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A Frolic of His Own

3.82 of 5 stars 3.82 · rating details · 615 ratings · 75 reviews

With the publication of the Recognitions in 1955, William Gaddis was hailed as the American heir to James Joyce. His two subsequent novels, J R (winner of the National Book Award) and Carpenter's Gothic, have secured his position among America's foremost contemporary writers. Now A Frolic of His Own, his long-anticipated fourth novel, adds more luster to his reputation, as...more With the publication of the Recognitions in 1955, William Gaddis was hailed as the American heir to James Joyce. His two subsequent novels, J R (winner of the National Book Award) and Carpenter's Gothic, have secured his position among America's foremost contemporary writers. Now A Frolic of His Own, his long-anticipated fourth novel, adds more luster to his reputation, as he takes on life in our litigious times. "Justice? - You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law." So begins this mercilessly funny, devastatingly accurate tale of lives caught up in the toils of the law. Oscar Crease, middle-aged college instructor, savant, and playwright, is suing a Hollywood producer for pirating his play Once at Antietam, based on his grandfather's experiences in the Civil War, and turning it into a gory blockbuster called The Blood in the Red White and Blue. Oscar's suit, and a host of others - which involve a dog trapped in an outdoor sculpture, wrongful death during a river baptism, a church versus a soft drink company, and even Oscar himself after he is run over by his own car - engulf all who surround him, from his freewheeling girlfriend to his well-to-do stepsister and her ill-fated husband (a partner in the white-shoe firm of Swyne & Dour), to his draconian, nonagenarian father, Federal Judge Thomas Crease, who has just wielded the long arm of the law to expel God (and Satan) from his courtroom. And down the tortuous path of depositions and decrees, suits and countersuits, the most lofty ideas of our culture - questions about the value of art, literature, and originality - will be wrung dry in the meticulous, often surreal logic and language of the law, leaving no party unscathed. Gaddis has created a whirlwind of a novel, which brilliantly reproduces the Tower of Babel in which we conduct our lives. In A Frolic of His Own we hear voices as they speak at and around one another: lawyers, family members, judges, rogues, hucksters, and desperate(less)

Paperback, 512 pages

Published February 10th 1995 by Scribner (first published 1994)

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Dec 21, 2012 MJ Nicholls rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels, merkins, tortured-artists

J. Franzen says about A Frolic of His Own that “its only aesthetic weakness, really, is that much of it is repetitive, incoherent, and insanely boring.” Repetitive? No but listen there are about 600 pages here of unstylised dialogue where the protagonists use the same phrases ad nauseam and run-on sentences like we do in life what else did you say, Franzen? Incoherent? No but listen there is a plot here, a satirical plot about lawsuits and an avaricious professor and listen did you remember to p...more

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Aug 10, 2007 Alex rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: all you misanthropes

Outstanding, hilarious, and almost overwhelming at times. A Frolic of His Own trains William Gaddis' satirical eye on America's litigious culture. It presents a world in which everyone is suing someone for some perceived wrong and demands of justice are really just weakly disguised grabs for cash. The legal system is supposed to offer order and reliability to this chaotic existence, but the disarray in which all these characters live makes clear the chasm between the theory and the practice. Tr...more

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Jan 25, 2013 Andrew rated it 4 of 5 stars

The people who prefer the Gaddis of The Recognitions should just turn away now and go read some Colson Whitehead or The Authoritative Biography of the Dogs of Versailles or Life of Pi: the Cookbook. This book, and the best Gaddis, is for people aware and affected by the bitter comedy that is the system of economic rewards and punishments unleashed by the American legal system.

It reads as a perfect sequel to "JR", with focus on the minutia of case histories and legal precedents mingling with the...more The people who prefer the Gaddis of The Recognitions should just turn away now and go read some Colson Whitehead or The Authoritative Biography of the Dogs of Versailles or Life of Pi: the Cookbook. This book, and the best Gaddis, is for people aware and affected by the bitter comedy that is the system of economic rewards and punishments unleashed by the American legal system.

It reads as a perfect sequel to "JR", with focus on the minutia of case histories and legal precedents mingling with the financial sector. A lot of books are just 'smart'/rich people talking and thinking - this is writing that lets those people in and gives their voice the hilarity that it doesn't have in real life, or in other books.

