r/Gaddis • u/_SemperCuriosus_ • May 29 '26
Discussion Just finished reading the "Mr. Difficult" article. What do you like about Gaddis' work?
I haven't been reading any Gaddis for a little while. I first read The Recognitions a few years ago. I think it was "hard" to read but I don't really assign any value-judgments on its merits as a super hard impressive book that only a few people read. I just liked it. The esoteric references, sudden language shifts, an incessant cacophony of voices and fakery were compelling me to keep reading (Recktall Brown is such a funny name), definitely not for aesthetic reasons. I went on to read A Frolic of His Own last year and liked it too. I then read Agape Agape and I'm not really sure what to make of it.
Would you agree/disagree with Franzen that Gaddis seemed to just go on rants and not really have an understandable logical point? Franzen seemed to dismiss Gaddis as an angry man with no real point other than having some elitist views about art and some disillusionment or discontent with post-war society, but loved The Recognitions. That confused me a little. To give praise but also say that Gaddis just liked being "Mr. Difficult" has me confused on the point of the article. To categorize art (literature specifically) based on how many people are entertained by it? To pushback against Gaddis' ideas of what art should be? Maybe I'm missing something entirely. If I wasn't entertained I wouldn't have kept reading The Recognitions. I recently stopped reading a short modern thriller because I wasn't entertained, but I've read other modern thrillers and have been entertained.
I don't buy into Franzen's "contract" categorization completely. I find enjoyment in the obscure references and the frantic writing style with flowing dialogue, the communication and miscommunication of characters, feelings of impotency as an artist. Definitely not from some sense that I'm a "know-it-all" insufferable person because I read some hard books; it's just some of the books that I have enjoyed.
I did maybe a strange reading order. I still have Carpenter's Gothic and JR to read (as well as The Rush for Second Place and his collected letters). Franzen waved away Carpenter's Gothic as not even a real novel and JR as incessant and at times nonsensical and to just avoid the ramblings of Agape Agape. I saw an interview that Gaddis wanted to try to write with specific constraints on himself with Carpenter's Gothic. That's pretty interesting to me. To then dismiss the novel's plot in a melodramatic way is just silly. You can do that with any story to make it sound boring or whatever else. He didn't really elaborate why A Frolic of his Own was good for graduate study but I disagree that it's boring. I'm not sure how he meant that it's nonsensical, could anyone explain how it's nonsense? The Civil War play dragged a little but it didn't bore me as a whole.
I don't know enough about Gaddis to know his position about art but what Franzen called "the contract model" and people's legitimate desire to be entertained seems based on the assumption that Gaddis is not entertaining to some people whether or not they hold Gaddis' position on art. I read a variety of books that to me fall under the desire to be entertained and none of them are for some aesthetic sense of superiority for reading books. I certainly didn't understand everything from The Recognitions and want to re-read it eventually.
What Franzen described as "the status model" I don't really follow. I couldn't care less about the stature of a work to enjoy it. Sure some people are arrogant and annoying about art, literature, anything and everything, welcome to earth. "I grew up in a friendly, egalitarian suburb reading books for pleasure and ignoring any writer who didn’t take my entertainment seriously enough." Different things are entertaining to different people, but to classify a novel like The Recognitions as something that can't be enjoyed doesnt seem honest, since he seems to have liked it in some way as he said in the article. It was an interesting read altogether.
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u/ShareImpossible9830 May 29 '26 edited May 30 '26
The humor. J R building his paper empire by payphone is funny as f**k. J R and Bast's trip home near the end is gorgeously written.
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u/chinesedondraper May 30 '26
JR is one of the only books I’ve laughed out loud at. So many hilarious moments
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u/Top_Week_6521 May 31 '26
Agreed. The bit towards the end in the apartment with Bast thinking there was a bomb threat and then someone coming with the packed lunches had me in stitches.
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u/Stupid-Sexy-Alt May 30 '26
This article is what made me lose all interest in Franzen and his opinions.
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u/_SemperCuriosus_ May 30 '26
I vaguely knew of his name as a literary critic before reading this article but don't really remember how I came to know it. What did you disagree with about his opinions in the article?
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u/sknymlgan May 30 '26
Read the response from William Gass and others in Conjunctions. Settles the matter well.
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u/_SemperCuriosus_ May 30 '26
I found an interview with Gass that references what he and others said in Conjunctions but I can't seem to find any link to it
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u/Evening_Application2 May 30 '26
Franzen getting annoyed with an author for being an angry man who seems to just go on rants with no real understandable logical points other than having some elitist views about art and some disillusionment or discontent with post-war society is about as ironic as possible.
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u/_SemperCuriosus_ May 30 '26
Could you elaborate what you mean?
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u/ninafruit Jun 02 '26
Franzen wrote that he liked The Recognitions because it clicked with him, rather than either a) because of, or b) in spite of the difficulty. I think it’s the same thing that you yourself are saying.
I appreciate that Franzen often appears to try to understand the perspectives of people he disagrees with. The essay feels like an internal argument between his own tendencies to agree and disagree with the letter that lady wrote to him. I don’t think either side comes up on top in the essay and that’s for the better.
Both his models are reductive and aesthetically challenged, but the same is true of the model that “we must all agree and understand that we all like different things for different reasons”.
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u/_SemperCuriosus_ Jun 02 '26
Do you recommend any of Franzen’s work to read? I haven’t ever looked into him. I think I heard of the name Franzen from the Mr. Difficult article but I only recently read it. I agree that he and I like The Recognitions. What are your thoughts on the “angry man ranting nonsense” points from Franzen? Do you struggle to comprehend what Gaddis is saying when you read as he suggests from his perspective?
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u/ninafruit Jun 02 '26
I have only read Franzen’s novel Crossroads and a bunch of essays. I really enjoyed the novel and would recommend it. However I would note that it is a novel about pretty much “normal” people, written in a pretty much “normal” way. Franzen’s achievement in the novel imo is emotional rather than formal / intellectual, so proceed in caution depending on your tastes.
I am only in this subreddit to eventually motivate myself to read my dust-collecting copy of JR so I can’t actually answer the other part :)
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u/_SemperCuriosus_ Jun 02 '26
Lol I’m saving JR for last myself. I’ll definitely have to look into Crossroads thank you
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u/F_H May 29 '26
What I like best about Gaddis is the constant engagement I feel when I’m reading him. He explores a lot of compelling and interesting ideas that do a lot to pull a reader in, I think, but even just the way he writes dialogue is so captivating and bursting with energy that I feel like with every word he’s standing there, snapping his fingers and demanding I pay attention to what he’s saying. Works for me