Joe Murphy on JR
Hi Everyone-
Hope all is well with you. Things are beginning to get busy, as the fall season steps into full swing. Certainly there is a plethora of great books coming out; we have lots of great Buyer's Choices both in stores now and on the horizon, and choosing items for our Holiday Gift Guide, as I've mentioned, was mostly a question of sifting through an embarassment of riches.
So: I'd like to take this last chance to mention an older book that I'm reading and loving, before tackling new books only for the rest of the year. I've already raved at some length about William Gaddis' The Recognitions on this page, and I'd like to extend my recommendation to include his second great novel, JR.
The Recognitions was published in 1955; JR didn't appear until 1976. Gaddis had felt that his critical reputation would be assured with the publication of the first novel. What he didn't anticipate was that the reviews wouldn't actually read the book before reviewing it. The result was a number of reviews that either summarized the dust cover and other reviews, or reviews that just commented on its length (Thomas Pynchon's offering for this fall, Against the Day, appears poised to outdo it, at 992 pages. Here's hoping the reviewers read it).
In any event, Gaddis's first novel was not a commercial or critical success at the time--despite being among the most brilliant of the twentieth century--and Gaddis moved on to a decade-long sojourn in the corporate world. The results of this tenure are astonishing: JR is a 725 page primal scream of frustration at the business community and its unfettered takeover of every aspect of American life.
Curiously, while the book is entirely about the acquistion of money, money isn't exactly the source of power in the novel: language is. But in the hilariously dystopic world of JR, it's not the intelligence, elegance, or even factual correctness of language that counts: people in JR dominate each other with a torrent of words, spewing corporate double talk, advertising slogans, complaints, demands, and assumptions so quickly that those who hope to stand their ground are buried under the avalanche. Edward Bast, the brilliant but meek music teacher/composer, finds himself the functioning head of a giant corporate conglomerate, formed nearly overnight by an 11-year old, amoral student named JR, largely because Bast is unable to tell him no and have it register, as more and more shady business schemes keep pouring forth from the boy. Gaddis constructs a huge tapestry of characters, nearly all of whom are in some way doing the bidding of this greedy little sixth-grader, all but Bast without knowing it. Gaddis picks the best way of telling this story: the novel is essentially entirely in the form of dialogue. The speakers are never identified, but their voices are so distinctive that you recognize them right away when they reappear in the novel. It's an utterly unique style--you could never mistake a page of Gaddis for anyone else--and it's pulled off with breathtaking flair.
The critical results, happily, were different this time. In his appreciating of Gaddis in his recently published Temple of Texts, William Gass tells this great story:
"Then, quite coincidentally (for coincidence is the real ruler of all things), I was asked to be a judge for the National Book Award during the very year in which JR, William Gaddis' second novel, would appear. Mary McCarthy, also on the jury, simply shoved the third judge (a worn-out hack reviewer) into the corner as you would an unneccessary chair, and the reward went to "Junior," as she liked to call it."
This thankfully lead people to take a second look at The Recognitions, and Gaddis has been a somewhat more recognized (although still seldom-read) author since then.
JR is truly a comic masterpiece. From its start, with Bast trying to mount a sixth-grade production of Wagner's Ring cycle, through the rise and dissolution of JR's massive empire, to the convoluted and hilariously tragic lives of the people he indirectly touches, the novel is consistently witty, angry, sardonic, and brilliant. Stop by one of our stores and give it a try--and then help spread the word.
See you in the stores,
Joe Murphy
Head Book Buyer
Hope all is well with you. Things are beginning to get busy, as the fall season steps into full swing. Certainly there is a plethora of great books coming out; we have lots of great Buyer's Choices both in stores now and on the horizon, and choosing items for our Holiday Gift Guide, as I've mentioned, was mostly a question of sifting through an embarassment of riches.
So: I'd like to take this last chance to mention an older book that I'm reading and loving, before tackling new books only for the rest of the year. I've already raved at some length about William Gaddis' The Recognitions on this page, and I'd like to extend my recommendation to include his second great novel, JR.The Recognitions was published in 1955; JR didn't appear until 1976. Gaddis had felt that his critical reputation would be assured with the publication of the first novel. What he didn't anticipate was that the reviews wouldn't actually read the book before reviewing it. The result was a number of reviews that either summarized the dust cover and other reviews, or reviews that just commented on its length (Thomas Pynchon's offering for this fall, Against the Day, appears poised to outdo it, at 992 pages. Here's hoping the reviewers read it).
In any event, Gaddis's first novel was not a commercial or critical success at the time--despite being among the most brilliant of the twentieth century--and Gaddis moved on to a decade-long sojourn in the corporate world. The results of this tenure are astonishing: JR is a 725 page primal scream of frustration at the business community and its unfettered takeover of every aspect of American life.
Curiously, while the book is entirely about the acquistion of money, money isn't exactly the source of power in the novel: language is. But in the hilariously dystopic world of JR, it's not the intelligence, elegance, or even factual correctness of language that counts: people in JR dominate each other with a torrent of words, spewing corporate double talk, advertising slogans, complaints, demands, and assumptions so quickly that those who hope to stand their ground are buried under the avalanche. Edward Bast, the brilliant but meek music teacher/composer, finds himself the functioning head of a giant corporate conglomerate, formed nearly overnight by an 11-year old, amoral student named JR, largely because Bast is unable to tell him no and have it register, as more and more shady business schemes keep pouring forth from the boy. Gaddis constructs a huge tapestry of characters, nearly all of whom are in some way doing the bidding of this greedy little sixth-grader, all but Bast without knowing it. Gaddis picks the best way of telling this story: the novel is essentially entirely in the form of dialogue. The speakers are never identified, but their voices are so distinctive that you recognize them right away when they reappear in the novel. It's an utterly unique style--you could never mistake a page of Gaddis for anyone else--and it's pulled off with breathtaking flair.
The critical results, happily, were different this time. In his appreciating of Gaddis in his recently published Temple of Texts, William Gass tells this great story:
"Then, quite coincidentally (for coincidence is the real ruler of all things), I was asked to be a judge for the National Book Award during the very year in which JR, William Gaddis' second novel, would appear. Mary McCarthy, also on the jury, simply shoved the third judge (a worn-out hack reviewer) into the corner as you would an unneccessary chair, and the reward went to "Junior," as she liked to call it."
This thankfully lead people to take a second look at The Recognitions, and Gaddis has been a somewhat more recognized (although still seldom-read) author since then.
JR is truly a comic masterpiece. From its start, with Bast trying to mount a sixth-grade production of Wagner's Ring cycle, through the rise and dissolution of JR's massive empire, to the convoluted and hilariously tragic lives of the people he indirectly touches, the novel is consistently witty, angry, sardonic, and brilliant. Stop by one of our stores and give it a try--and then help spread the word.
See you in the stores,
Joe Murphy
Head Book Buyer
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