The confidence to be critical and imaginative at the same time is so lacking in so many authors when compared to Gaddis that the only way to get a real taste of his style is to taste a passage (one of the very few that is not unattributed dialogue):

- Look, do you want some of this lemon chicken now, or...
- Don't be ridiculous.
Reflection limning reflection in the mirrored door to the bathroom, caught the soles of her feet flung wide on the bed and her arm's impatient haste crushing his lips at her throat, at her breast, knees risen sharply akimbo forthrightly lewd intolerant of delay seizing the thick surge filling her hand toward the crest there heaving as his weight came over for the plunge withdrawn to plunge deeper in the pounding rise and fall of ravage, her nails dug in the voracious pillage of his loins, of the devouring dark and hairy paradox of intimacy mounting in a widening gulf with each silent thrust of this lubricious intercourse to distance them further one from the other in the helpless greed of separate revelation, eyes closed, tongue lax and indolent as hers diffused her saturated depths and his all panting earnest concentration on the burst that left his head buried on her shoulder, eyes closed, hers wide, as they slipped back in desultory concert to what remained of the day, of the lemon chicken and the shrimp in black bean sauce, the pointless flicker of dinner jackets and backless gowns on actors and actresses long dead and the papers, letters, briefs and memorandums –- I mean do they have to be scattered all over the house, Harry? until at last the lights went out.(less)

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Nov 30, 2012 Mark Beyer rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Here lies the story of Oscar — last names don’t matter — a history lecturer and hobbyist writer. He’s about to sue the writers/directors/producers and film studio that has made a movie out of what Oscar claims is a rip-off of his monumental Civil War play. And along the ride that Gaddis takes us, all things American are skewered, basted, roasted, and eaten: religion, brand names, real estate agents, film studios, publishers, agents, TV news, higher eduction, students of higher education, and (an...more

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Oct 10, 2012 Max rated it 3 of 5 stars

A Frolic of His Own was somewhat disappointing to me not because it was bad, but because it was less than what I expected rightly or wrongly after experiencing the Gaddis of The Recognitions. It was a witty if repetitive satire about the chaotic nature of litigation in America today and the greediness and foolishness of those relying on it for justice, financial gain or simply revenge. Light though relevant subject matter that while fun was less than inspirational.

But Frolic also focused on a R...more

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Jun 20, 2011 David Lentz rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read Frolic after JR and The Recognitions of which I was more impressed than Frolic. It's amusing to watch Gaddis skewer the legal profession -- I can think of few professions more worthy of it -- but while he addresses the national feeding frenzy of greed associated with litigation his characters fail to capture much empathy as they were more hideous in many cases than their legal representatives. Consequently, I found myself detached from main characters and unsymapthetic to their sordid fat...more

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May 06, 2013 Larry rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: unlazy readers, those who enjoy heller and jk o'toole

currently on page 109 and utterly re-flabbergasted at Gaddis's genius. it's a fucking crime that this book, which won the national book award, has barely been read, like his others. the whole library system has only one copy.

ok back to the book.

a comedic juggernaut that allowed me to understand the legal system even as he skewered it. it was strange to find him writing in such a contemporary time... all his books are contemporary to the time they were published... 1955, '76, '85, '94

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May 15, 2012 Joshua Burns rated it 5 of 5 stars

A lawyering satire that many will remember for its Dickensian roots, I am interested in the details here. The comedic world that Gaddis sandwiches up, all out of bounds for the wheel-chair bound protagonist, thrives on statues, statutes, and legal hom-hockery. The man at the center, although if I remember correctly much of this is narrated from the perspective of his sister as well, has written a book about the Civil War and suspects that the world is out to get him, thereby explaining his most...more

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Jul 01, 2012 Konrad Swartz rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: own, fiction

In 'A Frolic of His Own,' Gaddis churns out a slow-burning satire of individuals litigated to the hilt. It's funny, but it's difficult. For some, Gaddis's heavy dialogue, packed with the casual ellipses and broken clauses of common spoken language, may become just as overwhelming, suffocating, as the legal briefs he includes in the book. I encourage those to press on and join me at marveling at his command, his flow and rhythm in imitating anxious conversation. Unfortunately, that not be the onl...more

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Oct 06, 2012 Con McVeety rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book is damn rich in language, William Gaddis was in a league of his own, American's greatest satirist, and while I'm only half way thourgh with this book it's one that can't be containted to memory all that's in it, and during multiple readings one would always find someting new in it's pages.

