I started JR about 5 years ago but for some reason I didn’t finish it. If the airline ticket is any indication of when I started, I’d say that I had just got back from playing a couple shows in Florida and was gearing up to move to Atlanta. The book was proving more difficult than expected, the Gaddis Annotations was less helpful than it was for his masterpiece, The Recognitions, and so I abandoned the book around the 250 page mark.
Before re-starting JR, I happened to read a cute little book called The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism. In it, David Golumbia traces right-wing ideals and conspiracy theories about the federal reserve as purported by Ron Paul and his son, among some other related topics. I’m mostly unable to write about economics in any detailed way, but the book offered an understanding of cryptocurrency as right-wing fantasy. I also learned that before cryptocurrency, the right wing had penny stocks.
Enter JR:
It begins: “—Money? . . . in a voice that rustled.”
JR Vansant, aged 11, amasses a huge portfolio through financial trickery and we watch him simultaneously destroy the lives of everyone around him. Readers of The Recognitions will notice similar themes: mechanization of art, art vs kitsch, art vs capitalism. In JR, however, Gaddis has much more to say about American capitalism. The law is made into a mockery as JR strictly adheres to the law while he, depending on your level of optimism/trust, ignores the spirit of it. There’s a seamless thematic transmissions to his later novel A Frolic of His Own which also announces its theme in its first sentence: “Justice? — you get justice in the next world, in this world, you have the law.”
JR is probably the the funniest book I’ve ever read. Sure, 99% of the dialogue is unattributed but Gaddis is such a good writer you don’t really notice it after a few pages. It’s easy to get lost, but I don’t think that’s such a bad thing. This book was written just as neoliberalism was beginning to take hold. The confusion, dissociation, and interruptions match the themes and historical context of the book.
As the narrative climaxes Edward Bast, JR’s music teacher and business pawn, makes a futile effort to enlighten JR’s mind to the world of art, to show him there’s such a thing as “intangible assets.” He plays him Cantata #21 by JS Bach and asks him what he hears:
“—What tell me what! I mean you’re telling me how neat the sky looks you’re telling me listen to this here music you even get pissed off when I . . .
—I asked you what you heard! that’s all, I . . .
—What like it lifted me out of mysel . . .
—Not what I said no you! what you heard!
—What was I suppose to hear!
—You weren’t! you weren’t supposed to hear anything that’s what I’m . . .
—Then how come you made me lis . . .
—To make you hear! to make you, to make you feel to try to . . .
—Okay okay! I mean what I heard first there’s all this high music right? So then this here lady starts singing up yours up yours so then this man starts singing up mine, then there’s some words so she starts singing up mine up mine so he starts singing up yours so then they go back and forth like that up mine up yours up mine up yours that’s what I heard! I mean you want me to hear it again?
—No!
—See I knew you’d . . .
—Never want you to hear it again I never want to hear it again myself! you, everything you ruin everything you touch!”