JR, by William Gaddis

The first quote is of a couple and a man whose house was broken into bantering about the woman’s attempts to seducie him. This quote is certainly the most exciting for me: there is action, tension, and some drama (through allusions)—something happens, it advances the dialogue and seems like real speech:

   —Rift the hills and roll the waters! flash the lightnings…he pounded chords, —the pulsating moment of climax playing teedle leedle leedle right inside your head…he found a tremolo far up the keyboard.
   —Edward that’s enough please, we’re leaving…
   —Wait wait trust me cousin! you wanted to hear this part…he banged C, hit F-sharp and bracketed C two octaves down—how she turned her bosom shaken in the dark of…
   —Stella you think maybe we should wait and…
   —I think we should leave yes, Edward…?
   —Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the rooftree wait here’s Norman’s part, it may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought…he hunched over the keys to echo the Ring motif in sinister pianissimo, —he will hold thee something better than his dog, a little dearer than…
   —All right yes maybe we just better go along, Edward?
   —Rain or hail! or fire…he slammed another chord, stood there, and taped C. —Master tunesmith wait…he dug in his pocket, —make a clean breast of the whole…
   —Once you get things straightened out maybe you can call us up Edward? I’d like to get this waiv…
   —Oh please! she caught his arm closing his suit jacket and his coast, hat on now tucking ends of his muffler and seeming all clothes beside her, —Edward? goodnight… [142]

The second quote, of a family getting ready for dinner, is representative of most of the work: everyone talking at once, no one completing sentences (or thoughts), nearly complete disarray and confusion (which, perhaps, some reviewers considered to be satire):

   […] Nora get Donny for supper.
   —He’s with his bed. Hey Don-ny…!
   —Don’t’scream! I said go get him.
   —Shall I wake Dad?
   —My God no, why.
   —For supper?
   —He ate already Daddy.
   —Ate already? Ate what already.
   —I don’t know Mama, he just made something and…
   —I said will you get Donny. [163]

Doing things a bit different in this section of dialogue, Gaddis presents a one-sided conversation of a man on a telephone. This quote seems the least like how someone would talk, though it is still well written speech. Would one say “airplane fare” instead of airfare in an aggressively casual phone conversation such as this? And was “on this here getting incorporated” supposed to be a regionalism? It sounds different than when Gaddis uses it in “he sends in this here expense account.” One of the difficulties in Gaddis’s work is that the characters do not speak with individual voices; they all speak in frantic, incomplete sentences. Although it is possible to tell who’s talking based on the plot, it isn’t possible based on the way individual characters speak; they have no verbal personalities.

[…] No I know I said that but it’s like now everybody’s trying to use me, I mean like Piscator thinks I’m some dumb…No I thought you were him calling just now and he’s out on his ass boy trying to screw us on this here getting incorporated in Jamaica thing he must think I…no I know I told him to but now he sends in this here expense account he’s got airplane fare three hundred eighteen dollars he’s even got this here hotel bill for two hundred twenty-nine fifty, I mean he expects me to believe that bunch of… [467]