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Nov 03, 2007 Tempest rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: conscientious folk

A masterfully written novel where everything from the language to the props to the background is crafted to create a sense of chaos in a world striving for order. Tense...nerve-wracking...frustrating... Gaddis employed all his skills to create a satire on American culture that makes you both love yet deeply despise the characters you are reading about.

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Jul 13, 2011 Jeff Bursey rated it 4 of 5 stars

A Frolic of His Own marks William Gaddis returning to top form, after the disappointing Carpenter's Gothic (which would be very fine if written by someone else); it's more in keeping with the expansiveness of The Recognitions and J R.

Formally inventive, funny, and angry, here it seems that Gaddis has gone down even deeper into a bitter well. Between these covers resides a play, multiple lawsuits, legal judgements, transcripts of court testimony, a pastiche of "Hiawatha" used to describe life in...more

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Nov 21, 2010 Jeremy Hornik rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: keepers, favorites

Oh my God this book is hard to read. Gaddis not only knows a lot of words, he's happy to leave out the quotation marks to indicate someone is speaking. (Incidentally, every book I've ever read that left out quotation marks was brilliant. They have to be, because they're practically unreadable.) Anyhow, it's brilliant. There's a legal opinion that is dry, dry, dry and hilarious, and there's deep sadness and crushing emotion, and it made me read (eventually) every other book Gaddis wrote.

PS They'r...more

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Jan 09, 2013 James rated it 3 of 5 stars

- Well my God Harry don't tell, don't get Oscar's hopes up, I mean this whole brittle shell he's put together for who he thinks he is now but suddenly I look through that mangy beard and cigar smoke and see the face of the little boy down there by the pond that day with the little canoe he'd made, he'd spent days at it stripping the bark off a beautiful white birch that stood there and Father, Father looking at it without a word like some terrible open wound, looking at the canoe sunk in the mud...more

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Jan 09, 2012 Ali rated it 4 of 5 stars

So you know how Gravity's Rainbow is basically about boners, right? Sure, a lot of other things happen, if they didn't, the book wouldn't be nearly as (in)famous, but let's not be too pretentious here, it's mainly about boners. Few pages go by without a reference to penises or vaginas, either symbolic, or literal, and often both at once. In the same way that GR is about erections, A Frolic of His Own is about lawsuits.

There is a review which summarises GR in one sentence. All it says is:
THIS BOO...more So you know how Gravity's Rainbow is basically about boners, right? Sure, a lot of other things happen, if they didn't, the book wouldn't be nearly as (in)famous, but let's not be too pretentious here, it's mainly about boners. Few pages go by without a reference to penises or vaginas, either symbolic, or literal, and often both at once. In the same way that GR is about erections, A Frolic of His Own is about lawsuits.

There is a review which summarises GR in one sentence. All it says is:
THIS BOOK IS ABOUT A MAN IN WW2 HE GETS ERECTIONS.
I like that. It's pithy and accurate and gets right to the point. It gives you the plot in one small sentence. It does not fuck around, unlike most of the characters in Gravity's Rainbow. "Here is Gravity's Rainbow," it says. "I hope you like you some hard-ons, because there are going to be plenty up in this bitch," it says. "Some people like cupcakes better; I for one care less for them," it says. "I am not made of yak wool," it says. "Alter the whole thing and kill both children," it says. "Tell me everything, omit nothing," it says. "So pool the begg and pass the kish for crawsake," it says. "explosions of blue elephants cause the moon to explode with pink coloured barbie dolls," it says. It doesn't try to tell you how to interpret the book; all it does is alight on the one element which is consistent and ever present and which cannot be interpreted any other way. Boners.

In the style of that review, I have attempted to summarize A Frolic of his Own in the same manner.

