Carpenter S Gothic

In this tempestuous novel, Liz and Paul, the occupants of Carpenter s Gothic do battle with the Reverend Ude to preserve the African mission on which they live.

William Gaddis published four novels during his lifetime, immense and complex books that helped inaugurate a new movement in American letters. Now comes his final work of fiction, a subtle, concentrated culmination of his art and ideas. For more than fifty years Gaddis collected notes for a book about the mechanization of the arts, told by way of a social history of the player piano in America. In the years before his death in 1998, he distilled the whole mass into a fiction, a dramatic monologue by an elderly man with a terminal illness. Continuing Gaddis's career-long reflection on those aspects of corporate technological culture that are uniquely destructive of the arts, Agape Agape is a stunning achievement from one of the indisputable masters of postwar American fiction.

This story of raging comedy and despair centers on the tempestuous marriage of an heiress and a Vietnam veteran. From their "carpenter gothic" rented house, Paul sets himself up as a media consultant for Reverend Ude, an evangelist mounting a grand crusade that conveniently suits a mining combine bidding to take over an ore strike on the site of Ude's African mission. At the still center of the breakneck action is Paul's wife, Liz, and over it all looms the shadowy figure of McCandless, a geologist from whom Paul and Liz rent their house. As Paul mishandles the situation, his wife takes the geologist to her bed and a fire and aborted assassination occur; Ude issues a call to arms as harrowing as any Jeremiad -- and Armageddon comes rapidly closer. Displaying Gaddis's inimitable virtuoso dialogue, and his startling treatments of violence and sexuality, Carpenter's Gothic "shows again that Gaddis is among the first rank of contemporary American writers (Malcolm Bradbury, The Washington Post Book World).

A dazzling fourth novel by the author of The Recognitions, Carpenter’s Gothic, and JR uses his considerable powers of observation and satirical sensibilities to take on the American legal system.

A postmodern masterpiece about fraud and forgery by one of the most distinctive, accomplished novelists of the last century. The Recognitions is a sweeping depiction of a world in which everything that anyone recognizes as beautiful or true or good emerges as anything but: our world. The book is a masquerade, moving from New England to New York to Madrid, from the art world to the underworld, but it centers on the story of Wyatt Gwyon, the son of a New England minister, who forsakes religion to devote himself to painting, only to despair of his inspiration. In expiation, he will paint nothing but flawless copies of his revered old masters—copies, however, that find their way into the hands of a sinister financial wizard by the name of Recktall Brown, who of course sells them as the real thing. Dismissed uncomprehendingly by reviewers on publication in 1955 and ignored by the literary world for decades after, The Recognitions is now established as one of the great American novels, immensely ambitious and entirely unique, a book of wild, Boschian inspiration and outrageous comedy that is also profoundly serious and sad.

The author of four truly important novels - The Recognitions in 1955, J R in 1975, Carpenter's Gothic in 1985, and A Frolic of His Own in 1995 - William Gaddis is considered by many literary scholars to be one of the outstanding novelists of the twentieth century, to be spoken of in the same breath as James Joyce, Robert Musil, and Thomas Pynchon.

Stunning full-colour photographs and engaging text show readers how to identify Ontario's many unique types of homes. Ontario has a rich history of architectural styles, and is home to some of the most stunning heritage houses in North America. In this book, author Robert Mikel profiles in depth every important house style the province has seen over the past three centuries -- from the grand elegance of the Italianate to the intimacy and coziness of the Ontario Cottage. Readers will see how each house style developed in Europe, came to Ontario, and the variations that are unique to the province. Both an attractive gift book and a solid reference, Ontario House Styles will appeal to those who live in Ontario's tens of thousands of heritage homes and to anyone interested in Ontario's colourful architectural history. Ontario House Styles includes ninety homes from: * Ancaster * Brockville * Cobourg * Cambridge * Dundas * Gananoque * Grafton * Grimsby * Hamilton * Kingston * London * Napanee * Niagara-on-the-Lake * Odessa * Paris * Picton * Port Hope * St. Mary's * Stoney Creek * Stratford * Toronto * Waterloo