JR by William Gaddis

{I inadvertently deleted this post a few weeks back, and am finally reposting it with some alterations.  It's originally from LT, circa Feb. 2009, back when the economy was truly inside the toilet, compared to today's economy being, say, perched precariously on the toilet seat}



If you thought David Foster Wallace wrote obscenely long convoluted sentences, try reading this two pound behemoth that has not one (not one I tell you!) chapter break in its entirety.  It's like reading The Neverending Paragraph.  If that sounds daunting enough already, factor in that the narrative is ninety per cent dialogue.  Factor in also that the dialogue of JR is atypical dialogue that doesn't increase reading speed because it's dialogue that William Gaddis has purposely not clearly delineated who's speaking what to whom ninety-nine per cent of the time (sound confusing?, try reading it!), for one must deduce who's speaking without any he said/she saids to help you sort it all out, similar to the unspecified-as-to-who's-speaking-dialogue featured in "A Clean, Well Lighted Place;" only JR, mind you, is not a ten page short story by Ernest Hemingway, but a 752 page menacing gargoyle of a novel comprising vast Himalayan-like exchanges of deep dialogue and it takes at times the concentration or meditation of a Tibetan monk to decipher what the dialogue means, let alone figuring out who's speaking to whom.  JR is scary to face, yes, and it's hard keeping track of who said what to who what where when why and how, true, and the postmodern tome mocks the comprehension of one accustomed to instant gratification in light easy reading (or just conventional reading for that matter), but other than that, JRs a real breeze.  A nice cool refreshing breeze that flows past the reader reading the equivalent of running a marathon.

And since JR is about money and capitalism gone so wild and satirically haywire that even a precocious elementary school kid working a payphone at recess as if he were a bookie; or working a payphone out on a school field trip, conversing with the local stock exchange and thereby becoming a zillionaire practically overnight on stocks and bonds, it's quite topical to boot given the present state of our abysmal and, some might argue, broken U.S.A. American economy run into the ground by children dressed up all nice and spiffy as if they were genuine businessmen and women not certainly seeking to go Ponzi on an all too gullible U.S.A. American public willing to buy anything, whether junk mortgages or junk truth.  JR is funny too, and not quite as depressing as our abysmal and, some might argue, broken economy run into the ground by children dressed up all nice and spiffy as if they were genuine businessmen and women not certainly seeking to go Ponzi on an all too gullible U.S.A. American public willing to buy anything, whether junk mortgages or junk truth.  So stop overlooking William Gaddis and his brilliant novel, JR, and then maybe I'll stop being redundant, wordy, and pontificating about it, too.  Just put down the Tommy Pynchon for one inconsequential second and give this neglected great master postmodernist whom Pynchon actually looked up to once upon a time and arguably emulated in his young'n days before V. had been conceived -- and the 1976 National Book Award Winner for crying out loud -- the larger audience he finally deserves.