THIS BOOK IS ABOUT RICH PEOPLE IN THE NINETEEN EIGHTIES AND THEY SUE EACH OTHER SOMETIMES! AND OTHER TIMES THEY SUE THEMSELVES, OR DEAD PEOPLE!

Some telling quotes:
"—What did you expect, you're suing the hit and run driver who ran over you aren't you?
—No I'm suing his, I mean my, I'm suing the insurance company for the owner of the car who are suing the, I think they're suing the dealer, the original dealer who's suing the car's maker it's all in the letter I got with this bill about a postponement for that summons to appear as a witness against the, I'd better call them'" (P. 385)

"—Yes but I mean my God Lily, at least you can be happy it didn't turn out to be cancer after all, y'
—Why should I be happy, I mean if it was who am I supposed to sue?" (P. 468)

"—I hadn't wanted to take more of your valuable time getting into all these details Mister Crease but you see you are only a part of the bigger picture which threatens to get out of control and may go on for years involving a whole series of defendants. When your second attorney Mister Preswig filed your motion as the victim against the car's owner this in turn brought Ace Worldwide Fidelity in as his or your insurer where it might possibly have ended.
—Well why didn't it!
—Because liability attaches to anyone who sells the product going back to its manufacturer including the makers of parts supplied by others since it is marketed under the manufacturer's name, if you follow me? Our legal department sought out the person you bought it from who had joined the Navy and so proceeded against the dealer from whom he'd purchased it new and the dealer then sued the wholesaler who has brought suit against the manufacturer who in turn is suing the assembler of the defective component parts whose makers are as you observed in your summons as a witness in the suit being brought against them by the assembler all over the globe as you put it, however. As you were notified that trial has been postponed since these component parts makers abroad turn out to be largely subsidiaries or joint ventures with American companies which must all be sorted out before matters can proceed to the Supreme Court where it all appears to be headed." (P. 476-7)(less)

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Dec 26, 2011 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: postmodernism

Gaddis has one of the most unique narrative styles I've come across, and it's the style that really makes this novel. Written almost entirely in unattributed dialogue, Frolic is about a pretentious would-be playwright who sues the producers of a blockbuster gore fest of a Civil War movie which the playwright alleges infringes on his unpublished/never-performed play on the same subject. What ensues is a zany tangle of lawsuits, countersuits, ethical violations galore, and family infighting which...more Gaddis has one of the most unique narrative styles I've come across, and it's the style that really makes this novel. Written almost entirely in unattributed dialogue, Frolic is about a pretentious would-be playwright who sues the producers of a blockbuster gore fest of a Civil War movie which the playwright alleges infringes on his unpublished/never-performed play on the same subject. What ensues is a zany tangle of lawsuits, countersuits, ethical violations galore, and family infighting which together form a long, dense attack on American popular culture, religion, and most obviously the legal profession/industry and the absurdly strong American impulse to litigate.

The reason to read Gaddis is for his use of dialogue. When I think of lifelike dialogue, I typically think of writers like Salinger who have an excellent ear for dialogue that sounds as if people were really talking, but with grammar that is better suited for the page than the fragments most people actually speak in. If you've ever read the transcript of a deposition or trial, you understand how awful it can be to read the way even really smart people actually talk. Well, Gaddis pulls off the seemingly impossible feat of writing dialogue in the halting, fragmented syntax people actually use in the real world, but which is punchy and beautiful and extremely fun to read. He even includes a full-length deposition right in the novel. Which is not to say that the characters do not employ uncharacteristically intelligent vocabularies and witty epigrams.

And the strength of Gaddis's dialogue is not just how lifelike it is, but how Gaddis uses unattributed spoken word to develop character and drive plot with almost no exposition at all. Once you get into the book, you have very little difficulty knowing who is talking, who is present, what the characters are doing and thinking, and how much time is elapsing -- all without a narrator telling you any of this explicitly or with physical detail outside of the characters' speech. In addition to dialogue, Gaddis also adds in the full text of legal opinions, briefs and depositions, as well as most of the protagonist's play, as if to say that we understand the world only in text as it exists in the real world. In fact, the 1% or so of the novel in which Gaddis reverts to exposition is the book's primary weakness. I can't imagine why he decided to let dialogue and interior texts carry so much weight of the novel without carrying the whole of it.

