Free Agape Agape by William Gaddis Page A

reading give a performance none of that fierce authenticity of Hawthorne between the writer and the reader, between the reader and the page what it’s all about, that solitary enterprise between him and the individual reader yes, the one who comes after you with an ax in the middle of the night or Melville’s grotesque hero who wants to be a popular novelist must have written Pierre out of revenge, only revenge the mob has on them both is to go to the movies, thirty fifty a hundred million dollars against a hundred forty-five dollars and eighty-three cents, the final great stupefying collective. No more illusion of taking part, of discovering your unsuspected talent when the biggest thrill in music was playing it yourself, your own participation that roused your emotions most no, no. The ultimate collective, the herd numbed and silenced agape at blood sex and guns blowing each other to pieces only participation you get’s maybe kids who see it come to school next morning and mow down their classmates no more elitism no more elite no wherever you turn just the spread of the crowd with its, what did he call it, what Huizinga called its insatiable thirst for trivial recreation and crude sensationalism, the mass of the mediocre widening the gap the popularity of a work is the measure of its mediocrity says Melville no news there is there? The masses invading the province of the writer says Walter Benjamin a hundred years later, by now the fences are down there’s no province left, on the shelf with the dead white guys you want the real gap, a look from the heights down on the mass of men who aren’t worth anything in the first place, that there’s a greater gap between some men and others than between these others and the animal kingdom yes that was Nietzsche before they twisted him all out of shape and the whole, get my breath here yes avoid stress try to get the, get my leg here makes him sound like what little my golden Sigi found any good about those human beings telling Reverend Oskar Pfister in his experience most of them are trash coming one way and Tolstoy the other with his duty to these scraps, just had them these scraps of Tolstoy under the wait, wait been looking for this yes that shot of mitoxantrone side effects may cause shortness of breath, lower back pain, swelling feet and lower legs good God from whom all blessings flow but which ones? No discolouration at the site here where the needle went into the vein, unusual bruising or bleeding what do they call unusual? Other arm’s already purple this one blossoming like a flower garden, red eyes yellow eyes whites of the eyes turn blue no way to see them any more than hearing grinding my teeth if there’s nothing to hear, blood on the no it’s not the blood on the shirt here it’s the shirt yes doesn’t look like my shirt was a broadcloth Egyptian cotton broadcloth this looks like a coarse muslin no collar on it either is there? Can’t see clearly no mirror on the wall over there a long time ago, when we rented this place to an actress one summer, and that purple velour chair there in the corner with the long tear down the cushion where her dog, she had a German shepherd dog where it tore a streak down the cushion too good a story to have it repaired but the, but I, not seeing too well get a little disoriented sometimes but this room is, when we rented out the whole place here that year but it’s not the change no but how fast the changes come now, not even the weeks the years but how many different lives you’ve lived, first step that counts yes I always took the wrong one like being five, ten, twenty different people wouldn’t know each other if they met in the street wouldn’t even say hello, you see? No. No it doesn’t matter does it because you don’t believe me so it doesn’t really matter, lies and falsehood wherever you look why I brought along Huysmans with his party waited on by these