(...) "Most original people are forced to devote all their time to plagiarizing. Their only difficulty is that if they have a spark of wit or wisdom themselves, they're given no credit. The curse of cleverness. Now wait, Brown. Stop. Stop there where you are and relax for a moment. We still have some business to straighten out. He needs to talk or he'll come to pieces, isn't that what you told me before he got here? Well let him talk, he's said some very interesting things. But don't let him talk to himself, that's all he's been doing, that's all he does when he talks to you and you don't listen, he knows you don't. Let him talk, then, but listen to him. He may not say anything clever, but that's just as well. Most people are clever because they don't know how to be honest. He paused. —Come, my dear fellow. If you don't say anything I shan't be able to use you in this novel, the one in which Brown figures so monumentally since everyone thinks he's honest because he doesn't know how to be clever."

(...)

 "La plupart des personnes originales sont obligées de consacrer tout leur temps à plagier. Leur seule difficulté est que s'ils ont eux-mêmes une étincelle d'esprit ou de sagesse, ils n'en sont pas crédités. La malédiction de l'intelligence. Attendez, Brown. Arrêtez-vous. Arrêtez-vous là où vous êtes et détendez-vous un instant. Nous avons encore quelques affaires à régler. Il faut qu'il parle, sinon il sera réduit en miettes, n'est-ce pas ce que vous m'avez dit avant qu'il n'arrive ici ? Laissez-le parler, il a dit des choses très intéressantes. Mais ne le laisse pas parler tout seul, c'est tout ce qu'il fait, c'est tout ce qu'il fait quand il te parle et que tu n'écoutes pas, il sait que tu n'écoutes pas. Laissez-le donc parler, mais écoutez-le. Il ne dira peut-être rien d'intelligent, mais c'est aussi bien. La plupart des gens sont intelligents parce qu'ils ne savent pas être honnêtes. Il fit une pause. -Viens, mon cher ami. Si vous ne dites rien, je ne pourrai pas vous utiliser dans ce roman, celui dans lequel Brown joue un rôle si monumental puisque tout le monde pense qu'il est honnête parce qu'il ne sait pas être intelligent."

(...)

(...) "He stopped speaking; and after a moment Esther, who was looking down now too, repeated the word, —Suffering . . . suffering? Why . . . don't you think about happiness, ever?

—Yes, did you hear what that woman said? ... I think it's the artist is the only person who is really given the capability of being happy, maybe not all the time, but sometimes. Don't you think so?' Don't you think so? . . .

—And what did you say?

He put down his empty glass. —I said, there are moments of exaltation.

—Exaltation?

—Completely consumed moments, when you're working and lose all consciousness of yourself . . . Oh? she said . . . Do you call that happiness?

Good God! Then she said, It was terrible about Esther's analyst, wasn't it, for Esther I mean . . . No, good God no, people like that . . .

From the other end of the room came the flamenco wail, —Sangre negro en mi corazón.

—Do you know that Spanish line, Vida sin amigo, muerte sin testigo?

—What does it mean? she asked quietly, her eyes still turned from him.

—Life without a friend, death without a witness.

—I don't like it, she said quietly; then she caught his hand before he could withdraw it: she felt it pull for an instant, then go rigid in hers. —I'm sorry they upset you, she said, —but they've been very kind to me, both of them, when I ... needed friends. I have talked to them about you, I've talked to them about a lot of things, and things I can't talk to you about because you just won't talk to me.

—What things? he mumbled when she paused, as though obliged to.

—Well, my writing for instance, I know it's nothing to you but it is important to me, and what do you say? . . . partial to the word atavistic . . .

—All right, Esther, he said and suddenly got his hand back from her.

—If all you can say is ...

—All right, listen, I have ideas but why should I oppress you with them? It's your work, and something like writing is very private, isn't it? 

How . . . how fragile situations are. But not tenuous. Delicate, but not flimsy, not indulgent. Delicate, that's why they keep breaking, they must break and you must get the pieces together and show it before it breaks again, or put them aside for a moment when something else breaks and turn to that, and all this keeps going on. That's why most writing now, if you read it they go on one two three four and tell you what happened like  newspaper accounts, no adjectives, no long sentences, no tricks they pretend, and they finally believe that they really believe that the way they saw it is the way it is, when really . . . why, what happened when they opened Mary Stuart's coffin? They found she'd taken two strokes of the blade, one slashed the nape of her neck and the second one took the head.

