Agapē Agape by William Gaddis

This is William Gaddis' final novel, published after his death in 1998. In some respects it is the culmination of his life's work, and in others an abandonment of it.

Gaddis spent much of his life collecting research for a history of the player piano. He intended this history to serve as context for a lament on the mechanization of the arts. This topic became a motif for his other works. His first novel, The Recognitions, from 1955, centers around art forgery. His second, J R, from 1975, includes a fictional character who is writing a version of the same player piano history.

This Agapē Agape is not, however, a history of the player piano. Rather, it is a monologue in which the narrator describes his struggles with disease and medications, his despair at having so little time left and so much work to do, and ultimately his doubt that the thesis of the Agapē Agape that was supposed to be is even correct.

It is barely a novel. It weighs in at a mere 96 pages. But, if anything, it is even more dense than his previous works, which are significantly longer. J R is 726 pages, famously consisting almost entirely of unattributed dialogue. It takes a while to get used to the style and figure out the clues to who is speaking. Agapē Agape, on the other hand, is 96 pages of unattributed monologue, with nary a place to stop. Unable to soak it all in during a single sitting, I found myself having to backtrack several pages whenever I picked it up again just to recover the context. Even so, I always felt like I was missing something.

This book in particular is not something I would recommend to anyone not already familiar with his work. Gaddis in general, though, is one of my favorite authors, whom I would certainly advocate. The unattributed dialogue is difficult at first, I admit, but it is also rewarding. And dialogue is Gaddis' specialty. Furthermore, his books are not only erudite, but also very funny.