JR (4 page)

In the real world of time, there is only dissolution. In the world of inner time, the world of flow, there is the possibility of redress, the chance someone like Bast can overcome temptation to write his music and deny the role imposed by the pressures of the marketplace. None of this is obvious; as noted, what could be a sentimental or stereotypical scenario is avoided. The inner flow is buried, as are the events of the actual world; and the reader who wishes to engage the flow may miss the disengagement and dissolution occurring beyond. Or else, the reader succumbing to the horrific sequence of real events may not accept the flow—As we saw in most contemporary reviews of
JR
, where Gaddis's insistence on reader response to submerged elements was misread or ignored.

When all else has been explored, the world of the artist, ultimately, is the key to the novel. Initially, we see the school production of

Wagner's
Das Rheingold;
but amidst bickering over money—-gold is the theme of this first segment of the Ring cycle—the production is aborted. This gives way to another potential Bast production, his writing of an opera based on Tennyson's poem "Locksley Hall, ' but, more important, to his father's opera based on the Philoctetes legend. In that, Philoctetes is badly wounded—from a snake bite—And the stink from his open sore causes everyone to abandon him on an island. But he possesses the bow and arrows of Heracles, magic bow and magic arrows that lead to the Greek victory at Troy. Philoctetes has gradually taken on the role of the archetypal artist: wounded, isolated, suffering, abandoned, but possessing an ultimate weapon which

society needs, his art or his craft. It is this quality that Bast must finally attune himself to, or else he is lost, becoming no different from those who dominate the school and the marketplace. In the artist's sense of things, time is flow: eternal, with past, present, and future fused, connected to an inner being or unity, not to clock or calendar. It is toward this that Bast, most often futilely, strives.

The novel yearns to illuminate the world of Yeats's fabulous golden bird or Keats's timeless Grecian Urn and Nightingale: those artifacts or parts of wondrous nature that exist outside of regularized time and that speak to us eternally. It is, Gaddis suggests, our sole way of breaking the cycle of deception, greed, hypocrisy, merchandising, and the like which have characterized the country since the 1950s. Bast's vision, which goes well beyond writing "zebra music," has qualities of unity and resolution; and when he has a "recognition" of what is necessary, he can validate himself through serving his talent. The novel is about how one emerges and becomes inviolate, if it is at all possible.

The deck is stacked, the odds formidable. Possibly representing the other eye of the storm, Eigen is an unknown author who has published a novel on which he labored for seven years. The publisher dropped the book cold on day of publication, and Eigen estimates that one copy— his total sales—is being passed around in classrooms. All of this is reminiscent of Gaddis's own
Recognitions:
small sale, hostile reception, but a following that read the "one copy." Since the publisher will not relinquish rights, Eigen foresees little relief; while authorship has given him the chance to emerge, it has also entrapped him. "Art," whatever form it takes, runs into that marketplace controlled by the likes of Crawley, Whiteback, J R, and their cronies and subsidiaries. Eigen's perhaps naive sense is that some things should be able to establish themselves apart from their purely commercial worth: his novel, Bast's music, talent itself. Gaddis is not so sure.

The decision Bast finally makes—After having been brought close to anomie through lack of sleep and malnourishment—is to pursue his inner vision. The value of art, he must believe, requires an inner vision that justifies the individual's experience and existence. That much is apparent. Less apparent is that art does make its way if the artist is persistent enough. Gaddis's own passage from the poor reception of
The Recognitions
to his composition of
J R
twenty years later indicates how the artist can emerge from the valley of death if he or she persists. Faulkner's sense of "endurance" is clearly part of Gaddis's energy, as is Melville's refusal to succumb after the dismissal of
Moby-Dick.
Melville and his great novel, in fact, play through Gaddis's entire career, as we have noted: the artist who initially had commercial successes, then wrote an awesome book, and began to fall into obscurity. Gaddis in his way came back, and that, too, is part of the inner vision, the result:
J R
and, later,
Carpenter's Gothic.

