that wish was kind of ridiculous. So there is an anger to it in a way. There’s one part of me wants things to be a bit flat and under control.”

Full Interview at Columbia Spectactor

As teased at the end of the article, the Spectactor has made available the full interview between Gass and Ian Corey-Boulet.

New Article/Interview at Columbia Spetactor

Here, in preparation for the Wednesday talk.

Willie Masters on YouTube

Willie Masters' Necklace at Etsy

Indeed.

Upcoming Appearance: Columbia University on 4/22

The poster for "Baroque Prose," William H. Gass' talk for the Heyman Center for the Humanities, Columbia University, Wednesday 4/22/09, 6:15 p.m.

Gass' Home Library

As picked up at The Morning News, Coudal, MetaFilter, and other spots, earlier this morning I posted some lovely photographs of The Gass Home Library here. The photographs are by Frank Di Piazza, whom I thank once more (and recommend to anyone hiring a photographer in the St. Louis region).