a commodity in little supply these days

"I don’t want to overstate this point. These novels [of William Gaddis] demand more effort on the reader’s part than the average page-turner. Above all, they demand attention—a commodity in little supply these days. I read them both for the first time twenty years ago, in college, when I had all day to read long novels, and I have counted them among my favorites ever since. But I returned to them for this essay with some trepidation. I was in quarantine, working remotely with a newborn and a three-year-old at home. If I stopped reading mid-paragraph because a notification popped up on my phone, I would find myself lost and have to start the paragraph or the entire page over. But this problem was easily solved: I set my phone aside. I had hardly noticed how conditioned I’d become to give at best half of myself to whatever I was reading. There was something exciting about returning to books that asked something of me. And they rewarded my investment copiously. I count my second time through these novels—like my first—among the great literary experiences of my life."

~~ from "Because God Did Not Relax: The Difficult Pleasures of William Gaddis" 

      by Christopher Beha

      Harper's Magazine, November 2020