(Comme... comme les situations sont fragiles. Mais pas ténues. Délicates, mais pas flasques, pas indulgentes. Délicates, c'est pourquoi elles continuent à se briser, elles doivent se briser et vous devez rassembler les pièces et les montrer avant qu'elles ne se brisent à nouveau, ou les mettre de côté pendant un moment lorsque quelque chose d'autre se brise et vous tourner vers cela, et tout cela continue à se dérouler. C'est pourquoi la plupart des écrits actuels, si vous les lisez, se poursuivent un, deux, trois, quatre et vous racontent ce qui s'est passé comme des comptes rendus de journaux, sans adjectifs, sans longues phrases, sans artifices, ils font semblant, et ils finissent par croire qu'ils croient vraiment que la façon dont ils ont vu les choses est telle qu'elle est, alors qu'en réalité... pourquoi, que s'est-il passé lorsqu'ils ont ouvert le cercueil de Marie Stuart ? Ils ont découvert qu'elle avait reçu deux coups de lame, l'un sur la nuque et l'autre sur la tête.)

But did any of the eye-witness accounts mention two strokes? No ... it never takes your breath away, telling you things you already know, laying everything out flat, as though the terms and the time, and the nature and the movement of everything were secrets of the same magnitude. They write for people who read with the surface of their minds, people with reading habits that make the smallest demands on them, people brought up reading for facts, who know what's going to come next and want to know what's coming next, and get angry at surprises. Clarity's essential, and detail, no fake mysticism, the facts are bad enough. But we're embarrassed for people who tell too much, and tell it without surprise. How does he know what happened? unless it's one unshaven man alone in a boat, changing I to he, and how often do you get a man alone in a boat, in all this ... all this . . .

Listen, there are so many delicate fixtures, moving toward you, you'll see.

(Mais est-ce que l'un des témoins oculaires a parlé de deux coups ? Non ... il ne vous coupe jamais le souffle, en vous disant des choses que vous savez déjà, en mettant tout à plat, comme si les termes et le temps, la nature et le mouvement de tout étaient des secrets de la même ampleur. Ils écrivent pour des gens qui lisent avec la surface de leur esprit, des gens qui ont des habitudes de lecture qui les sollicitent le moins possible, des gens qui ont été élevés dans la lecture de faits, qui savent ce qui va suivre et veulent savoir ce qui va suivre, et qui se fâchent contre les surprises. La clarté est essentielle, et les détails, pas de faux mysticisme, les faits sont déjà assez mauvais. Mais nous sommes gênés par les gens qui en disent trop, et qui le font sans surprise. Comment sait-il ce qui s'est passé ? à moins qu'il ne s'agisse d'un homme mal rasé, seul dans un bateau, qui change le je en il, et combien de fois peut-on trouver un homme seul dans un bateau, dans tout cela... tout cela....

Écoute, il y a tant de choses délicates qui se déplacent vers toi, tu verras.)

Like a man going into a dark room, holding his hands down guarding his parts for fear of a table corner, and . . . Why, all this around us is for people who can keep their balance only in the light, where they move as though nothing were fragile, nothing tempered by possibility, and all of a sudden bang! something breaks. Then you have to stop and put the pieces together again. But you never can put them back together quite the same way. You stop when you can and expose things, and leave them within reach, and others come on by themselves, and they break, and even then you may put the pieces aside just out of reach until you can bring them back and show them, put together slightly different, maybe a little more enduring, until you've broken it and picked up the pieces enough times, and you have the whole thing in all its dimensions. But the discipline, the detail, it's just . . . sometimes the accumulation is too much to bear.

(Comme un homme qui entre dans une pièce sombre, qui baisse les mains en gardant ses parties par peur d'un coin de table, et ... . Tout ce qui nous entoure est destiné aux personnes qui ne peuvent garder leur équilibre qu'à la lumière, où elles se déplacent comme si rien n'était fragile, comme si rien n'était tempéré par la possibilité, et tout d'un coup, bang ! quelque chose se brise. Il faut alors s'arrêter et recoller les morceaux. Mais on ne peut jamais les recoller tout à fait de la même manière. On s'arrête quand on peut et on expose les choses, on les laisse à portée de main, et d'autres viennent d'elles-mêmes, et elles se cassent, et même alors on peut mettre les morceaux de côté, juste hors de portée, jusqu'à ce qu'on puisse les ramener et les montrer, les assembler légèrement différemment, peut-être un peu plus durablement, jusqu'à ce qu'on les ait cassés et ramassés suffisamment de fois, et qu'on ait l'ensemble de la chose dans toutes ses dimensions. Mais la discipline, le détail, c'est juste... parfois l'accumulation est trop difficile à supporter.)

