Gaddis' distinct style, 95% dialogue, great parody of American economic system / commentary on how art gets stifled in modern society. ( )

A great satire of the free market. Timely. Dense and difficult. Abandon all hope, ye who enter. Keep reading, even if you don't know what they're saying. Then read the chapter on JR in Tom LeClair's book The Art of Excess. You'll find out that you understood more than you thought you may have. ( )

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, factor in that the narrative is ninety per cent dialogue, only the dialogue doesn't increase reading speed because it's dialogue that 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 J R, mind you, is not a ten page short story by Hemingway, but a 752 page menacing gargoyle of a novel comprising vast Himalayan-like exchanges of dialogue and it takes at times the concentration or meditation of a Tibetan monk to decipher what it all means, let alone figuring out who's speaking. It's scary to face, yes, and it's hard keeping track of who said what to who what where when why and how, true, and it mocks the comprehension of one accustomed to instant gratification in light easy reading, but other than that, it's a real breeze. A nice cool refreshing breeze after running a marathon.

And since it's 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 to the local stock exchange can become 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 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 American public willing to buy anything. It's 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 American public willing to buy anything. So stop overlooking William Gaddis and I'll stop being redundant, wordy, and pontificating, too. Just put down the Pynchon for a sec and give this neglected great master postmodernist whom Pynchon actually looked up to once upon a time 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. ( )

A superb book, oddly insightful of emerging money centered popular culture. ( )

It took me three different attempts in a five year period--starting over from the beginning on each occasion--finally to make it all the way through this novel, but I'm very glad I did. It is a searching investigation of the commercialization of contemporary life, of the high price we pay for making everything into a commodity or an opportunity to make money.