William Gaddis: What happens to a civilization, its undercurrents when it becomes legalistic?
John Akomfrah: This is probably the most vexed question of them all. It’s so cruel.
Gaddis: Right. I don’t see any way out.
Akomfrah: I’m here. I didn’t die.
Gaddis: Yes, very much so.
•••
Akomfrah: That there is no detour around form: the desire to say something is also a desire to find a way of saying it.
Gaddis: But no one has read the novel, and so no one's noticed a thing.
Akomfrah: Definitely, your average educated eighteenth- and nineteenth-century figure understood this.
Gaddis: Especially the feeling that many men have, who have to support a family and keep a job that they hate.
Akomfrah: You’re struck by the fragility of things and how close you are to your own unmaking.
•••
Gaddis: No. Things fall apart, everything breaks down, even language. I see it as a decline, entropy, breakdown.
Akomfrah: Absolutely. In fact there were some very ugly episodes.
Gaddis: Quite a few.
Akomfrah: I think that tone’s important.
Gaddis: And the race question—how is it going to be resolved?