(...)

Les premiers chapitres relatifs à la découverte de Greenwich Village et du commerce de l'art et de sa contrefaçon offre à Gaddis l'occasion d'écrire certaines de ses satires les plus corrosives à propos d'un monde artistique miné par la prétention, la sudffisance et la recherche du profit. Wyatt se retouve ainsi entouré d'un monde de fraudeurs de toute espèce , Frank Sinisterra, un faussaire, Otto Pivner, un dramaturge raté qui simule une blessure de guerre, Agnes Deigh, une matrone du monde de l’art qui encourage les artistes en nourrissant leurs besoins physiques et spirituels les plus contradictoires.

De plus en plus déprimé par tant de corruption et de faux-semblants, Wyatt envisage de reprendre ses études de théologie. La rupture survient après avoir été témoin de la mort parfaitement grotesque de Recktall Brown, dans une pseudo armure médiévale. Il pense aussi, à tort, être pour quelque chose dans  la mort de Basil Valentine. Wyatt fuit donc à nouveau l’Amérique, sur le même bateau qui avait manifestement ramené son père d’Espagne après la mort prématurée de Camilla. Wyatt finit par se retrouver dans le même monastère espagnol, à Estremadura, où sa mère est enterrée. 

Wyatt referme un chapitre de sa vie. Non seulement il prend pour nom Stephen, comme sa mère le voulait, mais abandonne tout sentiment de culpabilité héritée de son père et ce conflit de la matière et de l’esprit qui le nourrissait. Il reprend sa relation avec une maîtresse espagnole connue lors de son premier voyage en Europe et s’engage à élever un enfant de cette union...  (- Trad. Gallimard, 1973).

(...) "Benny had hardly looked at the face of the man who was talking to him: in contrast to his own it was a detailed fortification, every rampart erected with definite purpose, their parapets calculated to withstand repeated assaults from any direction, tried in innumerable skirmishes where many had approached so close as to tumble between scarp and counterscarp, an arrangement so long in the building that, though every bit of it had been erected for defense, in finished entirety it assumed aggressive proportions; inviting strategy, it might only be taken by storm. All this time, Benny's smile had not failed. His smile was his first line of defense. But even as he'd started to his feet, that defense was being abandoned, and so it remained, unmanned, as empty as gaping breastworks relinquished before unexpected onslaught. 

(Benny avait à peine regardé le visage de l'homme qui lui parlait : contrairement au sien, c'était une fortification détaillée, chaque rempart érigé dans un but précis, leurs parapets calculés pour résister à des assauts répétés venant de n'importe quelle direction, éprouvés dans d'innombrables escarmouches où beaucoup s'étaient approchés au point de tomber entre l'escarpe et la contre-escarpe, un arrangement en construction depuis si longtemps que, bien que chaque parcelle ait été érigée pour la défense, dans sa totalité finie, il prenait des proportions agressives ; invitant à la stratégie, il ne pouvait être pris que par l'assaut. Pendant tout ce temps, le sourire de Benny n'a pas failli. Son sourire était sa première ligne de défense. Mais alors même qu'il s'était levé, cette défense était abandonnée, et elle restait ainsi, sans personnel, aussi vide que des remparts béants abandonnés devant un assaut inattendu. )

—So tell me the truth, the harassing voice went on, as its owner came far forth from his walls, openly besieging. —Do you guys really give this same crap to each other you're giving to me, pretending it's a cultural medium? or do you just admit you're all only in it for the money, that you've all sold out. Benny's smile was gone. He sat silent for a moment, studying the features of this attack. Then he said, — Why do you hate me? Did I ever do you a favor? The critic straightened up, unprepared for this sally, without time to recover his own walls, he withdrew instantly behind con-travallations of mistrust. —Tell me the truth, what do you want from me, you fine-haired son of a bitch, Benny said to him evenly. —All-right, for Christ's sake . . . —What are you supposed to be, an honest man just because you don't have a necktie? — Relax, relax . . . — I will like hell relax. Who are you, anyhow? —Now listen . . . —You listen to me. I've just taken a lot from you. I've taken a lot from people just like you. Just like you. That's tough, isn't it, just like you, that this town is loaded with people just like you, the world is loaded with people just like you. The honest men who are too good to fit anywhere. You're one of the people, aren't you. Look at your hands, have you ever had a callus? You don't get them lifting glasses. Who are you, to be so bitter? Have you ever done one day of work? —Look . . . —And now I understand. And you talk to me about life, about real life, about human misery, Benny went on. He was not speaking loudly, nor fast, still the cold but vehement and level tone of his voice drew several people to turn around, and listen and watch. The  other sat his ground with a patient sneer. —I offered you work, and you were too good for it. We buy stuff from guys like you all the time, writing under pen names to protect names that are never going to be published