Yet we cannot leave it at that, with the artist in some kind of difficult and troubling triumph. For other artists in the novel—the

above-mentioned Eigen and Gibbs, the painter Schepperman, the would-be writer Schramm—suggest that the nobility of their inner

vision is hardly matched by their basic human impulses. They are part of the general failure characterizing the novel. They contribute to the dissolution of civil ties, the hostility between parents and children, the inability of adults to act like adults, the entropy that underlies all systems and leads to a gradual loss, the commercialism at the heart of virtually all transactions, the breakdown of viable educational policies, the consuming greed of radio and television advertisers, and the destruction of means of communication. In all these, they are part of the problem even as they hold themselves above, in some more sacred realm. Gaddis's ultimate vision is not that artists can save us—Although they have saving graces—but that inevitably every form of behavior

and activity is tainted, corrupted, polluted. As in a Hawthorne fiction, some shadow of evil lurks everywhere, and America is a quite imperfect Eden. For that, even art, even sacred visions, offer few solutions.

—
Frederick R. Karl

New York University

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING OTHER BOOKS BY WILLIAM GADDIS

The Recognitions
(1955)
Carpenter's Gothic
(1985)

BOOK-LENGTH STUDIES

Kuehl, John, and Steven Moore, eds.
In Recognition of William Gaddis.
Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1984.

Moore, Steven. A
Reader's Guide to William Gaddis s
The Recognitions. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982.

——-.
William Gaddis.
Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1989.

BOOK AND JOURNAL ARTICLES

Abádi-Nagy, Zoltán. "The Art of Fiction CI—William Gaddis."
The Paris Review
105 (Winter 1987), 54-89.

Aldridge, John W.
The American Novel and the Way We Live Now.

New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Karl, Frederick R.
American Fictions: 1940—1980.
New York: Harper & Row, 1983.

Kuehl, John, and Steven Moore. "An Interview with William Gaddis."

Review of Contemporary Fiction
2:2 (Summer 1982), 4-6.

LeClair, Thomas.
The Art of Excess: Mastery in Contemporary American Fiction.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989.

Moore, Steven. "Chronological Difficulties in the Novels of William Gaddis."
Critique
22:1 (1980), 79-91.

Strehle, Susan Klemtner. " 'For a Very Small Audience:' The Fiction of William Gaddis."
Critique
19:3 (1978), 61-73.

Weisenburger, Steven. "Contra Naturam? Usury in William Gaddis's
J R." Genre
13 (Spring 1980), 93-109.

Werner, Craig Hansen.
Paradoxical Resolutions: American Fictions since James Joyce.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982.

For Matthew

Once more unto the breach, dear friend, once more

—Money … ? in a voice that rustled.

—Paper, yes.

—And we'd never seen it. Paper money.

—We never saw paper money till we came east.

—It looked so strange the first time we saw it. Lifeless.

—You couldn't believe it was worth a thing.

—Not after Father jingling his change.

—Those were silver dollars.

—And silver halves, yes and quarters, Julia. The ones from his pupils. I can hear him now…

Sunlight, pocketed in a cloud, spilled suddenly broken across the floor through the leaves of the trees outside.

—Coming up the veranda, how he jingled when he walked.

—He'd have his pupils rest the quarters that they brought him on the backs of their hands when they did their scales. He charged fifty cents a lesson, you see, Mister…

—Coen, without the h. Now if both you ladies…

—Why, it's just like that story about Father's dying wish to have his bust sunk in Vancouver harbor, and his ashes sprinkled on the water

there, about James and Thomas out in the rowboat, and both of them hitting at the bust with their oars because it was hollow and wouldn't go down, and the storm coming up while they were out there, blowing his ashes back into their beards.

—There was never a bust of Father, Anne. And I don't recall his ever being in Australia.

—That's just what I mean, about stories getting started.

—Well, it can't help repeating them before a perfect stranger.

—I'd hardly call Mister Cohen a stranger, Julia. He knows more about our business than we do ourselves.