Another problem with the novel is that Gaddis gets so deep into the law that he was bound to make a few glaring legal errors, such as a confusion of federalism and preemption issues, and improper use of legal terms of art like "judicial notice." Small blunders which really stand out. While the amount of legal research Gaddis obviously did is impressive, the solid grasp he has on copyright law and even federal procedure only make his errors all the more glaring. I read this book shortly after finishing The Floating Opera by John Barth, which I felt used a more optimal amount of legal discussion to critique the law. By diving in as deeply as Gaddis did here, he was bound to get some things wrong.

I also tend to get tired of the self-consciously heavy-handed puns that some of the old guard postmodernists just can't resist, like naming the car manufacturer at the heart of a products liability suit "Sosumi" and calling the white shoe firm defending the copyright suit "Swine & Dour." It's kind of Gaddis's schtick, but stuff like that wears a little thin for me.

Overall though, Gaddis is clearly a formidable voice in the 20th Century canon, and it's amazing to me that it took me so long to hear about him. I've frequently looked for his titles at bookstores and found that almost nobody carries his stuff. I think his work deserves to be read if for no other reason than his incredible narrative style.(less)

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Aug 25, 2008 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars

The most striking trait of A Frolic of His Own is its style. It's a novel told almost entirely in dialogue, and a frantic, careening dialogue at that. At first glance it’s a voice that seems very realistic, very much in tune to the way people actually talk. And Gaddis does have a very keen ear for American dialect, but when the speed of the banter never dips below a boil, you realize his voice is more metaphoric than anything else. Its frenetic pace does more do describe the feeling of American...more The most striking trait of A Frolic of His Own is its style. It's a novel told almost entirely in dialogue, and a frantic, careening dialogue at that. At first glance it’s a voice that seems very realistic, very much in tune to the way people actually talk. And Gaddis does have a very keen ear for American dialect, but when the speed of the banter never dips below a boil, you realize his voice is more metaphoric than anything else. Its frenetic pace does more do describe the feeling of American life than the way Americans speak.

Some may find this style a bit difficult to keep up with, but I found it very readable. Like most great novels, there is an internal logic that you must cede yourself too. It is long and can get a little tedious at parts, simply because Gaddis hammers away at the same themes over and over again (and one of them is the cyclical nature of legal conflict and of conflict in general), but put it down for a day and you’ll be ready to get right back with Gaddis, drawn back by his inventiveness, humor and richness of style.

The humor and the structure are the most saliently impressive facets of the novel. The narrative exists on three different planes. There is the main story in the present which involves Oscar Crease, a community college history teacher and the legal quarrels that consume him and those closest to him. Then there is the play Oscar has written which figures as a central component in a copyright infringement suit. On a third level, the reader is provided with many legal briefs and court decisions to parse through which involve the many litigations that weave their way through the main narrative. All of these several levels of narrative mirror each other in clever and revealing ways – a strategy that serves to enrich thematic matter as well as show off the many skills of the author.

A Frolic of One’s Own is also a truly laugh-out-loud funny novel. It’s not afraid to be silly or absurd, and it is through this silly absurdity (as opposed to a dreary absurdity a Beckett or Camus) that his themes manifest itself most successfully. He takes aim at all facets of American culture, but most specifically the litigious aspects. He tears apart our attempts to create order out of the disorder of human existence. This is what he accuses the legal system of being – a farcical attempt to create order out of whole cloth. He uses legal jargon, fictitious briefs, a play within a play, and other devices to puncture holes in this illusion of order, and while doing this he creates an impressive orderly structure of his own: the novel itself. But this too comes apart in the end as the characters spiral towards madness and hopelessness towards the denouement of the book. But he does it with such a lighthearted zeal that goes down smooth. I wholeheartedly recommend this book.
(less)

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Jul 14, 2009 Sebastian rated it 4 of 5 stars

More of an endurance test than a novel, I thought A Frolic of His Own was both the most human and the most exhausting of Gaddis' books.