anywhere else, but they keep thinking they'll make it, what they want to do, but never quite manage, and they keep on doing what they're too good for. It's a joke. It's a joke, Benny repeated, and it was now that his voice began to rise. —I know you, I know you. You're the only serious person in the room, aren't you, the only one who understands, and you can prove it by the fact that you've never finished a single thing in your life. You're  the only well-educated person, because you never went to college, and you resent education, you resent social ease, you resent good manners, you resent success, you resent any kind of success, you resent God, you resent Christ, you resent thousand-dollar bills, you resent Christmas, by God, you resent happiness, you resent happiness itself, because none of that's real. What is real, then? Nothing's real to you that isn't part of your own past, real life, a swamp of failures, of social, sexual, financial, personal, . . .  spiritual failure. Real life. You poor bastard. You don't know what real life is, you've never been near it. All you have is a thousand intellectualized ideas about life. But life? Have you ever measured yourself against

anything but your own lousy past? Have you ever faced anything outside yourself? Life! You poor bastard. 

(Je te connais, je te connais. Tu es la seule personne sérieuse dans cette pièce, n'est-ce pas, la seule qui comprend, et tu peux le prouver par le fait que tu n'as jamais rien terminé de ta vie. Vous êtes la seule personne bien éduquée, parce que vous n'êtes jamais allé à l'université, et vous n'aimez pas l'éducation, l'aisance sociale, les bonnes manières, le succès, tout type de succès, Dieu, le Christ, les billets de mille dollars, Noël, par Dieu, le bonheur, le bonheur lui-même, parce que rien de tout cela n'est réel. Qu'est-ce qui est réel, alors ? Rien n'est réel pour vous qui ne fasse partie de votre propre passé, de votre vie réelle, un marécage d'échecs, d'échecs sociaux, sexuels, financiers, personnels... spirituels. La vraie vie. Pauvre bâtard. Tu ne sais pas ce qu'est la vraie vie, tu ne l'as jamais approchée. Tout ce que tu as, c'est un millier d'idées intellectualisées sur la vie. Mais la vie ? T'es-tu déjà mesuré à autre chose qu'à ton passé minable ? Avez-vous déjà fait face à quelque chose d'extérieur à vous ? La vie ! Pauvre bâtard.)

Benny started to laugh. He knocked an empty glass from the end of the couch, and Ellery put a hand on his shoulder. The stubby poet had come up beside the man at the other end of the couch, who was silent, looking at Benny, and the sneer almost squeezed from his face. Most of the people in the room were aware that something was happening, and had half turned, giving it half their attention, waiting to see if it deserved all. Benny started to stand up. —Come on, we'll get a drink, Ellery said to him, an arm across his shoulders. —All right, Benny said. Then suddenly he swung around again. —Go on, you lush, said the stubby poet; but Benny did not regard him. He stood over the man who as quickly recovered his sneer to look up. —How do you make your living? Benny demanded. —Come on, Benny. Leave the poor bastard alone. —I just asked how he makes his living. —The hell with him. Come on, Ellery said. —I just want to know how he makes his living, is there anything wrong with that? —He's a critic. He writes about books, or some God damn thing. Now come on. But Benny pulled from Ellery's grasp on his shoulder. —How long is it since you've seen the sun rise? he demanded. Then he went on, —How you would have done it. That's the way everything is, isn't it. How you would have done it. Not how it should have been done, but how you would have done it. When you criticize a book, that's the way you

(Comment gagnez-vous votre vie ? demanda Benny. -Allons, Benny. Laisse ce pauvre bougre tranquille. -Je lui ai juste demandé comment il gagnait sa vie. -Qu'il aille au diable. Allez, Ellery a dit. -Je veux juste savoir comment il gagne sa vie, il y a quelque chose de mal à ça ? -C'est un critique. Il écrit sur les livres, ou quelque chose comme ça. Allons, allons. Mais Benny se dégagea de la prise d'Ellery sur son épaule. Depuis combien de temps n'as-tu pas vu le soleil se lever ? demanda-t-il. Puis il continua : -Comment tu l'aurais fait. C'est ainsi que tout se passe, n'est-ce pas ? Comme vous l'auriez fait. Non pas comme cela aurait dû être fait, mais comme vous l'auriez fait. Lorsque vous critiquez un livre, c'est ainsi que vous le faites.)

