Who influenced William Gaddis?

I think he never read Ulysses at all.

don delillo

he read it later in his life

Melville, Dante

just read the paris interview

He doesnt say any of his influences

your dad

agape agape is influenced by Bernhard

Off the top of my head, based on my reading I can say he was definitely influenced by the presocratics (Anaximander, Heraclitus, and Parmenides in particular), Plato, Aristotle, Kiekegaard, Laozi, Nietzsche, Dostoevesky, and Count Yorck...Just to name a few of the influences that are quite apparent. I have a feeling he was big into Heidegger as well.

lmao

This is both a well-informed and not entirely right post. Gaddis was so well-read that he's practically an original, because he has so many influences you can't call him overly derivative of one author. The question of influences is, ironically, one he tackles in The Recognitions, incidentally through the use of irony -- that is, a lot of allusions and starting every chapter with a quote from some fancy literary source while at the same time criticizing unoriginality through the character of Wyatt, the forger.

For all this, T.S. Eliot is probably THE major influence on him, if I had to choose one.

Why

>gaddis is criticizing unoriginality through wyatt

holy shit how is it possible to misread the book this badly

Please explain your point of view when expressing disagreement

I did.