To begin with, it focuses on a topic near and dear to my heart: the absurdity of the American legal system. The book is satirical, obviously, but the opinions and scenarios contained within are, from my experiences, frighteningly realistic. Gaddis, who clearly immersed himself in the law for some time in preparing this book, completely nails the greed, venality,...more

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Jan 27, 2011 Rissi rated it 2 of 5 stars

Sloughed through 372 pages of this and just can't find motivation to read the last 130 or so pages. Not only is the avant garde, or Gaddis's personal idiosyncratic stream of consciousness and to heck with conventional conversation and punctuation, extremely off-putting and difficult, the "frolic" takes place in mid-1980s, which (and I was there) were boring, banal, and otherwise a pain to live through, he puts us through it again. Only thing missing is the bad music.
I'm complaining also about th...more

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Dec 12, 2009 Matthew rated it 4 of 5 stars

An unwieldy, dense, disorienting, often hilarious satire of American litigiousness and the commodification of creativity, in which everyone is suing everyone else (even God). (One character actually owns a Japanese car called the Sosumi.) Like other Gaddis novels, the story is told almost entirely through unattributed dialogue and some interpolated documents (legal briefs, newspaper articles, a rather poor play written by the main character, and so on), with very little narration. It's a world m...more

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Nov 15, 2009 Peter Nestor rated it 2 of 5 stars

I’m sure there was plenty to dissect about this book, but after 200 pages I didn’t care anymore -- about the characters, the plot, or the narrative style, which became more annoying and distracting than fresh and avant-garde. The book started strong. Both potential lawsuits were interesting, and the Platonic references were well-used. But it lost steam. The satire became trite, the characters turned out to be bland archetypes with very little development. I also don’t want to admit that it was b...more

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Aug 04, 2009 Seana rated it 4 of 5 stars

What can I say? I like irrascable narrators.

One interesting thing--I tried to read this book aloud to my book group and found that even though on the page, this seems to be the vernacular, it is not. It reads quite differently when spoken. Of course, with practice, that would smooth out, but the point is that it is crafted to seem very chatty. That is deceptive.k

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Jun 09, 2012 Eric McGuckin rated it 4 of 5 stars

So sharply written and hilarious. If y'all have never read him, you outta try him out with this one, especially you folks working in the legal fields of the lord. The lead character really has some interesting legal issues, and issues with family, himself, and, well, not to give more away, but at one point he manages to end up suing himself. (Is this possible?) Gaddis is in a class of his own.

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Jan 14, 2012 Katinki rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: stuff-kids-read-to-look-smart, classics

I have to say that I enjoyed this one. The lack of description and narration was rather challenging at times and confusing, which it seems was the intent. I found many segments rather humorous. But this isn't what I'd call light reading, or for those looking for some mindless entertainment. You have to pay attention to this one. And there are a lot of bits that require re-read to truly understand. But it's worth it. I'm adding more of his works to my TBR.

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Oct 16, 2011 Kathleen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: authors-i-like

One of the best. A sometimes tongue in cheek, sometimes blatantly funny, and always deadly serious look at our litigious society. Love, family, racism, greed and WASPs! Perfect. I've discovered Gaddis via David Foster Wallace. Style and substance always an understatement. Thanks again, DFW. Did I mention philosophy and religion?

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Sep 12, 2011 Philip Chen rated it 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book to bits. It's one of the greats. Gaddis is an amazing writer. Like in all of his books, you seem to be reading something completely superficial, while the real story emerges slowly from the fast narrative, like in real life: our experiences are superficial and what we've been through we only recognize much later.

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Jan 16, 2011 Daryl rated it 4 of 5 stars

If you want to dip your little toe into the waters of Gaddis's work, this is where to start. You get a sense of his humor and cleverness from this book without the huge investment his other longer books require. It's a good book but probably not a great one.

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Jun 23, 2009 Evan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Hysterical in at least two senses: crazed, dense, rambling, preachy, almost exclusively dialogue-filled, but with a surprisingly intricate plot and thematic structure underlying everything and fully drawn (if occasionally cartoonish) characters. And a lot looser and funnier than "The Recognitions" (the only other Gaddis I've read thus far). Maybe someday I'll take a crack at "JR"...

