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]

Chapter 6 - Dialogue

And then she says to me, "What are you going to write about for Chapter 6?"

I reply, "Dialogue: that which separates the great authors from all the rest. Richard Cohen writes in Writer's Mind © 1995, that dialogue allows the author to create characters, inform the reader about things and events, foreshadow future plot twists, provide description, and test philosophical ideas about humanity and life in general."

"Wow," she responds, "Dialogue is intense. It does everything."

"And it's central to the novel experience. This chapter I'll quote the three best selections of dialogue of each of the books on the writer's bookshelf. I'll look at what aspects of great writing they contribute to the novel and also point out some of the mechanics of writing dialogue, such as whether the author uses tics or tags and whether the dialogue sounds real."

"This dialogue doesn't sound real."

"No, it doesn't… The books for this chapter on dialogue are:

• JR, by William Gaddis
  
• Chilly Scenes of Winter, by Ann Beattie
  
• Clockers, by Richard Price
  
• Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett
  
• Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway

The Red and the Black, by Stendhal

In which we are introduced to Julien.

Anya opens the door and it’s Julien standing on the step, holding his head in the very basket the guillotine had dropped it into. “Oh, God,” Anya reacts.

“I memorized today’s newspaper. No, that won’t do anymore. I’m through with memorizing things. I fear I don’t have much time left.”

By now, the others have come in. Emily stands awkwardly, unsure whether to take the burden from Julien’s hands. When Julien notices she’s making for the basket, he gives her a cold glare, but his eyes are barely visible from above the rim.

“I’m fine. Let me be,” the coldness in his voice startles Emily and warns everyone that he can still switch on a cold disdain, even in a death that is suspended for the duration of this party.

“Maybe we should go to the kitchen,” Emily suggests.

While Emily and Dorothea keep the food from burning, Bob turns to Julien, “I think you were the greatest of all our characters.”

“Yes, you had such adventures—dangerous ones too. And so much uncertainty; even I could see why you would feel your relationships were so uncertain,” adds David.

“And you died so young. You had only barely come to terms with who you were and how you stood in relation to other people,” Anya contributes.

“But, it do think it was a little disingenuous that the solution to your disaster was you should have stuck tight to your love of Madame de Renal and gone no further. But then Stendhal was so focused on love, playful with it, but obsessed too,” Dorothea shares as she rushes to smoke coming out of the oven.

“You had everything figured out, from the start. You embodied all the uncertainty and unknowns of young adulthood. And you had good reason for it: French society was so difficult a place for true sincerity,” Maisie regrets her own upbringing with dismay.

Anya stares directly at Julien’s head in the basket, “Your tale was the most classically tragic; you had a flaw, perhaps it was your pride, that led to your death. But the society you lived in contributed to your flaw, or maybe, even gave you a flaw. Yours was a very sad story, but you got to have a rich, complex character.”

“A timeless sort of prideful youth,” Bob gives the thumbs up to Julien.

“I can’t stay long,” Julien says. “With the blood draining from my head, soon I’ll only have a few blinks of consciousness left. And I really shouldn’t eat anything. Perhaps you’d like to know whether the guillotine hurts when it strikes?”

“And Mrs. Wix is waiting for me in the car,” Maisie says as she goes to get her coat.

“It doesn’t matter, half the food has burned and the other half has stuck to the pans,” Dorothea adds. The horror shows on Emily’s face.

“I’ll take those of us of age, and those whose brains aren’t dripping blood, out to dinner, my treat, since I got that big promotion, and,” Bob looks at Dorothea, “I’ll drive.”