—Ladies, please. I haven't come out here simply to dig into your intimate affairs but since your brother died intestate, certain matters will have to be dealt with which otherwise might never come up at all. Now to return to this question of …

—I'm sure we have nothing to hide. Lots of brothers don't get on, after all.

—And do come and sit down, Mister Cohen.

—You might as well tell him the whole story, Julia.

—Well, Father was just sixteen years old. As I say, Ira Cobb owed him some money. It was for work that Father had done, probably repairing some farm machinery. Father was always good with his hands. And then this problem came up over money, instead of paying Father Ira gave him an old violin and he took it down to the barn to try to learn to play it. Well his father heard it and went right down, and broke the violin over Father's head. We were a Quaker family, after all, where you just didn't do things that didn't pay.

—Of course, Miss Bast, it's all… quite commendable. Now, returning to this question of property…

—That's what we're discussing, if you'll be a little patient. Why, Uncle Dick, Father's older brother, had walked all the way back to Indiana, every step of the way from the Andersonville prison.

—And after that business of the violin, Father left home and went to teaching school.

—The one thing he'd wanted, all his life, was to own as far as he could see in any direction. I hope we've cleared things up for you now.

—We might if he came back here and sat down. He won't find anything gazing out the window.

—I had hoped, said Mister Coen from the far end of the room, where he appeared to steady himself against the window frame, —I expected Mrs Angel to be with us here today, he went on in a tone as drained of hope as the gaze he had turned out through evergreen foundation planting just gone sunless with stifling the prospect of roses run riot only to be strangled by the honeysuckle which had long since overwhelmed the grape arbor at the back, where another building was being silently devoured by rhododendron before his eyes.

—Mrs Angel?

—The daughter of the decedent.

—Oh, that's Stella's married name isn't it. You remember, Julia, Father used to say…

—Why, Stella called earlier, you told me yourself Anne. To say she was taking a later train.

—That name was changed from Engels, somewhere along the way…

—I'm afraid I'll miss her then, I have to be in court…

—I scarcely see the need for that, Mister Cohen. If Stella's husband is so impatient he's hiring lawyers and running to court…

—You're losing a button here, Mister Cohen. Thomas had the same trouble when he got stout. He couldn't keep a crease in anything either.

—Miss… Bast. I'm afraid I haven't made myself clear. My court appearance today has nothing whatsoever to do with this matter. There is no reason for any of this to ever come into court. In fact, believe me Miss Bast… both of you ladies, the last thing I would wish would be to … to see you ladies in court. Now. You must understand that I am not here simply as Mister Angel's attorney, I am here as counsel for General Roll…

—You remember back when Thomas started it, Julia? And we thought it was a military friend he'd made?

—Of course it was James who had friends in the military.

—Yes, he'd run off to war, you know, Mister Cohen. A drummer boy in the Spanish war.

—The… Spanish war? he murmured vaguely, braced against the back of the Queen Anne chair before the empty hearth.

—Yes. He was only a child.

—But… the Spanish war? That was 'thirty-seven, wasn't it? or 'thirty- eight?

—Oh, not so long ago as that. I think you mean 'ninety-seven, or 'ninety-eight was it, Anne? When they sank the Maine?

—Who? That's one I never heard. Do you feel unwell, Mister Cohen?

—Yes, Thomas ran off right after James did, but he was too small for the war of course. He joined a Tom show passing through town, playing clarinet in the entreact and they also let him look after the dogs, finding livery stables to put them up in. You might have noticed his scar, Mister Cohen, where one of the bloodhounds tore open his thumb. He carried it with him right into the grave, but you're not leaving us so soon, Mister Cohen? Of course if we've answered all your questions, I know you must be a busy man.

—Mister Cohen might like a nice glass of cold water.

—No, it isn't… water that I need. If you ladies, you… just for a moment, if you'll give me your undivided attention…

—We have no objection at all, Mister Cohen. We're telling you everything we can think of.

—Yes but, some of it is not precisely relevant…

—If you'll simply tell us what it is you want to know, instead of wandering around the room here waving your arms. We want to see

this settled as much as anyone.