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Sep 04, 2011 Ted Burke rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I love the fact that the late Gaddis simplified his style not a wit since the 1958 publication of his first novel, The Recognitions. Brilliant dialogue, which drives the novel, sans character attribution. The lawyer trade should duck under the table if they see a judge with this book poking from his robe.Gaddis was the American heir to Joyce's attempts to exhaust literature's capacity to achieve a real life complexity; through his comedies he renews the tongue we share. Gaddis , in fact, exceeds...more

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Aug 02, 2011 Linda rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: borrowed, life_is_too_short

What is wrong with conventional punctuation? Does an author think that if he doesn't use it that his book is somehow better? If anything, it just makes things confusing and not worth reading. Life is way too short for this title.

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About William Gaddis

William Gaddis was the author of four very complex novels (he completed an as-yet-unpublished fifth book, a non-fictional study of the player piano, called Agape Agape, before he passed away) and an artist inclined to avoid the trappings of celebrity. Gaddis was born in New York December 29, 1922. He went on to Harvard, but was asked to leave the college in his senior year (the circumstances of th...more William Gaddis was the author of four very complex novels (he completed an as-yet-unpublished fifth book, a non-fictional study of the player piano, called Agape Agape, before he passed away) and an artist inclined to avoid the trappings of celebrity. Gaddis was born in New York December 29, 1922. He went on to Harvard, but was asked to leave the college in his senior year (the circumstances of the situation are mysterious, and await the unfortunate biographer). He worked for The New Yorker for a spell in the 1950s, and absorbed experiences at the bohemian parties and happenings, to be later used as material in The Recognitions. Travel provided further resources of experience in Mexico, in Costa Rica, in Spain and Africa and, perhaps strangest to imagine of him, he was employed for a few years in public relations for a pharmaceutical corporation.
The number of printed interviews with Gaddis can be counted on one hand: he wondered why anyone should expect an author to be at all interesting, after having very likely (or ideally) projected the best of themselves in their work. He has been frequently compared with Joyce, Nabokov, and especially Pynchon, and in terms of talent this must be so. Gaddis’s first novel, The Recognitions (1955) is a 956-page saga of forgery, pretension, and desires misguided and inexpressible. Critical response to the book ranged from cool to hostile, but in most cases (as Jack Green took pains to show in his book of rebuke, Fire the Bastards!) reviewers were ill-prepared to deal with the challenge, and evidently many who began to read The Recognitions did not finish. The novel’s sometimes great leaps in time and location and the breadth and arcane pedigree of allusions are, it turns out, fairly mild complications for the reader when compared with what would become the writer’s trademark: the unrestrained confusion of detached and fragmentary dialogue. Consider the following excerpt from very early on in Gaddis’s second book, JR (1975; winner of the National Book Award), only 726 pages long:

– It’s worked so far but it can’t work forever, sooner or later somebody will show up who reads Greek. Then where are we?
– Up the creek, Miss Flesch obliged with a promptness that lost her some coffee down her chin, like the smut mail.
– There’s an issue. The smut mail rise.
– My boy sent off for a ball glove and what he got back in the mail was. . . .
– Mouthpiece puller, sleigh bells, strobotuner, choir risers, tympanies, marching bell and stand, two thousand five hundred and... what’s all that for?
– Breakage. Here, replacing glass, repairing doors, painting, refinishing and so forth, thirty-three thousand two eighty-five. Thirty-three thousand dollars for breakage, isn’t that what we’re really talking about? Plain unvarnished vandalism? And another fourteen thousand plus item down here, repairs and replacement, chairs, desks, project tables, pianos, same thing isn’t it? Breakage. . . ?

And this is only a sound byte of the logorrhea. The chaos of the unceasing deluge of talk of JR (very much part of the continuing spills, mistakes and general “breakage” which may be recognized as the plot) drove critics to declare the text “unreadable” – like the school’s “Greek” motto (–Oh, can you read it? one character asks another, who is seen copying it down. – Not exactly read it, said his companion). Reading Gaddis is by no means easy, but, as I think the above sample suggests, it is rewardingly hysterical. I don’t know of any more lacerating and artfully sustained attack on capitalism than JR, and The Recognitions makes one so(less)

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Books by William Gaddis

The Rush for Second Place: Essays and Occasional Writings

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“Justice? -You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law.” — 7 people liked it

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A Frolic of His Own

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