work, isn't it. How you would have done it, because vou didn't do it, because you're still afraid to admit that you can't do it yourself. —Ellery, please . . . stop him, Esther said, in a low voice beside Ellery. He turned and looked at her, and he did, just then, have an expression very much like Benny's, one of tense impatience, which in that instant of exchange between them seemed to direct every- thing Benny had said, and was saying, at her. Everyone, within the bounds of what each considered either manners or sophistication, was watching; and most were watching the man on the couch. —Oh Chrahst I remember him, he's the guy that married Deedee Jaque-son, and they kicked her out of the little black book for it. Chrahst, what a coincidence, Ed Feasley commented. Rudy consoled a frightened group in one corner, with, —You know, he's the kind who knows art but doesn't know what he likes. Don Bildow watched apprehensively from the other side of the room, where he had retired, and did not see Anselm who watched, silent and attentive. Mr. Feddle, clutching a book, had gained the front row. The back of Maude's neck was being manipulated by strong fingers, stronger perhaps but not so vigorous as those twisting Stanley's hand. He looked at Agnes and looked away quickly, as though afraid to provoke the tension in her face to burst in confidence to him. A high voice broke the silence as Benny paused for breath.

(...)

La falsification, opposée aux "reconnaissances" du passé dans le présent, est partout présente dans ce roman foisonnant : faux tableaux, plagiats, travestis, paradis artificiels, artistes inauthentiques, mensonges et demi-vérités, sans oublier un faux Hemingway, mais surtout les fausses valeurs d`un monde désenchanté, d'une Amérique cauchemardesque où l`art même, ultime refuge des esprits faustíens, s`intègre au circuit des marchandises. C'est avec une érudition touchant aussi bien à la théologie qu'à la peinture, à la littérature ou à la mystique, que William Gaddis décrit un monde grotesque, proche de Jérôme Bosch, et s'interroge sur la place de l'art à notre époque....

(...) " The camera snapped and joined the others, swinging to their stride as they passed in beneath the sill and out of the view of Mister Gibbs, molested from behind by words,

— Energy may be changed but not destroyed . . .

From a basement door Mister Leroy rose into the sunlight bearing a pail and his smile, intimate even at the distance turned directly up to Gibbs before there was chance to evade it, as he glided over the gravel in the silence of the boxing shoes laced tightly to the image of nonviolence his passage insisted everywhere he went.

— Scientists believe that the total amount of energy in the world today is the same as it was at the beginning of time . . .

— Turn that off . . .

— But wait Mister Gibbs it’s not over, that’s our studio lesson we’ll be tested on . . .

— All right let’s have order here, order . . .! he’d reached the set himself and snapped it into darkness.

—Put on the lights there, now. Before we go any further here, has it ever occurred to any of you that all this is simply one grand misunderstanding? Since you’re not here to learn anything, but to be taught so you can pass these tests, knowledge has to be organized so it can be taught, and it has to be reduced to information so it can be organized do you follow that? In other words this leads you to assume that organization is an inherent property of the knowledge itself, and that disorder and chaos are simply irrelevant forces that threaten it from outside.  In fact it’s exactly the opposite. Order is simply a thin, perilous condition we try to impose on the basic reality of chaos . . .

(-Allumez la lumière. Avant d'aller plus loin, l'un d'entre vous n'a-t-il jamais pensé que tout ceci n'était qu'un grand malentendu ? Puisque vous n'êtes pas ici pour apprendre quoi que ce soit, mais pour qu'on vous enseigne afin que vous puissiez passer ces tests, la connaissance doit être organisée pour pouvoir être enseignée, et elle doit être réduite à l'information pour pouvoir être organisée - vous suivez cela ? En d'autres termes, cela vous amène à supposer que l'organisation est une propriété inhérente à la connaissance elle-même, et que le désordre et le chaos sont simplement des forces non pertinentes qui la menacent de l'extérieur.  En fait, c'est exactement le contraire. L'ordre n'est qu'une condition mince et périlleuse que nous essayons d'imposer à la réalité fondamentale du chaos....)