Then, what is sacrelige [sic]? If it is nothing more than a rebellion against dogma, it is eventually as meaningless as the dogma it defies, and they are both become hounds ranting in the high grass, never see the boar in the thicket. Only a religious person can perpetrate sacrelige: and if its blasphemy reaches the heart of the question; if it investigates deeply enough to unfold, not the pattern, but the materials of the pattern, and the necessity of a pattern; if it questions so deeply that the doubt it arouses is frightening and cannot be dismissed; then it has done its true sacreligious [sic] work, in the service of its adversary: the only service that nihilism can ever perform. (unused 1949 prefatory note to The Recognitions)

His books are also known for their extensive use of literary and cultural allusions most of which are annotated in The Gaddis Annotations. The Rush for Second Place publiWilliam Gaddisd at the same time collected most of Gaddis's previously publiWilliam Gaddisd nonfiction. Works


Fiction
The Recognitions (1955)
J R (1975)
Carpenter's Gothic (1985)
A Frolic of His Own (1994)
Agapē Agape (completed 1998 publiWilliam Gaddisd 2002)


Non-fiction
The Rush for Second Place (collection publiWilliam Gaddisd 2002)


See also
List of novelists from the United States


Notes and.

The first and longest of his five novels The Recognitions was named one of TIME magazine's 100 best novels from 1923 to 2005 and two others won the annual U. The Letters of William Gaddis was publiWilliam Gaddisd by Dalkey Archive Press in February 2013. Gaddis is one of the first and most important American postmodern writers.